AH! Where has the time gone?

Wow, this week has been insane! Thursday was my last day of classes and I had my final exams, so now I am offically done with classes in Thailand. That is insane! I remember the first day we had class. We all put on our uniforms for the first time and climbed in the rot-dang and went to the school...and now, it's over! And tomorrow I will be moving out of my host families house and turning back into a college student instead of the middle schooler I have felt like since living here. In another post I'll share with you things I've learned while living with my host family. I've learned to appreciate so many little things about my real family! :)
Also this past week we were able to go to a few other internships. On Monday we had a party at Bon Patsowan...it's a school for slum kids and a bunch of SST students were teaching there. It was so awesome to see the school they've been at and have a visual to back up all the stories. Then on Tuesday we were able to go to the Juvenile Center. I can't remember if I wrote about that the last time I went there or not. But we did another talent show. That place is awesome. I wonder if I had gone to visit it also if I would have chosen to do my internship there. But Agape was awesome too! We did a talent show there and some of the people who live there did some acts too...like fire blowing! It was insane! I'll post the videos if I can figure out how to make it load faster.
Also there was a clown show while we were there. (A little background on that. THere is this lady who lives in Minnesota and runs an arts center for mentally and physically disabled adults. She also helps them put on plays. Apparently they are really cool. There is a similar place here in Thailand. The people go there and weave things. So Aj Mike invited this lady, Jeanie, from Minnesota to come and work among the disabled people in Thailand and put on a play. So she's been here for about a month and has been going around to all the disabled places and working with them and the one place that has two students interning at put on a clown show. It was so cool. It was neat to hear the stories about how these people started to open up. So they put a show on at the Juvenile center. Jeanie is trying to work with some of the BIG (i'm talking huge people...head of disabilities programs for all northern Thailand, friends of the King, etc) people to create a center like the one in Minnesota for the people here. In Thailand if you have a disability like down syndrome or something else, it is very looked down upon. It is thought that you had bad karma in your past life and that is why you are how you are in your current life. So with this mindset it is difficult to get people to help them and see that they can really do things. Its a sad mindset, but very Buddhist. So anyway, that's the background on the clown shows.)
Wednesday I went shopping at the Mall in the afternoon and got a few awesome nail polishes! Then I met some people at a coffee shop to study for our exam on Thursday. While we were there we met some other foreigners who had been living in Thailand for 10 years are were teachers. They had some interesting perspectives on Thailand. The one did not even speak Thai...this amazed me.
Thursday after our exam I went shopping at the school store...and got myself a wonderful CMU t-shirt. Then we went to lunch at the Boat Bakery....Aj Mike's treat. It was birthday lunch for two people. I love birthday lunches! I had a cheese burger and fries! Wonderful!! :) Then Ty, Dascia and I went to the mall and I got a pedicure while they got foot massages. My feet are so amazingly smooth! It's wonderful! And the good news is that it was less than $3. I also asked about getting my eye brows waxed and they all looked at me and laughed. Then looked really close at my eyebrows and pretty much said...you don't have any! They are blonde! But I asked them to fix them up anyway. The lady came out with a little razor and cleaned them up...interesting. They looked much better... but really who shaves your eyebrows! I guess we'll see what happens when they start to grow back...
Then we hung around the mall for a while and met up with two other guys. We found the donut shop and got some snacks and then decided to see a movie. So we went to the other mall where the English theater is. There were about 45 min of previews and they had all these previews of movies about monks...but these were monks gone wild. haha. Then there were a few previews about how great the king is and then finally the movie. The ticket was less than $3 and you chose your seat number. But no one reads the seat number in the theater anyway. The theater looked just like a the Lowes in East Hanover. And was bigger than Caldwell...so funny.
Friday I had the day off. So the Agape ladies took us out for lunch! That was a lot of fun! I had cashew chicken...which has become one of my favorite foods in Thailand and sticky rice...another great food that I will miss back in America. Then for dinner Dascia's host mom invited me over to have dinner with them (she has been so generous to me this trip...she has driven me to school and back everyday this week b/c my host mom wouldn't for some reason, and has bought me coffee at markets and is just so sweet. i think i will miss her). So she invited Ty (Dascia's boyfriend) and I over for some traditional stew thing. It was called "muupa"...which is pork something. Basically you have this huge bowl and you put hot coals in it and then over top you put another bowl and it has a ledge in it where you put "naam soup". Which is water soup. It's basically just broth...then you put veggies and "fishballs" and "porkballs" which are just meat balls. And then on the top there is like a grill part where you put pork and you wait for it to cook and then you eat it. It was really fun. We all sat outside with some of Dascia's host family extended family and just ate it. It was like camping in the front yard. But it was so fun. Then her mom made us shaved ice for dessert!! :) A snow cone in Thailand when it is 95 degrees outside is amazing! It was lots of fun.
So today, is Saturday. I did some laundry this morning and am hoping that it will be dry enough to pack in a few hours. It should be because it is so hot outside.
And then tomorrow morning we leave for our week long field trip followed by spring break! I'm so excited. I remember looking on the schedule when we first got here and thinking about how far away this field trip was going to be...but now it's here! Only 6 weeks left in Thailand. I've been here for 9 1/2 weeks! Insane!
Over and out for now...time to go pack!!