Second host family time!

Friday, I was at school most of the day. The morning was pretty boring, minus a kid with a baby squirrel, but the afternoon was spent being thoroughly entertained by random groups of Thai friend-people, of both age groups. After school, me, Alex, and Mama Sea all went to dinner and met Pat plus her mother at Fuji, and ate yummy food, and then headed back to our seperate homes. At home, I had like half an hour to finish packing, and then all my stuff got trucked out to the sidewalk, where we met my second host parents + host cousins, Marut and Namwan, who are staying at the house. We all drove to my new house, in two cars, and then my stuff got trucked into my new room, and then I said goodbye to Mama Sea, and... yeah. I spent a few hours putting all my stuff away, and then I went to sleep.

Saturday I woke up pretty late, and was given some sandwich thing for breakfast. Soon after I was finished eating that, my Mama Bu was like "Oh, we're going to lunch~" Um, okay then, haha. So she, my host cousins, and I all went to lunch, where we had... noodles whose name I can't remember (the white ones in sauce), plus pad mee, som tum, and fried chicken. Woo. Then we went home. Later, we all went to the mall, and had dinner-- with my host dad, at sizzler. This is now the second time I've gone to sizzler on the first day with a new host family. After that, me and Mama Bu went food shopping, and got cereal and milk and juice and some other things. Later in the evening, at home, I tried to go on the internet, but for some reason... my computer doesn't seem to work with the internet here. skgbsegbrstjgsbsjkrgbr.

Sunday, I ate cereal for breakfast. Exciting. After that my host mom was like "Want to watch TV?" and I was like "Sure, why not." I have nothing at all better to do. So I spent a while flipping through channels, watching a couple of minutes of anything that seemed entertaining, and then continuing on. After a while my cousins came in and were like "Hyuu mai?" And I was like "Um, it doesn't really matter, I'll go eat." Which is not really what I said, but it's what I want to say every time somebody asks me that. But anyway, we went and ate grilled meat and sticky rice and som tum, and it was quite delicious, and then we went to the mall. We were going to watch 2012, in Thai without subtitles or anything... which we did. It was like 3 hours long, too. It was probably still the right movie to choose to watch in Thai, though, out of any there-- because the good parts of that movie had nothing to do with the acting, but more with the ridiculousness, which was pretty sweet. After the movie we kind of wandered around for like 2 minutes, and then we saw somebody who was introduced to me as "a doctor." After a bit I realized that this was somebody they somehow knew from school, as they are both studying to be pharmacists. He, apparently, was treating us to some kind of snack. As we were walking, Marut whispers in my ear "He is interested in her, but she does not like him." Hahaha. But he took us to eat donuts, which... I didn't really want. Lame timing, Doctor Man. But whatever, then we went home, and then, it was now. And I am writing this.

Not super interesting, but I am with a new family, so oh well. Tomorrow I have school again, which should be nice. I really like my new family, but spending all of multiple days with people you barely know, and speaking a fair amount of thai with them, is just kind of exhausting.

Note from when actually posting this-- after dinner: Today we were talking about fruit, and then they were like "Pineapple and tomato..." "What?" "If you eat pineapple and tomato together, it tastes like apple." "Really?" So I tried it... and it didn't really taste like apple. But oh well.

Lately, things have been pretty good. A few of my classes have turned out entertaining, and I've been going places, and I've actually been getting pretty friendly with some Thai kids-- although I'm still far from being real friends.

So, to start where I left off, I'm thinking dress making will be okay. I'm now almost done with making my first article of clothing from that class, a skirt, and although I think my teacher is starting to think I'm a little tiresome, she's still helping me and stuff.

Way back on November 14th I went to a festival at Pimai, the crazy khmer ruins. Mama Sea took me, her sister (my aunt), and Alex. It was pretty cool. We got there in the evening, and immediately after walking into the park we ran into the Mexicans + the Korat AFS exchange students. They were watching a traditional Thai dance/play performance thing, so we stopped and hung out with them for a bit. Eventually my host mom was like "Sopaaaa, bai gin khao" so me and Alex broke off from the rest to go eat dinner. I got pad mee, and it was pretty delicious. I love you, Korat, and your pad mee. Yum. After that, we went back, through the market thing there. On the way we stopped and got cotton candy, which was pretty delicious, and then... larvae? Me and Alex finally decided to eat bugs. And eat bugs we did. They were not aroi, thank you. But we did it. Success. Then we went back and met up with the other exchange students, plus Julia and Hannah, and watched a parade. After that came the main attraction, a seated, ticketed performance celebrating Pimai. Before it started we saw Dana and Elise in the audience. The performance was mostly traditional Thai dance, with a narration nicely translated into English on these little audio guide things you could pick up for free. After you've seen Thai dance a couple times, it ceases to be fascinating, because it doesn't vary much, but it was still pretty, and altogether an entertaining show. Oh, and I forgot to mention, earlier that day me and Alex were hanging out in Korat, and we decided to try the ridiculous 7/11 sticky rice burger. ( http://www.stevengoh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/free_n_easy_hatyai_trip12.jpg ) It was surprisingly not too bad.

Also, not too far back, on the 22nd of November, Khunmae Nii, Rianna's host mother, took her, me, and Alex to Surin, for their anual elephant festival, which was sweeeeet. It started early in the morning, so the day before me and Alex both went to Rianna's house and then slept over. We had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, and left the house at 5:30. The drive there was pretty uneventful, but the first thing we saw when we got out of the car in Surin was a whole bunch of elephants. Then we walked to where the "Elephant Roundup" was happening, passing the many, many men hawking the sugar cane sticks you can feed to their elephants. Passing them with a little difficulty, because they would actually come up to you and push the sugar cane at you, like "BUY THIS." But we managed. Me, Alex, and Rianna all sat down-- a little ways away from Rianna's Khunmae Nii and Rianna's host father, and waited a while. First a line of like 10 elephants came out, some of which had very small baby elephants trailing them. Very small elephants being like 3 feet tall or something. They had some kind of ceremony, and some official things went on, and then the elephants went back, off the field that the show was on. The show was a series of shorter, unrelated performances, the first of which was some kind of ceremony honoring one of the Hindu gods that has made its way into Thai culture, being a god who rides an elephant. At some other point probably 100 or more elephants came out onto the field, and just walked around in circles. There were a lot of elephants. Later, they had the elephants come out and do silly tricks. They did things like standing and walking on their hind legs, and... painting t-shirts. When they started selling the t-shirts to the audience, I couldn't resist. I'd wanted one since I first saw them here, and then getting to buy one I just saw the elephant paint-- too sweet. They were only like $9, anyway. After that, they had only one elephant on the field, equipped to play tug of war. First they had 60 young Thai men play with the elephant. They lost terribly. Then they were like "We'd like foreigners to come out and try." So, of course, the three of us ran like mad onto the field, and grabbed onto the rope. Good thing we went and grabbed onto the middle of the rope, because they only let 60 people play. So all 60 of us farangs went and played tug of war with this one elephant. I tried holding onto the rope and not walking for a couple seconds while we were in the midst of losing terribly, and I slid with my feet dragging. There was no stopping it. Elephants are crazy. The last real performance was a reenactment of some crazy battle that involved elephants, hundreds of years ago. It also involved horses, though, which was somehow very confusing. After the main riding animal for me for like 4 months has been the elephant, horses look silly and ridiculous. Look at their crazy flailing legs! What!? At the end all of the human performers came out and sang some songs, including the king's song and the national anthem, and then we left. Rianna's host parents took us to lunch, which was not bad, and happened to be right next to a place where you get onto elephants so you can ride them. You know what that means. Me, Rianna, and Alex climbed up this rickety ladder onto this weird platform, and then onto an elephants back, and onto the bench placed there for our enjoyment, and then proceeded to spend an enjoyable 5 or 10 minutes riding around the area on an elephant's back. It made me want an elephant so bad. I wish I could manage being a crazy animal lady. I would so buy an elephant for myself. You can buy them here for like $600, too. After finishing up lunch, we all piled back into the car, and drove off into the middle of nowhere. And after a while, we ended up on the border to Cambodia. Hellooooo, Cambodia. If we'd crossed, our visa's would have been voided for some reason, so we couldn't go visit Cambodia-- but we went up to about 6 inches from the country. And then we went to a "Cambodian market" about a mile away, but it really just seemed like a normal, not-very-good Thai market with lots of young children begging adamently for money. Depressing. After getting away from that, and driving for like 45 minutes on a road that was more pot hole than road (really really) we ended up at another khmer ruin at the top of a mountain, whose name I can't currently remember, but I actually liked it a bit more than Phimai. It was better preserved, and had a more interesting set up. Plus, we were there at sunset, and it was very pretty. After spending some time there, we all got back in the car, and slept most of the way home, except for a low-key dinner stop which included crazy cucumber som tum. Yum.

