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.