Ah, Thailand: full of long periods of time where nothing interesting happens. Like now.

Last week I stayed at Rianna's house for a few days, because my host parents were going to Bangkok (for some reason which I've never been told...) While I was there we had some quality Korean drama watching time. Good stuff.

Last weekend was pretty uninteresting, considering I didn't actually leave my house. Ever. The entire weekend. Ah well.

Dana, on the other hand, switched host families over the weekend, so Monday me and Rianna went over to see her new house. It's kind of crazy, and mostly open to the outside. Tuesday I went to photography class in the morning and didn't really do anything (yay for the end of a semester), and then sat around at school with Rianna for a while, with a series of Thai friends appearing in our hut and then wandering off. When Rianna's class started, though, I just went home. That evening I went to Big C with my host mom! I got new shampoo and conditioner! (Score.) Pantene smells different in Thailand... and I think I like the American scent better, but whatever, arai gordai. We also bought lots of fruit-- green apples, boiled guava, pomelo, mmmmm--- much of which is cut and prepackaged. But that works well for me. Pomelo is a real pain to cut up, and boiled guava just isn't sold whole.

Anyway, Wednesday we ended up at the mall again, and this time me and Dana went and got Thai massages. My first time since early October. It was lovely.

Today I went to sewing, because I finished my dress last week, and my teacher wanted to take pictures of me in it. I went at 2 though, instead of 10:30, because she didn't need me to be there all day. So I went in, got some pictures taken with various teachers and students, chilled out for a while, and then just went home.

Now, I am home. And I am drinking soda water, something people usually just drink with whiskey here. But I prefer mine with cranberry/pomegranite/grape juice. It is tastey. And that's about it.

My sewing class today, working in my classroom. The men in the background are Janome workers, fixing sewing machines.

The two other kids who were finished with their outfits. They're both my friends, too. On the right is a ladyman, who is cross-eyed, and not just looking in the opposite direction.

Some other kids. :]

Me and my favorite teacher at school.

Not too much interesting in the last school week, but an entertaining weekend.

Friday evening, after an uninteresting afternoon photography class, I went home, and then I got in my host dad's truck, in which me and my host parents drove all the way to Khon Kaen. The way there was uneventful. I attempted to work on translating a song (Killer Queen, by Queen) for my Thai class, but only got about half a stanza in before deciding that Thai highways are very bumpy, my host father's truck only made that worse, and that translating something without the help of a very, very good dictionary is just stupid. And also that I was bored of it. After which I just sat and listened to music.

When we got there we went and ate a late dinner, and then we went back to my host aunt's house, where I went and slept on my cousin's floor. My back loved! it.

On our way out on Saturday morning, my host dad went to hand me a red envelope, which I recognized. Apparently the Thai (Chinese?) word for Chinese New Year money is "ang bao." Thank you, host dad.

Then we went to some other relative's house for a while. And by "for a while" I mean like 4 hours or something. I watched an episode of House, and part of an old (yes!) episode of Monk, and then part of some random movie which I greatly disliked. Somebody else decided on the English channel. After those 4 hours, I was invited to go see a movie at Khon Kaen's "Central Plaza" mall, which I declined, but then I ended up going there anyway because everybody was. Instead of going to a movie, though, me and my host parents just wandered around, and then ate ice cream at Swensen's, after which my host dad told me we were going to eat dinner. Actually, though, they weren't so cruel, hahaha. Instead we went to go see the Khon Kaen museum, which ended up being closed, so we went to some temple, which I actually really liked. It was a cool temple. And I got to try and lift up a very heavy weight with my ring finger, and I managed, so apparently I will have good fortune. The temple also had like 9 levels, which you could climb up, and so we did that. I enjoyed the top level, although there were a bunch of monks there so it was like "well, I guess I can't walk on that entire side of this," because there was absolutely no room up there.

After that we went to some park, and I fed fish, and then we actually did go to dinner. It was kind of weird hot pot, but it wasn't bad. There was some delicious desert that was like shaved ice with syrup and sweetened condensed milk on top, with small bits of deep-fried-dough-stuff in it. Amazing. There was also some other exchange student at the table next to us, but I had no idea who it was, so I didn't say hello.