Otherwise... school. It pretty much consumes all of my time these days. But I've been getting along with some of the kids. Exciting.

In sewing all of the kids are okay, but a couple of them are particularly nice, and I could conceivably some day hang out with them outside of school, but who knows. Either way, I like them.

The kids in photography are kind of great. As none of them have told me and Rianna their names before, we've given them our own nicknames to refer to them as, but that's okay because we still love them. I mean, questionable gender child is just the best.

Questionable Gender Child is the far right.

Our nicknames tend to be kind of ridiculous... but a lot of the time, that's just because the kids who go to our school are kind of ridiculous, in the best way. Also, it is not unusual for the first thing I learn about a person to be their sexuality. For one, my school is like 50% ladymen, men who are women, and tomboys, women who are men. They're flamboyant, so you know. Honestly, I kind of love it, hahaha. But anyway, even if they're not flamboyant, if we're having muay thai and a Thai student says anything to our teacher, he'll introduce them to us by pointing to them and going "tomboy!" Hence, the creation of one of our nicknames. There was a tomboy who was helping our muay thai teacher out a few times during the first semester, and when he introduced them he pointed to them and went "Tomboy!" and the tomboy pointed to themselves and went "Boy-boy! Boy-boy!" And thus, the creation of Boy-Boy, who is a boy, and not a girl. Also, when me and Rianna first saw QGC, we thought he was a tomboy, and then we saw QGC wearing the guy's uniform, so apparently QGC is a ladyman. And so, seems to have a questionable gender. Child.

Anyway, rambling a bit. So, lots of kids in photography class have ridiculous names (Salt, Pepper, Questionable Gender Child, Number Five, 'Taemus, etc.) but they are also mostly really nice and entertaining, so I like them a lot, although hanging out with them outside of class might be a little ridiculous.

Anyway, third friend making ridiculousness: Monday afternoon, we were supposed to have muay thai, but when we went to have it... our teacher wasn't there. After searching around for a while, we were told that our teacher had somehow cut his hand really badly, and had gone to the hospital, so we wouldn't be having class. Of course, right as we're walking past the field on the way out of school we see him, and he shows us how his hand is all bandaged. Apparently he'd gotten like 7 stitches. We clearly couldn't beat him up, but he told us that we could have practice the next day and beat eachother up. So then we were kind of like "Well, we could go home..." and Dana did actually, but Alex, Rianna, and I decided that we didn't really want to go home yet, so we went to just chill out in one of the crazy huts and and ended up sort of watching some guys playing soccer on the field. Of course, the guys noticed that we were hanging out there, so when they were done playing they came over and were clearly like "Ooh, let's talk to the foreign girls." We had some pretty entertaining psuedo-conversations.

Anyway, yesterday we did actually have muay thai, but Dana left first, and then Alex, and then me and Rianna left together. As we were walking out, we noticed that a bunch of the kids from the day before were playing volleyball with a bunch of ladymen, a few of which we also knew, on the field. Then we noticed that Alex was playing with them. We were like 30 feet away, but I was very confused so I started yelling "ALEX, WHY ARE YOU PLAYING VOLLEYBALL WITH THEM? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?" She answered that she'd been walking by, and they'd invited her, and then that we should play too. Now, neither me nor Rianna is any good at volleyball, but it would have been kind of odd to just stand there and watch, so we kind of joined. I kind of failed and looked terribly stupid. Unsurprising. But then the game kind of split into two, and half of them kept playing, while the other half kind of just chilled out, and we talked to them. In ridiculous Thaiglish. They seem to think my Thai is pretty good though. Score one for Sopa. Anyway, a bunch of the kids playing soccer ended up inviting us to come to their soccer game at another school the next day, so we said we could come at like 11, after massage class ended.

Sooooo, today, Rianna, Alex, Dana and I ended up getting to the other school at 12, and finally found the field! to see them walk off of it. Ouch, missed it by minutes. They made fun of us for being slow. But that's okay, because then we kind of hung out with them while they ate, and then caught a ride back to school in a teacher's car with one of the kids, who Rianna also knows from art class. So it was amusing.

Anyway, those are our most recent friends, hahaha. After getting back to school, the four of us kind of just bummed around the library, and bummed around the klang plaza 5th floor food court, and then bummed around my house, and then everyone left and... yes.


Also: BIG THING. I am switching host families on Friday! Yes, that is the day after tomorrow!! I have to pack up SO MUCH STUFF. But yeah. On Friday I will be moving to the house of Papa Utai, Alex's old host family, and I do not know his wife's name. Oh well, I will learn soon. So, faretheewell, Mama Sea, I will miss living with you a lot! But I will still see you all the time, anyway, because Rianna is moving to this house which is very conveniently placed in the middle of everything. Still... sad.

Also, carving is getting kind of dreadful. I spend hours and hours on something that I just throw onto my desk and leave there until it dries and crinkles up and kind of dies. Since Rianna's advisor, who is in charge of us, told us we could change our schedules if we want, I might ask her about that.

Goings on.

So, things have happened since November second! School has started! And things!

First of all, we went to school again for the first time in more than a month on Monday, November 3rd. We didn't have any classes yet at that point, but we did meet with the woman who is essentially in charge of us, and we figured out this semester's schedules. I only have one class alone, but the only class we have all together is Thai massage, which was speically set up for us, so that doesn't count. Plus, most of my classes only have one other farang in them, and I think that's actually a good set up. I think sometimes we almost look friendlier when we're with one other English-speaker, because Thai kids can see that we're not just quiet, sullen, scaryyyyy foreigners. I feel like I've already made a lot more headway into at least being friendly and comfortable with the Thai students, even if it will still be a long time until I make any real friends. (I mean, for one, Thai is friggin difficult. I have lived here for 3 months and still speak about the same as an infant. Possibly worse.)

Anyway, after school that Monday was really fun. That night was when most of the real loi krathong celebrations occurred. Me and Rianna went together to the biggest festival in Korat, at bungtaloowa (the same place as the beauty pageant), which was pretttty fun. There were enormous, gorgeous krathong rafts floating in the water, and some stalls selling some pretty cool clothing and stuff. I actually spent like 1000 baht, $30, there, which is a LOT in Thailand. I mean, t-shirts are usually 100 baht, $3 , and generally the most I will pay for a t-shirt, one I really, really like, is like 200 baht, $6. So yeah, there was some cool stuff. Also, while we were waiting to be picked up we realized we were kind of hungry, so we browsed around the food area near the entrance, and picked up some mini eggs. I'm pretty sure they were quail eggs, but neither of us had ever had quail eggs before anyway, so we were a little suspicious-- but they were AROI DII! AKA yummy! We also found this bottled peach tea that was delicious. Anyway, after going to the bungtaloowa festival, Rianna's mom picked us up and took us both back to my house-- where there was another festival going on right in front of my house. There we actually took part in the loi krathong traditions, and floated our rafty things in the canal in front of my house. It was pretty cool. After that we walked around the market area with our host mothers, and then we both went home.

