I shall attempt to update on the past weeks without writing a novel for everyday as I tend to do :

Monday (11/10):

Struggled to get out of bed today as the Sunday before was very busy and tiring. However, I had to get to school so crammed down breakfast and got dressed – hit the road by 7:45am. Class went well today. I gave 6.1 a pop quiz on spelling (words such as Australia, Mexico, Vietnam) for the unit we had been working on. We played a game after so it wasn't complete torture for them I hope.
I help serve the kids again at lunch time, something I really enjoy doing. The kids are all so cute and they always do a small 'wai' and some try out there English and say “Thank you! Good afternoon!” ADORABLE!! :) Lunch for me today included a fish..a whole fish...head, scales, fins, bones, eye, you name it. Now if you know anything about me you'll know that I am not one who likes to eat things that still looks like it could have been alive at one point...HOWEVER I completely dove in and tore that fish apart. I pulled off the tail and head and picked through the bones to get all the meat. It was really good and I felt like such a champ! The simple pleasures in life huh? :)
That night I helped Jah with her English homework – scratch that, I DID her English homework and go figure she got an A on it...turns out I'm not so bad at English. I was just glad to help.

Tuesday (11/11) Birth of Baha'u'llah Celebration:

Headed to school alone that day for the first time because Golee was running around getting things ready for that night (the celebration). After school we went to P'Wee's house where we ate lunch that came in a box -vegetables, meats, sauces all packaged in a box. I had never seen anything like that. I thought it was really cool. It was really good, kind of like Asian tacos or chicken lettuce wraps but with rice pastry instead of lettuce. Good stuff. Next a trip to Big C where we picked up a couple things for the evening and some KFC ice cream! :) (Saying prayers for the Birth of Baha'u'llah)

Before we headed to the Volunteer House (where the celebration was to be held) we stopped at this little cafe called Miss Aree where we got these amazing blueberry yogurt smoothies. Yum!! When we got the Volunteer House we cleaned up a bit and started to set up. I went to work on the presentation for the night. I had found a video on YouTube about the Life of Baha'u'llah but of course it was in English. So.. I had to edit out all the English and put in Thai translations (obviously got help with the translating part) but that took pretty much the rest of the evening up until the hour when everyone arrived. (Youth at celebration - Baha'i Volunteer house)

There were prayers and then my video and we played some games. It was a short evening because it was also a week night but it was really nice and dinner was really good. I was really good that I could actually help out with the evening. (roses! Miuw and me)

Wednesday (11/12) Loi Katung Festival:

I got stuck at home today. I woke up late and Golee was already gone to school. I tried to call her and then I thought I would just leave and head to the school myself but then I didn't have a key to lock up the house. It was a real bummer because I missed the Birth of Baha'u'llah celebration at the school which I heard was really good. :( I guess it's my fault for not waking up on time. So I hung out at home cleaning up until everyone got home around 3pm.

Today was actually the Loi Katung Festival in Thailand as well. The Loi Katung Festival is a celebration where people make floats with candles and inscents and things and send them down the river. I've heard that they do this to send their love to their sweethearts or to pay respects to their ancestors or to make wishes come true or to send their bad luck away. There is no religious significance to the festival, it's just a traditional thing.
So at 6:30 Mook, Fon, Golee and I headed to a Festival celebration in a neighboring town. It turns out the my roommate Pat was actually participating in this Festival as part of a traditional Thai beauty pageant. So we drove a bit to the town and got the there around 7pm. We saw Pat and she was all dressed up for the show. There were about 15 contestants and they were all dressed up in elaborate dresses and makeup and platform high-heel shoes about 4 inches tall!!! They were obviously difficult to walk in but an apparent necessity as Thai women generally aren't very tall. Some of the girls were as young as 15 but they all looked maybe 20-ish with all their makeup.
So the competition took forever! (Pat all dressed up! oh lala)

All the girls introduced themselves, put all their floats in the water, and performed a talent (where Pat spoke English, Korean and French). There was a first round elimination and then each of the 10 remaining girls were asked questions. Then another elimination round and finally announcement of the winners. As I learned that night from talking to Golee, the judges lock-in the top three girls from the beginning and then it's really just a competition between them for the first place, and the judges really aren't shy about telling people this. One of the judges turned around and told us who was going to win while we were watching behind them. The winner was suppose to get 7000 baht. Pat didn't end up winning but she did receive 1000 baht for being in 4th place. (putting her float in the river)