When we all went back to the house, my uncle came over and everybody started playing some card game that was clearly pointless without the obvious gambling everybody was doing with all their ang bao money. Have I mentioned that gambling is technically illegal in Thailand? Hahaha. Oh, host family. I just watched for a while, because I had no idea how to play. But after watching for like 45 minutes and still having no idea at all, my host cousin came over and explained it to me. It was still confusing (and I still couldn't properly explain all the rules to anybody), but it finally made sense, so my cousin gave me a 5 baht coin and told me to play. After like 15 minutes that was gone, so I went and got my own 20 baht-- which ended up lasting me a good 2 1/2 hours, at one point in which I had like 65 baht. I was doing well. And then I lost it all. So two of my cousins ended up giving me a collective 20 baht, so I could finish playing with everybody else, and I ended up making an extra 35 baht. So I ended up being able to pay my cousins back, making back my 20 baht lost, and then an extra 15 baht. 3 hours of pok deng: $0.45. I am an excellent gambler.

After that we went to sleep, and then on Sunday, after eating breakfast and then going and eating lunch like half an hour later, we came home. I spent the rest of the day watching bad Korean dramas. And then translating the rest of Killer Queen.

Today I went to Thai class, but my teacher was sick, and her mother was substituting for her. So we just chatted with her in Thai for a bit, and handed in our songs, and then she told us to go. Us females ended up going to the mall, where we went and wandered around the market of traditional Thai goods that is currently in the big hall there, and then eating sushi, and then wandering around. I am going to be so sad when I can't go to the mall and get 9 pieces of decent sushi for $2. So. Sad.

You have no idea.

:c

The past week has not been particularly eventful.

Last Sunday was Rianna's birthday. Mama Sea took a few of us to dinner at the same place as my birthday party. This time, instead of eating bad curry, Rianna actually got to order what we ate, and it was delicious. Good Thai food is so good.

Some time in the past few weeks a new exchange student came to Korat, from South Africa. Her name is Jessie, and she seems very nice. It's also nice to have somebody new around, so that's good. Yesterday a bunch of us, including her, hung out and played cards (heavily disapproved of in public places here :[ ) at Mario's house. We've now expanded our game playing repertoire to include Texas hold'em.

In other news, as of Monday I've been here 6 MONTHS. That is a full HALF OF A YEAR. It's hard to believe, actually. It still feels like being here is so temporary, and like I've only been here for a short while. And yet, I feel like I have spent a lot of time here, I do have that 6 months of experience, and 6 months have indeed passed. Maybe it's because of the slight monotony of living here? Either way, it's pretty weird.

It's been a while.

Two months later, and I'm really very happy with my second host family. I finally speak almost completely in Thai to them, and only fall back on English for the occasional word that I don't know, or in case of a minor emergency. Both of my host parents are also very fun, nice people, and one of the few annoyances that I had with living here-- that I was not allowed to walk from the street, through my neighborhood, to my house-- has just, in the past few days, been solved. (I explained to my host mom that "maa rak Sopa!" [dogs love Sopa!], and that "chan mai gowa maa!" [I'm not afraid of dogs!], and so she decided it was okay.) Unfortunately, my host cousins, who were both very nice, left a couple of weeks ago, but that's not too bad. Just a little sad. Otherwise, unsurprisingly, I've really settled in.

At school, things haven't changed much. I have a few more friends, and have changed a couple of classes, and have actually learned some people's Thai names (people never introduce themselves to us properly!), but otherwise, things have been normal, every-day, Thai vocational college. Or, my school's proper name, Wittayalai Achiwa Suk Sa Nakhon Ratchasima.

Sometime in December I went with some of my rotary club to Chiang Mai, and some other places in the north, for 5 days. That was pretty exciting. We went to quite a few temples, and also some other interesting places. For a while we went up to Chiang Rai, way up north, which I really liked. We stayed at a homestay in a small village, very high in the mountains, and drank some very nice tea-- something Chiang Rai is known for. Also in Chiang Rai was my favorite temple so far, whose name I can't remember, but it was all bright white and very cool. It isn't finished being built yet, and isn't supposed to be until around 2080, but I think it's already pretty magnificent. We also stopped at a temple that is supposed to have the most beautiful buddha statue in the world. It did not seem particularly amazing to me, but it was located in Phitsanulok, where my American Thai tutor was from.