Since then not much has been going on-- except, of course, going to classes. As of today I've finally been to all of my classes, so I guess I can kind of just describe them all a bit.

• Thai language: The same as always, really.
• handicrafts: This would be pretty nice if it were in an air conditioned room, I think. Kind of relaxing... but it's not. So it's kind of unpleasant.
• photography: So far the teacher's just been talking about technique, etc., most of which I couldn't understand anyway. But we'll be taking some pictures at some point, I think, so we'll see.
• "carving" aka I have no idea: Well, we made something crazy out of banana leaves last time. This is not actually carving, I have no idea what it is though.
• Thai massage: I think this should be good. We learned how to do like 20 minutes of foot massage today, and of course, we practiced on eachother. Pleasant.
• dress making: This will either be fantastic, or miserable. I'm hoping fantastic, at least. I'm just a little worried, because everyone else in the class has clearly taken sewing classes before or something. Everyone else can already draft patterns-- something I've never learned. This doesn't bode well for their actual sewing skills. They will probably kick my sewing skills' ass. But I'm hoping, even if that's the case, that it won't matter.
• fruit carving: Oops, I forgot, I actually haven't had this one yet. Oh well, I'll talk about it once I've had it. The teacher, however, is the same as the one for handicrafts and "carving," so I think I have some idea of what it will be like.

Yeah, so, that's about all that's going on. Second dress making class tomorrow, so I'm a bit nervous ( :c ), but hopefully I'll be able to figure things out or whatever. I'm supposed to be bringing in a design for a blouse and a skirt I want to make, but I can't find any pictures of things like what I want to make, and I am awful at fashion drawings, so I'll probably have to embarrass myself with some awful art, but whatever. This isn't a fashion illustration class! Bah!

I guess I'm not very good at this whole blog thing.

Considering it's been more than a month since the last time I wrote.

So much has happened since then.

I'll list some of the more outstanding events of October (plus my birthday, so the very end of September, and then today, the first day of November.)

1. My birthday party (September 28): happened on my birthday, was kind of silly. Something interesting about kid's parties in Thailand: if they're thrown by their parents, they're essentially thrown for their parents. From what I've seen, parties thrown for children tend to have like 2 of the kid's friends, and then many of their parents friends, and dinner is always where the parents choose, eating what the parents choose. (Example: the one dish I've told my host mom I don't like at all is genkiowan [NO idea how to spell that, so whatever], and one of like 2 dishes she ordered for my party was genkiowan.) Even so, my party was fun and I did enjoy it and I still very much appreciate my host mom for throwing it for me. Present-wise... it was an interesting birthday. I got essentially nothing useful, but some very odd things, so at least it was interesting.
   
2. Me and Rianna's hilarious Rotary get together experience (October 3-4): Mama Sea: "Mama Sea mao!!" End of story.
   
3. Korat's BBQ Festival (October 5): Me and Mario watched as Dana and Mauricio dressed up as coyboys and got to stand on stage for 45 minutes. Free so-so food.
   
4. RYLA (October 11-15): A long, long 5 days. Exhausted the entire time. Wayyyy too many squats involved. BUT I GOT TO MEET THE DIRECTOR OF ONG-BAK. SCORE ONE FOR SOPA. Prachya Pinkaew was a nice guy, too.
   
5. Staying at Pat's house for a week while my host mom was in Japan (October 16-22): Not a big deal, just a little inconvenient.
6. GOLF MIKE CONCERT (October 20): FRIGGIN GOLF MIKE CONCERT. AMAZING. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OHHHH GOLF. So, remember when I danced for Golf Mike tickets all those weeks ago? Yeah, well, I actually got those. I actually got them. And me and Alex went to the Golf Mike concert. It was awesome. The concert was properly ridiculous, and me and Alex both made eye contact a bunch of times with both members, which we properly giggled about. And then we waited for forever after the concert because everybody else was, and oh my god, it turned out there was an AUTOGRAPH SESSION OH MY GOD SCORE. The line for the autographs was weird and kind of C shaped, in that you had to pass in front of the table Golf and Mike were sitting at before you went around and got your autographs. And me and Alex were, of course, being proper fangirls and going "oh my god oh my god I'm so excited oh my god" etc. etc. etc. while we were standing in the far part of the C. And clearly we were being pretty obvious, because, if I remember correctly, Mike looked over at us and chuckled. Then we went around the C and got our stuff signed and Mike was like "How was the show?" and Alex was like "It was amazing!!" and I was like "It was fantastic!" and Golf laughed and quietly repeated Alex saying "Amazing!" Then we shook their hands and some random staff their each took our pictures shaking Golf's hand. Later, we realized Golf and Mike went/go to international school and are clearly fluent in English. Then slightly later we were like "Wait, Golf is 19 and Mike is 17. Why are we not all besties and chilling out together right now? They're popstars, we're cool foreigners, we should already all be best friends!" Unfortunately it was not to be. (At that time, at least.)
   