While the judges were deliberating after the questions round these 5 girls and a male singer came on stage. This part really shocked me because the girls were dressed in really provocative skirts that were very short and belly shirts and they were dancing in a very sexual way. The singer was dancing with them in a very suggestive and provocative way. was completely shocked by this! Keep in mind this was a public family event and there were tons of little kids in the audience. I thought it was completely inappropriate and I was very confused by this. I'm not allowed to wear shorts or skirts above my knees on the everyday in public but then there are tons of public displays like this? It seems so contradictory to me but I guess thats a social thing of Thailand. Anyways we ended up getting out of there around midnight! We were all exhausted and very happy to get home, especially Pat whose feet were in absolute pain from those crazy shoes! (left: a very elaborate float with dragons; right: Mook, Fon and me taking pictures during the very long show)

Thursday (11/13):

Today school was the same pretty much although I noticed I'm becoming more comfortable with the kids and being in front of a class. The kids seem to behave better when I'm around – Something I've noticed in Thailand. Whenever I walk around a store or something people always try to impress foreigners so they start cleaning things and acting really professional. It's very funny to see- and I they like to talk to me and joke around with me. I like that they can feel comfortable around me and I can be someone they look up to.

Also today I started to play Scrabble (or Crossword as they call it) with the schools competitors. The school has two girls – both in my 6.1 class- who compete every year in a Scrabble competition. So I started to play with them to help train them for the competition this year. Today was the first time we played and they totally kicked my butt! How embarrassing!!! Two 11 year old girls who beat me at a word game in my own language! Pathetic! However, they do know all the little tricks and two letter words with “x” that I totally didn't know where legal to play. So I gave them that one. :)

Friday (11/14):

I didn't go to school today. I stayed home cleaning and working on a couple things around the house. Later when Pat got home from school we took a bike ride to the “book center” or their version of Staples. While I was in the store everyone was staring at me.. I didn't understand. I wasn't wearing anything bad and I don't think I was doing anything wrong but I guess I should be use to that by now.

After the “book store” we went to the market and walked around and ate some baked sticky rice and meats on a stick. It was all so good! I had dinner with the girls at the house that night and then I went to Big C with Jah and Golee later. I started to feel pretty comfortable with them and joking around with them, it was pretty cool. I tried my ATM card again and it still wasn't working! AHHH! So annoying. Thankfully Golee lent me 100 baht so I could do some food shopping. I have to figure out the bank thing still!

Saturday (11/15):

Before the Junior Youth Group today we went and had noodles with Miw, Arm and Pat. When we got to the school the kids were already there. We loaded up the van with everyone and everything and headed down the back roads to the lake. We were going to fish and make “som tam” or papaya salad. We set up the mats and the kids headed to the edge of the water to cast their lines. They only had one pole and I'm afraid they weren't very experienced because all they seemed to catch was seaweed or twigs until they eventually lost the bait. (the boys from JY group "fishing")


Luckily our “som tam” making was more successful. It was the firs time I made it by myself. I didn't really know how to do it and Arm kept laughing at me but as it turns out mine was the best! =D In order to make this papaya salad you have to shred up the papaya and carrot and then you mash it up with lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, chilies, garlic, and peanuts. Then you have “som tam”! It's very spicy but it's pretty good if you can handle the spicy-ness (which of course I can). The rest of the afternoon was really pleasant. We just hung out and had a good time with the kids. (the famous 'som tam')

That night I watched Monsters Inc. with Pat and I think she understood most of it and really enjoyed it. I was glad to share something from my culture even if it was just a kids movie..I mean I enjoy it so why shouldn't they? I feel really good with everyone and I think all the girls are getting really comfortable with me too. =D (the JY group)

Sunday (11/16) One Month Anniversary :

I woke up around 8am to get ready for children's class. Pat and I sat down together to have breakfast – fresh squeezed orange juice yum!!! So good. As it turned out, only one girl showed up for the class so Pat just read her a story and then we colored a bit. Then Michelle, the exchange student from Canada, came by and I ended up talking to her for the rest of the morning. We talked about the difficulty of being in a completely new country and just all the culture shock and cultural differences. It was really interesting to talk to her about all that. She seemed to be having a harder time with it all which was surprising to me because she didn't have a boyfriend at home and she was going to school everyday, actually doing something and learning which was really what I was struggling with. But I guess she still has a family and friends to miss so it's all really the same. I think also that I'm more accustomed to being alone and I knew it would be really hard and that's what I wanted. Anyways, we tried to make plans to go hang out with some of the other exchange students at her school the next weekend.

That afternoon I went with Pat to Nanaphan grocery store to buy some lunch. We ate noddles with Chom Pu and Mook. Later I went back with Fon to buy dinner at the market which was really good too. The rest of the evening we just kind of hung out and I studied a bit of Thai.