The most exciting recent event was most definitely my school's Wan Nak Kila, or something. AKA Sports Day. Or, in reality, sports 2 days. It was last Thursday and Friday. Now let me tell you, a field day at a vocational college in Thailand is like none you have ever seen before.

Most of the school (there seemed to be a portion that wasn't participating) was divided into 6 teams, each one a different color, and I'm pretty sure the teams were decided by major. (Because entire classes we recognized were together.) There were red, yellow, green, blue, pink, and orange teams. Technically, I was part of team yellow, but since I didn't actually participate in anything, it didn't really matter. Thursday morning, around 8:20, I walked onto campus, and after walking in a little, I glanced back at the side of the field, and noticed the entire side was covered with 6 bleachers, already full of people, each bleacher devoted to a team. The day started with a huge parade, which covered the entire field, once everybody in the parade had gone and lined up there. Big groups of people were wearing flamboyant costumes. After the parade, I understood why, when all of the groups simply had a huge cheer session, involving lots of cheerleaders, large portions of which were men, doing silly dances in said costumes. The cheerleading, on its own, starting at about 9 in the morning, went on until about 11:30. Finally, then, some actual sports were played. Girls handball, I think. Even then, though, the dancers continued to dance, while all the kids in the bleachers continued to do their hand movements and some other seriously fancy manouvers. (Pink was doing some crazy stuff.) After that point, most of the day had intermitent sporting-activity, while the cheerleaders continued to cheer. They must have been exhausted by the end of the day, because it ended at 6.

Friday, I walked in around the same time, to find the same thing as the first day, plus some very loud Thai music playing. Mauricio and Rianna came after a little bit, and then some girl walking by told us we should go sit in the teacher's tent, which was pretty nice, because it was in the shade and had a good view. While the teams had plenty of time to show off their dances in the day's new flamboyant costumes, on Friday they actually started with sports things at a reasonable time. Although, the first thing that was done was a walking race. We were like "Really? Really? A walking race??" But soon after that some real races were done, and all of the people in the walking race ended up doing other things too. I had a couple different Thai friends doing the 50 meter dash, and one or two other races. Eventually Dana showed up, and then Alex, and by then they were on to other things. After lunch, Erin came and joined us too, just in time to see some ridiculous... joking races, I guess? One of which seemed to involve eating your way through some disgusting things, and another in which two people had to carry the rest of their team across. After that they went on to soccer, and by the late afternoon the sports were finished, and Erin had to leave. After that, each team had a special dancing/cheering show, some of which were incredibly boring, and some of which were pretty cool. Entertainingly, even though the red team had been one of the lamest teams, cheering-wise, all of both days, their last performance was the best.

After the performances, music came on, and a dance party started, there on the field. Thai kids dancing, by the way, are hilarious. For this dance we all decided to just throw ourselves into it. We danced our way all the way around the field. The Thai kids were kind of baffled, like "Wait, the foreigners are actually into it, and they want to dance? WITH US? Sweet!" And that was, of course, pretty fun.

Today, Saturday, almost all of the exchange students in Korat got together, including the new girl from South Africa (!), to kind of celebrate Rianna's birthday (which is tomorrow). It was not particularly eventful, although we went and got ice cream cake, and got to go eat on the second floor of Swensen's!!! Score!!

Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Pink, Orange, with some of their dancers out.

Students vs. Teachers soccer

The walking race, looking about as stupid as it really was, hahaha.


ONE of the yellow team's, my team's, set of dancers.


An actual race. I know the guy in flourescant green.


Amazingly enough, the dancers had a race, too. It was wonderful.


The green team's final performance.

The pink team's final performance, complete with ENORMOUS BUTTERFLY WINGS.


But red still took the cake. They finished with REAL FIREWORKS. Like, the kind that you see in fancy fireworks shows.


Me, at the beginning of the party, with a man who I love but who has never told me his name.
Seriously though, this guy is great.