7. Pattaya (!) (October 23-24): Not quite what was promised, but also not bad. The whole reason we were going to Pattaya, initially, was because we were told we would ride elephants there. This did not happen. However, we did some other cool stuff. The night before me an Rianna slept over at Alex's house, and then on the first day we picked up Dana, Mauricio, and Elise and drove 5 hours in one of those crazy rented vans rotary always has. The ones that have crazy air conditioning so that it gets FREEZING COLD inside and you have to remember to bring sweatshirts and things with you. When we first got to Pattaya we stopped at this ridiculous pink and blue place. I don't even know what it was, but it was ridiculous. And cotton candy pink and blue. And some of the buildings had enormous photos of fruit printed on the walls inside. It made no sense. Then we went to the resort we were staying at and got to go pet tigers and leopards (I wish owning a leopard as a pet would work out, because I want one really badly, it was gorgeous :C), and sort of fed some of the FISH THAT I HATE, and watched a "Thai cultural show," and neglected to watch the elephant show (apparently a big mistake.) Then in the evening there was a "fancy party" or something, which was another rotary party with lots of karaoke etc. By this time we'd met up with the other few exchange students that were there from other cities. The second day we all got up crazy early, and ate breakfast, and then got on a crazy almost party bus, and drove off. First we went to a sea turtle conservation center, which had lots of seaturtles, and it was pretty cool. Then we went off to a dock somewhere, where we all took a ferry to a small nearby island. This island had a beach. We all went swimming and snorkeling and it was amazing. The water was warm! This is a novelty I have never before experienced! Anyway, after we all had a nice time looking at almost nothing on the sea floor through our snorkeling masks, and were all sufficiently sunburned, we got all our stuff, took the ferry back to the dock, then took the bus back to the resort, and got back in our freezing van for the ride home. An interesting ride, I would say. After a bit we stopped at 7/11 and all got lots of junk food and tea, after which silliness ensued. Which included seeing if (/how long) an oreo can stick on someone's face. The answer: a long, long time. Actually. Probably like half an hour at least, even if the person's moving around a bit.
8. Mexican food (October 29): YUM. Mario and Mauricio finally decided it was time to cook. So we all bought ingredients and things, and then went to Mario's host family's restaurant. And then we all helped make tacos. This was a good, good, good idea. Yum.
9. Halloween (Halloween): Every year the Khunying Mo Korat rotary club has a Halloween party. And I'm pretty sure every year the inbounds are set to decorate the party. Well, we did that. And we did a pretty damn good job of it, especially considering we're in THAILAND, a country where they don't celebrate Halloween. So the only premade Halloween decorations we could find were a string of pumpkin lights and a lame flag thing. But it was still good. I'm pretty proud of us. Anyway, this year for Halloween I was... my fallback costume, because I didn't really have time to care this year. So, a fairy princess. Still, an awesome fallback costume. ;] Dana was a cat, Rianna was a cowgirl, Alex was a Geisha, and Mauricio was a Samurai. A samurai without a sword. The food was actually not too bad, and Peter was there being "a hobo"/definitely Lenny Kravitz. Plus: we got cake. Ohhh, did we get cake. An average sized sheet cake with a picture of mickey mouse dressed as a tourist on it. Half of the exchange students there were around one table, so when they got out the cake they put it there. Then, as we were expecting a knife and lots and lots of plates, they brought out one plate... and lots and lots of spoons. We were like "Wait, really? You really just want us to just eat this?" And they were like "Yeah!" So... we did. That was a GOOD CAKE. Really. Thailand's got a thing for very light, fluffy cakes, but this one was actually dense and delicious, and that made it AMAZING. We can pretend that the whole cake was divided between 13 or so people. (Which might have been sort of reasonable.) But actually, there were only about 8 people who really ate more than a few bites of that cake. That means that the 8 of us all ate way too much cake. I don't regret it. Yum.
10. Loi Krathong Beauty Pageant (November 1-- today): Me, Dana, and Alex all slept over at Rianna's house after the Halloween party, and then ate brunch, and then went home. Rianna, however, went to meet her mom when we went home, because she was signed up for a beauty pageant that was supposed to be that afternoon and then tomorrow afternoon. Once I got home I was ready to just chill out all afternoon, because I was pretty tired, but at like 3:15 my host mom came in and was like "Oh, Sopa, do you want to go to the park to go jogging?" And I was like "Oh... jogging... alright..." and she was like "Walking, walking!" And I was like "Okay, what time?" "Four." There went the rest of my afternoon. But after we got in the car, before my host mom started it up, she was like "Oh, Sopa, where do you want to go for Loi Krathong? Baa Yuun's house, or near us?" and I was like "Oh... I want to see Busaba." (Rianna.) And my host mom was like "Oh, okay, I'll call KhunMae Nii!" (Rianna's mom.) So she called, and realized that the pageant was today too, at the park we were going to, so we went. Me and Rianna chilled out for 4 hours, punctuated with her getting up on stage a few times. She made it to the top 50, but just missed the last round of the night, the top 20. After that we went to dinner together with our host moms, and got really good lemon tea and kanom pan, along with food, and then sat there for a really long time, and then went home, and now I'm writing this. Woo.

This is all not counting the many minor outings the exchange students have had, including zoo trips and other fun Korat things. And we had a lot, considering we spent almost every single day together.

Tomorrow is... OUR FIRST DAY OF SECOND SEMESTER. That means SCHOOL STARTS AGAIN. This is actually quite exciting. We all know at this point that we need to split up and meet Thai people and just stop spending all of every single day together. As much as I love all the other exchange students, I've spent a little too much time with them. We're supposed to all actually be in seperate classes this semester, so I'm excited.

Plus: more Loi Krathong festival goings on tomorrow.

PS: Sorry this is so sketchily written. I'm tired and braindead right now. (I guess it's not really the best time to be writing this, then, but it's the time I had.) So, yeah, oh well!

Finals week is over now. Hmm...

The past week-ish has been interesting, but not particularly eventful. I've been spending pretty much every day with the other four rotary kids, hanging out at people's houses or the mall. Last... Wednesday, I think, we all went to Rianna's house and I made pancakes, Dana made fried potatoes, and Mauricio made quesadillas. (Mauricio is a lovely human being.) Then we all sat down and ate lots of food. We ended up staying at Rianna's house for dinner, and she made pasta with jarred alfredo sauce. It was just a fantastic day, food-wise. I love Thai food and all, but sometimes pancakes and pasta are just the best. We've also been going to traditional Thai music class almost every day... except not that day. Some other day everyone but Alex came to my house (she was getting hair extensions!), and we made awesome sandwiches, because apparently my family has a sandwich press. (And also a toaster, and a toaster oven. HOW HAVE THEY BEEN HIDING THESE FROM ME?) Those were cheesey and delicious.

On Saturday, after music, a bunch of exchange students: Hannah, Erin, Mario and Julie, who are in another Korat club, plus Mauricio and possibly Dana were planning on going to the mall to meet some Thai friends and eat lunch, and then going to the zoo. I decided to go with them to the mall, but then go home when they went to the zoo, and Dana was planning the same except that she might go to the zoo with them. When we got there, though, the Thai friends were like "Oh, let's eat lunch at the zoo~" My answer to this was "If you guys leave now, honestly, I will be pissed." It takes like 15 minutes at least to get there on a songthaew, man. Plus, Dana really wanted to go get sushi there. So we convinced them to go get Japanese food in the mall. Unfortunately, once we were done eating, they decided it was too late to go the zoo. Sorry, guys. So we all ended up walking around the mall. There was a festival-thing going on in the ridiculous big hall in the mall, so we went there. Inevitably, me and Dana split up from everyone else after a bit, and wandered around the mall for a while longer before going home. Dana bought three boxes of cereal. Money well spent.

Yesterday there was a dance party thing at school, so everyone came to my house at about 11:30, and we made tuna melts, and then put on makeup, fancy dresses, and heels. We ended up getting there pretty late, but it didn't matter very much. The party itself was pretty funny. It started with some crazy Thai dance thing where none of us had no idea what was going on, but we joined in anyway. Then later we got pulled in when it was open cha cha dancing time, and decided to go dance when they were waltzing, too. None of us but Dana knew how to waltz, so she quickly taught us all how to do it. It's not very hard, but it is fun. I really like ballroom dancing. After all the open dances, there were contests for cha cha dancing, and then one other kind of dancing I think, complete with judges and prizes. All the rotary kids were sad, because the couple we liked for cha cha didn't win. After the contests there seemed to be a sort of break. Everyone swarmed around the food, and there seemed to be a "rock band" setting up. Rock means nothing in Thailand, really. After food swarming was over, and the band was set up, they started playing "Thai rock songs." I think you'd need to look pretty hard to find Thai rock that was actually rock, but that's okay. There was a huge crowd of girls dancing to the music and enjoying themselves. We got dragged in by girls a little bit, but mostly we sat and watched. Eventually we all went back to my house, and then everyone went home pretty quickly.

Today nothing's happened so far, but people are supposed to come to my house in about 15 minutes, and then we'll all go to the mall and go swimming. That's the plan, at least.

Also, I think I'll start referring to us all as "The Wolf Pack", if I'm talking about me, Rianna, Alex, Mauricio, and Dana. It seems to be our name these days.

So, I've been keeping a list of music videos I've seen...

