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!