Yeah, I'm that nerdy. But it's exciting to look at all the awesome things I've seen on TV, conveniently in a list. And now I think I'll post that list right here. Please read it carefully. ;]

2NE1 - Fire (street version)
2PM - 10-10
2PM - Again and Again x7
A-Mit - Black Eats Black (黑吃黑) x5
AAA - Tabidachi No Uta
AJ - Dancing Shoes
AJ - Wipe The Tears x3
Ai Otsuka - Do☆Positive
Air - Once Upon A Time
An Cafe - Cherry Saku Yuuki x2
Anna Tsuchiya - Brave Vibration x2
Andy Chen Yi - Zi Lian Kuang (Narcissist)
Arashi - Everything x5
Arashi - Kittou Daijobu x3
Asian Kung-Fu Generation - After Dark x2
Ayumi Hamasaki - Next Level x4
Ayumi Hamasaki - Rule x2
Ayumi Hamasaki - Step You
Ayumi Hamasaki - Sunrise ~Love is All~
Berryz Koubou - Jingisukan (Dschinghis Khan) x8
Big Bang - Always
Big Bang - Gara Gara Go x3
Big Bang - Haru Haru
Big Bang - Last Farewell
Big Bang - Last Farewell (live)
Big Bang - Lollipop
Big Bang - My Heaven x2
Big Bang - Number 1 x4
Big Bang - Oh! My Friend x8
Big Bang - Strong Baby x6
Big Bang - Sunset Glow x4
Big Bang - With You x2
BoA - Eat You Up x2
BoA - I Did it For Love x3
BoA - Sweet Impact x2
Chemistry - Saigo no Kawa
Chemistry - Sara no Kiseki x2
Cinema Bizarre - I Came To Party x2
Da Endorphine - Saep (แสบ)
DBSK - Choosey Lover
DBSK (Yunho) - Crazy Life (live) x2
DBSK - Mirotic x5
DBSK - Miss You
DBSK - My Little Princess (Acapella)
DBSK - "O" Jung Ban Hap
DBSK - Purple Line x5
DBSK - Share The World x4
DBSK - Shine
DBSK - Survivor x3
DBSK - Stand By You x2
DBSK - Wrong Number x2
DBSK & Super Junior - Show Me Your Love x3
Depapepe - Katana x5
Depapepe - Sakura Kaze
Deserts Chang - Selling x5
Dragon Ash - Unmeikyoudoutai (運命共同体)
Dreams Come True - MERRY-LIFE-GOES-ROUND
Dreams Come True - Tsuretette Tsuretette
Epik High - One
EXILE - 24karats ft. DOBERMAN INC
Exile - Ti Amo x2
F4 - Waiting for you
F.T. Island - Bad Woman x3
Fahrenheit - Love You More and More
Fahrenheit - The Best Listener x3
Fahrenheit & S.H.E. - Xin Wo
Gackt - Journey Through The Decade x2
Gazette - Shadow VI II I
Girl Next Door - Winter Game
Girls Generation - Gee x2
Girls Generation - Into The New World x2
Girls Generation - Tell Me Your Wish (Genie) x15
Girls Generation - Way To Go
GReeeeN - 遥か
Guo Shu Yao - Free Love (愛的抱抱)
Hey! Say! Jump - Your Seed
Hideaki Takizawa - Sha La La x3
Jay Chou - Lan Ting Xu
Jay Chou - Rainbow
Jay Chou - Rice Fragrance
Jay Chou - Snake Dance x2
Jerry Yan - I Will Love You Very Much x2
Jerry Yan - Say Love You in KTV x9
Jolin Tsai - Butterfly
Jolin Tsai - Real Man ft. Nick x4
Jolin Tsai - Yue Man Yue Mei Li
Kanjani8 - Musekinin Hero
KAT-TUN - Don't You Ever Stop
KAT-TUN - One Drop
KAT-TUN - Rescue x2
KAT-TUN - White X'mas x2
Koda Kumi - But
Koda Kumi - Faraway
Koda Kumi - Just The Way You Are
Koda Kumi - Lick Me <3 x2
Koda Kumi - Show Girl x3
Koda Kumi - That Ain't Cool ft. Fergie x3
Koda Kumi x Misono - It's All Love
L'arc en Ciel - Daybreak's Bell
Lee Hom Wang - Another Heaven x4
Lee Hom Wang - Heart Beat x2
Lee Hom Wang - The Sun After Washed by Spring Rain x2
Lee Hom Wang - Our Song (Wo Men De Ge - 我們的歌)
Lee Min Woo - Stomp
Lollipop - Zong Yi Ka (綜藝咖) x2
Metro Station - Shake It
Mika Nakashima - Game
Mika Nakashima - I Don't No
Miki Fujimoto - Romantic Ukare Mode
Misia - Royal Chocolate Flush
Misia - Yes Forever
Miyavi - Kavki Boiz
Morning Musume - Aruiteru
Namie Amuro - Do Me More
Namie Amuro - Want Me, Want Me x2
NEWS - Kibou ~Yell~ (live) x2
NEWS - Koi no Abo x2
NEWS - Taiyou no Namida
Plastic Tree - Replay
Peter Ho - I Am Care About You
Rain - Rainism x4
S.H.E. - 夢田 (Meng Tian) x5
Se7en - Girls ft. Lil Kim
Shiina Ringo - Ariamaru Tomi
Shiina Ringo - Shun
Shinee - Amigo x6
Shinee - Amigo (live)
Shinee - Juliette
Shinee - Replay x2
Shinee - Replay (live) x10
Shinhwa - RUN
SM Town - Let's Go On a Trip
SM Town - Seaside Resting Area (Boom Boom) x3
SS501 - Deja Vu
SS501 - Find x2
SS501 - If We're Together
SS501 - La La La 為了妳 x3
Super Junior - It's You x4
Super Junior - Miracle
Super Junior - One Love x2
Super Junior - Sorry Sorry x2
Super Junior - Sorry Sorry (live) x4
Super Junior - Twins
Super Junior Happy - Cooking? Cooking!
Super Junior M - U
Supernova - Superstar
Sweet Vacation - I Feel So Good
Tae Yang - Look Only At Me (Na Man Bara Bwa) x2
Tamaki Hiroshi - Slow Time x2
Tegomass - Ai Ai Gasa x3
Tegomass - Tanabata Matsuri x5
Utada Hikaru - Love Station x3
Utada Hikaru - Come Back To Me x5
Vanness - 7 Days
Vic - Should Not x2
W-INDS - Hybrid Dream x2
WaT (Teppei Koike Solo) - Kimi Dake x3
Wheesung - Insomnia
Wonder Girls - Nobody x3
Wonder Girls - So Hot x2
Wonder Girls - Tell Me x2
Wonder Girls - Tell Me (live)
Wonder Girls - This Time x3
Yui - Laugh Away
Yuna Ito - Mahaloha x2
Yuna Ito - A World To Believe In ft. Celine Dion


I know, you're jealous. Perhaps I will post it again in a while, when it is even cooler.

PS: Yes, I have really seen Tell Me Your Wish 15 times. It's great, since I rather like it anyway.

First day of first semester finals week, here in Korat.

Most of today was not particularly interesting. This morning I got up later than usual-- since, you know, I didn't have to go to school or anything. Chilled out in my room most of the morning. At like 10 or something my housekeeper taught me how to wash my underwear, finally. They wash all their underwear by hand here... it's pretty unneccesary, but whatever. Now I can wash my underwear. I wrote about lady-men in this blog, and then ate lunch. Finally at like 2:50 I decided to go to the supermarket and see if they had sea salt. I must have totally confused all the shopkeepers, because I left without saying where I was going (since Mama Sea wasn't in the room). I was in my school gym uniform, but then I walked in the direction of krang plaza. Curious. ;] Anyway, then I went in search of sea salt. It took me a few minutes to find, but they did have it! On the way out I just HAD to walk through the cookie aisle, and then I saw oreos, and couldn't resist, so I bought some of those.

I intentionally went to school early, I got there at about 3:10, so that I could use the internet. It's better than what I have at home, so yeah. The other exchange students slowly filtered in after about 4:15. At about 5 we went over to the basketball/volleyball court, which is where we go to meet our muay thai teacher. (We have class there too about half the time.) After a few minutes he had us all stretch a little, and then he had one of us on the punching bag, one on this crazy ball on bungee cords that you punch, one doing stuff with him, and then he had Alex and Dana kind of just doing this weird thing with eachother. We were doing all this in the basketball court, at the same time as a bunch of kids were playing volleyball there. One of them was a lady-man. I got put on the punching bag and started kicking it and kind of sucked. This lady-man came over and SHOWED ME UP. I was cracking up, sort of. He just walked over and started kicking it, and was like "okay?" He actually did the hand sign at some point. I was just like "Yeah! Okay! LOL" I love you, lady-man who kicks tons more ass than I do. The best part was that lady-men usually move with very effemenite movements, and he did, so he would prance up to the bag and sort of daintily kick it, but then the bag would go flying and it would make a very loud sound, so you would know that he hit it HARD. So impressive. Then later, while he was over playing volleyball, he noticed that Dana and Alex had sort of moved into the volleyball area, so he sort of asked them to move/moved them over away to the edges of the court. Of course, we are all slightly evil exchange students, so Dana and Alex decided to go over to him while they were doing their crazy muay thai thing, and follow him around for a bit. They went right up to him and he squeeled and ran away. They followed him a bit and exactly the same thing happened. He squeeled. It was amazing. While they were doing it I was just sitting there watching them, cracking up.

After muay thai I just went home. Mama Sea wasn't home when I got there, so I called her, and she didn't pick up for like 5 minutes. Yes, I was calling her for like 5 minutes straight. I wasn't about to sit there outside the house waiting for her to check her phone for missed calls. Finally she picked up and was like "Oh, wait for me in front of the store?" and I was like "... really?" But I did. Luckily, she seemed to have called her brother and after waiting in front of the store for like 5 or 10 minutes he came and let me in. I was like "THANK YOU." It's a good thing she called him, because even thought my shower was the first thing I did after I got in and went up to my room, she still got home when I was leaving the bathroom. That was a really long time. Anyway, I suppose she brought home dinner, which was friend rice. I have been getting a lot of that for dinner lately. But it's good, so oh well. After dinner I went back up to my room, munched on some oreos, and wrote this. Exciting.

Thailand:

Land of the Lady Men



Sophia's School:

School where you learn to cook and bake and make handicrafts like Thai flower arrangements:

School of the Lady Men


Lady Men:

Thai transvestites:

a large portion of the population.


Sometimes they're quite convincing.
Sometimes they take hormones or something to grow breasts, if they're hardcore.

Whenever you see people dancing and performing in crazy costumes, which is frequently in Thailand, then they are men. Unless you have met the performers and know they are women, they are lady men.

I love lady men.

I love Thailand.

I've met some really cool lady men, too.


Now I have to go eat lunch, and later I will go to muay thai. No other classes right now, though, because this is finals week. I guess we could go to classes, but we don't have to, and it would be silly.

Ahh crap.

It's been almost a month since the last time I wrote.

It's hardly been more than a month since I got here.

You know what that means.

There is a lot of important stuff that was never written here.

Since the last time I wrote:

• I've started school.
• I've actually like gotten to know friends and things.
  
• I've started taking classes.
• I've started taking muay thai.
• I've started having a life of sorts, since I have friends.
• I've gone places.
• First semester is already over, with this next week being finals, so now I'll be taking different classes.

My lovely not-Thai friends, here in Thailand, during muay thai practice. (Sophia loses. Yes.)
Dana, on the far left, is the only one not yet mentioned, because we met her when we started school. She's hosted by a different Korat rotary club.
We are all from North America. At least we've got three different countries... hmm...

Anyway, for the past few weeks I've been taking Japanese, cooking, baking, cha cha dancing, and cocktail class:

• Japanese was very, very basic, and served better as a crappy Thai class. Maybe there is a more advanced class I can be in.
• Cooking... I chopped a lot of garlic in that class. And that is about all I did. Once I chopped some water chestnuts. (EXCITING.)
• Baking... I only ended up going to twice. Hmm. The first time I sifted flour. The second time they just had us sit there.
• Cocktail class was the only successful class this semester, hilariously. The kids were nice, and all of us ended up actually doing stuff, and making cocktails, and having fun.
• We only had cha cha dancing like one and a half times, really, because things kept getting in the way, and we only had like 4 weeks of classes altogether or something. I can sort of cha cha dance now, though. Good stuff.
  

Sooooo yeah. School here is ridiculous, and I usually have one class a day, which is either 2 or 4 hours. Muay Thai is at 5 on Mondays and Thursdays. Us exchange students have a lot of classes together, but even if we don't we're usually all done at/by 12:30, so then we go eat lunch together and chill somewhere.

We've pretty much taken over our school library. It's oursssss. This, by the way, was prompted by the school's assistant director who seems to be in charge of us. She told us to base ourselves there. So now we are on the computers ALL THE TIME. And we just all meet there. Once we didn't feel like going anywhere after classes, but we had to go to muay thai at 5 (all of us are taking it, and it's just us), so we spent like 4 hours watching some awful BBC thing on the TV there. They have a couch and bean bags. So yeah. The library is AC'd during the day, after like 10 am and until like 3 pm or so, so that's lovely too.

A ton has happened since I last wrote-- lots of things that would have been great to have down here. Lots of interesting stories and things... but, an entire month's worth really, so I'm not going to do that. I'll just have to start back writing now. It will forever be a mystery month.

Except Thursday morning, because it was recent and hilarious:

Me, Alex, and Mauricio were sitting in the library before our classes started, Dana and Rianna weren't at school yet. We heard some music drifting in the window for a few minutes, so we were like "Let's go find where that's coming from and see what's up." So we went and found it behind the library, where a couple of women were doing some dance to a Golf Mike song. I assume it was a cover dance thing. It seemed like there were some people there promoting Golf Mike's current tour, and also the drink brand that Golf Mike is paired up with right now. (Puriku. They make tea drinks. There's this one that's like Golf Mike lemon-pomegranite-tea that I like, actually.) So they were there promoting all of that together.

While we were standing there they seemed to start holding a couple contests. At some point they were obviously trying to get people to collect red things, but I don't really have any idea why. Then they got a bunch of students up with them and lined them up. At that point Mauricio had gone off to class, but one of the girls somehow told me and Alex that they were going to do a dancing contest of some sort. Of course that meant that me and Alex had to join. We had to dance to this Golf Mike song while holding a bottle of tea. Let me announce this to the world: Sophia can not dance. I CAN'T DANCE. At all. But I did it, because you know what? I'm in Thailand and I don't mind making a fool of myself for a contest. And you know what? It payed off to be the stupid looking white girl, because I ended up being one of the people who won. SCORE ONE FOR BEING WHITE AND SO STANDING OUT. They told me I won two tickets to a Golf Mike concert at Krang Plaza, and I was like "Oh, really? I won something for making a fool of myself? I was just doing it because I could, but sweet!!" I was dancing for these plastic things they were holding, because I wanted to try and snatch one if I won. They ended up being like "We can't give you one, but write down your name and you'll be able to pick up tickets at the show." I didn't have ID on me, though, so Alex had to write down her name. I said she could be the one going with me anyway, since she was dancing too and didn't win, and also because Alex is cool and stuff, so it's fine. Hopefully that'll work out. It doesn't matter that much, really, hahahaha, oh man, hilarious.

My internet stopped working for a while, and then I got lazy, so now I have too much to write.

Oh well. I'll do my best. Although my head keeps hurting whenever I lay down or sit up right now. (Am I really that sedentary? It's weird.)

Saturday was rather eventful. First thing in the morning I had breakfast (oh my). But at like 10:30 or so Mickmee's friend, Bi, came and took me and Mickmee away~ (Well, her parents were driving.) We went to this place called Pimai.

As it says, it's a "historical park." Mostly it was these ruins that were like 1000 years old or something. They were prettty gorgeous.

Yay gorgeous stone work!

Yay me?

We spent like an hour there, wandering around and taking pictures and stuff. Climbing places we weren't really supposed to be. :];;

Then we went to this other place, the Banyan Tree.

The banyan tree is a tree. A golden fig tree, I guess? The thing is… it’s enormous. And like, I don’t mean it’s got a huge trunk or something, I mean that the branches are spread super far. Like the sign says, its branches span more than 35,000 square feet.

This is some of it. A small part. The tree creates a sort of canopy everywhere.

On our way out there was a guy selling musical instruments, who started talking to us, and eventually was like “I’ll give you a 10 minute lesson, and then you’ll be able to play this.” (The instrument—I asked later—is apparently called something pronounced like “saw”)

He roped us into doing it… and then eventually he even got both me and Bi to buy one. I kind of sucked at playing it, though. Mickmee, the one who didn't buy one, was probably the best.

After that we went and ate (of course) some som tum and noodles, then we all went home.

That evening we had a going away party for Mickmee, which was sort of a welcoming party for me too. At like 6 or something Mama Sea, Mickmee, Pi Lung, Pi Nen, Pi Mim, and Pi Dao (our housekeeper), Peter and I all went over to a seafood restaurant 10 minutes away. We went to a big private room there, and soon other people showed up too. The food there was so-so. It was tasty, but a lot of the dishes were things I don’t especially love. Once some people had finished eaten, they started… karaoke. I’m not going to lie, Thai people singing karaoke in English… it’s funny. Go do karaoke with some Thai people in Thailand some day. It’ll be fun. Anyway, after like half an hour of that, they had me and Mickmee get on stage, and then they passed the mic around and had everybody wish us both luck and stuff.

Me and Mickmee on stage with my host cousin. She’s cute, but I think she’s a little evil, to be honest, hahaha. Not particularly evil in a bad way, though.

Anyway, after that was nice and done with, the karaoke continued. They even got me to sing a couple songs in English, which was amazing—since I can’t actually sing. (So usually I don’t.) Then I just sat with Peter at the computer controlling the karaoke and stuff for like hours, while Mickmee and Bi and occasionally Peter sang many, many Thai songs. I was so relieved when we left, since I was exhausted. I get tired easily here, especially at night, and I’d spent the whole morning walking around and stuff. By the end of the karaoke it was hard to keep my mouth shut for more than a second, I was yawning so much.

On Sunday we went to this place like 45 minutes away to go buy Thai silk stuff. For some reason Bi came too. Mickmee bought a whole bunch of stuff to bring to people in the US. Seriously, a lot. I tried to buy something too, but I was standing with Mama Sea and she was like “Oh, you want that, okay.” And so she took it and ended up paying for it. It’s really frustrating, because she’s spent so much money on me already, I can’t get her to let me spend my own money. Like, school uniform? I was like “No, I’m really supposed to be paying for this one. Like, I have the money.” And then we went and she bought it all. I think most of the uniform was pretty cheap, but the shoes weren’t particularly. I don’t really know what to do. I guess I’ll just have to try as hard as possible to make sure she doesn’t pay for other things of mine for the rest of while I’m here, and see what I can do about previous purchases in the future.

After Mickmee had figured out what she wanted, Mama Sea went to go try on a shirt, and then pay for stuff, so we wandered off a little. They had silk looms in a building in back of the shop, with people making fabric on them. We went over and looked—it was pretty cool.

They also had really nice swinging bench things. I wanted one. A lot.

To be honest, I can’t even remember what I did on most of Monday, so obviously it wasn’t super exciting. I suspect I sat around all day. I’m pretty sure for dinner we went to this restaurant and sat outside, and then across the street there was a huge ad for Yamaha motorbikes—featuring Golf & Mike~ I was staring at it for a while, and then Mickmee was like “Do you know who they are?” and I was like “I think I do, but I’m not sure. What are their names” and she was like “Golf and Mike” and I was like “Yeahhh, I thought so, but I wasn’t sure!” Oh, also, Monday night my internet stopped working. YAY. YAYAYAYAYAY. I was supposed to go home and talk to my parents that evening online and it STOPPED WORKING. YAYYYYYYYYYY.

Tuesday was exciting. I had to wake up at like 7, but at like 8:30 Me, Mickmee, and my host father went off to my school! When we first got there we were a little early or something? I have no idea. But first we just walked over to this place outside, with a guy on a phone and... a not-Thai girl sitting at a table! This was Alex. She is from Cadillac, Michigan. Anyway, after a minute we all walked over to this conference room thing in another building, and in there were the two other exchange students (Rianna and Mauricio) plus a few rotary people. A bit after us, our school councelor and the vice-director person of the school came in and talked to us a little about possible classes and had us write down what sounded good, and then we got to eat some things that had been made at school. They were yummy.

After that was over, we all went to the bank so that the other kids could open their emergency funds, and a couple of them also opened personal bank accounts. Then all the rotary kids, along with Mickmee and Peter, went to "The Mall".

Apparently they have a sort of aquarium thing going on there, because I saw those fish I hate. (They have them at the Berlin aquarium, and that place in Qingdao.) They're so ugly and creepy and ughhh. For lunch I had like... pad thai inside egg. It was a little odd. But it wasn't bad. After lunch we wandered a bit, and eventually we ended up in the arcade/fair room of "The Mall."

We went on this ride that took us over the room, and over the pool area outside.

Wednesday me and other rotary kids went to the zoo! All the animals are pretty far apart, and Rianna's host mother owns a place that rents them, so... we all got bicycles... except I can't ride a bike, so Rianna's host mom decided that Mauricio should get a tandem and I should ride on the back. Hmm... Apparently Mauricio's not great on a bike in the first place, and this tandem was like... impossible. Yeah. We sooooort of managed one trip over to some an imals. Monkeys first, and then we walked over to lots of snakes and things.

I got to hold a snake!! I like snakes. I want one. Get me one for my birthday, somebody. (Perhaps when I get back, though. Also, get me a maid to feed it and stuff.)

Then we moved on to alligators... bears...

The bears were cute.

We ended up hanging out on some swings near the bears.

In fact, we spent like 2 hours sitting there. (Wary of another person taking pictures of the scary North Americans. Yes, that happened earlier that day.)

When we finally got up we went and returned the bikes, and then walked over to the zoo's water park.

It had an enormous gorilla!

Rianna and Alex felt all awkward because they were wearing bikinis. All the girls there were wearing one pieces with skirts. (I should have worn mine, haha. Oh well.) Once we got in, this lifeguard whistled at us and gestured to his head. We needed swimcaps. Ew. It gave me a headache.

We only stayed there for like 45 minutes, and then we headed back.

On the way we saw a bunch of people in animal suits. They were dancing to Low. Most of them were just bobbing around, but... the green one was totally into it. Green knew what the song was about. It was totally shaking its ass and stuff. By the way, what animal is that supposed to be. Green...?

When I got home that evening, Pi Lung let me in, and Mama Sea came downstairs and was like "Mickmee got into an accident!" And I was like "o.o Oh my god, really? Is she okay?" Mama Sea took me upstairs and into her room (!-- Thai people seem to be very private about their bedrooms. I'd never even seen into it before.) and Mickmee was sitting on a chair there, with lots of bandages and stuff. She'd gotten in a motorcylce accident, but luckily all her wounds were outside. She has bad scrape things on her hands, knees, chin, and a couple other places. But she still limps and they hurt a lot. I ended up sitting there for a while, and then me and Mama Sea went and bought take-out for dinner.

We also went to the bakery to buy breakfast things and stuff, which is where we saw these panda bun things. We actually bought one, but somebody else ate it. (tear tear) I'll have to get one for myself sometime.

Thursday morning I had home made jok! (The packaged stuff is better. Heh...) That is about everything important about Thursday.

Friday was hardly more exciting. Pi Mim went and showed me how to get to school on a songthaew. Yep.

I don't really know what this stuff is, but it was freaking delicious. Me and Mickmee devoured it last night.

So far today... I haven't done a thing. I should probably go hang out downstairs in a bit, though. Shmmmheeegghhh. (My thoughts on getting up.)

Two posts today? Oh boy.

I think I can truly say, if nothing else, that I eat damn well here. Like... yum.

Although, along with all the normal deliciousness, I've been good about trying everything. I think I've turned down one thing so far, and that was because I just wasn't hungry, not because I didn't want to eat it. (Plus, it was some delicious looking fried dough thing, I really just wasn't hungry. Don't fault me for that.) Because of that, I've now eaten a fair amount of squid (which, to be honest, I don't really like, but I've just ignored that fact for now), and... jellied chicken blood? I think that's what it was. There was a cube of it in some soup I had, and I was like "Hey Mickmee, what is this~?" and she was like "Um... dictionary." She pointed to blood. I tried some, you know, and I didn't really think it tasted particularly good. I left most of it in the bowl, haha.

Just now at dinner, I was happily going along eating some of the ground pork dish, and there were some larger pieces of meat in it too, so I ate one of it, and I was like "Hmm, that doesn't taste like I was expecting..." and Mickmee must have seen me eat it, because she grabbed the dictionary and was like "That is this." Liver. Ah well, it was okay.

Today, after I finished writing before, I went down and chilled out in the shop for a bit. My host cousin (Her name is Fan? Fun maybe? Fun is better, I think), came over a bit after I came down, and disappeared off somewhere into the house. A few minutes later Mama Sea was like "Mickmee cut hair. Watch?" And I was thinking "Watch Mickmee cut her hair... But Mickmee's hair is already nicely cut." But we walked into the house entrance area, and Mickmee was all cutting Fun's hair~ I think she did a pretty good job. It looked nice, at least. Soon enough the shop was all closed, and Fun's hair was all cut, and stuff... so I, Mickmee, Mamasea, and Fun all went to dinner. We went to this place that seemed kind of fancy. The Thai name is um... prik dang or something? It means red pepper. The outside was quite gorgeous, and inside it was nice too. (The food was also tasty.)

Blurry picture of the pretty fountain outside.

This time none of us ordered personal dishes, but instead all shared a bunch. I got some coconut smoothie deliciousness to drink:

One of the things we had to eat were morning glory greens with squid. The morning glory was like... coated and fried... and totally delicious. As I previously mentioned, I am not a huge fan of squid, but I ate what appeared on my plate. (Not even kidding with the appeared part. People kept spooning food onto my plate for me. I guess I seem pretty helpless.) Among many others, we also had this sea bass:

Crap picture, but this fish was really beautiful. You'll have to trust me on that one.

Mickmee got a watermelon smoothie thing.

After eating we just all went home~ c:

These, by the way, are delish:

They kinda taste like those lime flavored tortilla chips.

Today I almost cried when I saw one of the many stray dogs hobbling accross a street. It had three legs.

6 days here now.

Or something like that.

So, I officially have to start taking more than one shower every day, because I've grossed my family out sufficiently by taking only one.

And I officially dislike having to meet and speak to new adults in Thailand. It's hard, and they expect more from me than anyone younger does, but I'll just work on it I guess. Once I'm comfortable with the adult I'm okay. Kids are still cool, they'll just laugh at me and go on with life. Yay!


Tuesday I went to some thing that was teaching outbounds going to America how to cook some Thai dishes. I was planning on helping, but I didn't know how to ask if I could, and nobody set me to doing anything ever, so I kind of just awkwardly stood there. I did get to eat yummy Thai food then, though. Also, I guess I have to start eating more, because then maybe people will stop asking me if I'm hungry all the time and offering food to me. There I also drank some Thai iced tea in a bag.



At first I was pretty awkward with the girls there, for a number of reasons I guess, but we're all rotary exchange students, which means we're all nice kids. :'D So soon enough we were figuring out how to communicate anyway, and it was fun.

The group, minus Pat, who didn't want to be in the picture. haha
(Bad lighting. D: )

The middle is my host sister, Mickmee! On the left is um... Pe? Haha, I am not sure of her name. Her first choice for exchange was Germany, but she got the US. On the right is Cartoon (fantastic, yes?). Initially, when I was sent information about who my first host family was, they messed up, and told me the wrong family. That wrong family was Cartoon's family! They may still be my second host family, but I'm not sure. Not in the picture is Pat, who was in Michigan last year, and is now back.

When we went back home, Cartoon came with (apparently she takes dance classes somewhere near here) and I hung out with her, Mickmee, and Mama Sea for a little bit.

Later we had dinner at The Mall. I had seafood fried rice, and, as always, along with our own dishes, a couple more were gotten along side. This time we had som tum and some soup, I can't remember what kind now.

Som tum: shredded papaya salad stuff. Kind of spicey, pretty tasty. They take everything and pound it in a big morter and pestle thing.

Yesterday I didn't do much all morning, but at like 2 Mickmee took me to buy school supplies, and then ended up making me get more junk food, too. (They're really working to keep me fat?) One of the things we got was Choki Choki, which is like... tubes of chocolate paste stuff. It sounds weird, but damn, IT'S FANTASTIC.



Then at like 6 we went out again. First we went and got me my school uniformmm! Wooooo! It is a plain white blouse and a black skirt... not very interesting. The black skirt will probably be handy to have in the future, though, to be honest. Alsooooo, part of my uniform: Heels. They're not particularly high, but they're heels, for sure.


After getting my uniform we went off to The Mall for dinner. It seems like the standard here is: eat at home for lunch (well, nobody can leave the shop alone for too long), and then go out somewhere for dinner. I mean, the housekeeper cooks lunch and all, and she leaves at like 5, so... yeah. Anyway, we went to this place "Black Canyon Coffee House" for dinner. They served both western food stuff, and also Thai food. I got pad thai and tamarind juice. Not bad. I'm not a huge fan of the tiny little shrimp with their shells still on, though. There were also other dishes there, of course.

Mama Sea enjoying her food.


I think Mickmee is totally gorgeous, but she sure does pose funny.

After eating, we headed off to buy stuff for Mickmee for the year. Makeup and stuff. She really likes this Japanese makeup brand... and the model for that brand right now is Mika Nakashima! <3>
One side.

The other side. That's a large picture of my host mother in Australia. And Aladdin sheets. (Yess.)

So far today only one thing of real interest has happened. Like, I woke up, ate breakfast (today they were Chinese bun things-- my family is of Chinese descent), sat around in the shop for a while, and ate a yummy lunch with Mama Sea. Howeverrrr, a little before lunch, the rotary youth exchange coordinator, I don't know how to write his nickname so I'll call him Kittisak, called and was like "You have to go to the bank and sign one more thing." So Pi Lung took me there... on her motor bike! (!) (!!) I know I shouldn't be so excited, but riding on the back of a motor bike for the first time on the left side of the road in Thailand felt pretty exciting, man. Anyway, since then I haven't done much today. In fact, I've sort of just sat in my room for some of it. Bad stuff. Once I'm done writing this I'll go back downstairs.

Fun fact:

Round these parts we get house lizards. They are tiny, and crawl around at night. Plus, they are cute. This glorious specimen was about 1.5 - 2 inches, tip to tail.