Host Family

My host brothers left for my host mothers family today in Puket. So we went to the airport to see them off. My host mother will leave for vacation there at the end of this week after I leave and the my host father will leave a week later. The funny thing was that my host mother packed a cooler box full of meats and veggies to send down to her family. Apparently they don't have some of that stuff down south or it's more expensive. And coming home they will pack it was seafood. It just thought it was funny. Now I am an "only host child". Well see how that goes.

Gotta love Thai DVDs

Friday night I went home with a girl who lives in the same area as me and her host mother took us to the Night Bizzar. It's a huge shopping market that has everything. It was so much fun. I got a few more DVDs to add to my collection. I even purchased Valentine's Day. A movie that was just, or maybe still is, in Theatres. It looked cute and I wanted to see it so I got it. It's quite special. It was actually filmed in a movie theatre and then burned to a disc and sold to me. Such great quality...not. But it's ok. I could still watch it. I knew it would be like that because it's still in Theaters, I just thought it was funny. haha. Gotta love Thai pirated DVDs.

Other Random Stuff

Last night was the farewell party. It was a huge party to thank everyone that has helped us in Chiang Mai so far. Our host families were all there, our internships, our professors, even our Rot-Dang drivers. This party was like a wedding reception with an MIA bride and groom. Seriously. It was huge. It was at a really nice resort at the lake side. And the music that was playing was hilarious. It was wedding reception music...I'm talking songs like "My Heart Will Go On".... It was so much fun. My host father had to work but he was able to make it at the very very very end so we could take a picture. It was so sweet of him to even come because he definitely didn't have to, but he did. It made me feel special.
I made a video of all the stuff we've done so far in Thailand and showed it. It got lots of compliments and I think it turned out well. Aj Mike is buying DVDs so I can make copies for everyone. I'm gonna try to upload it in pieces to youtube. It might be too big of a file to upload while I'm here because it would go so slow. But i'll try!

Post Office

Ok, sorry it's been so long since I last updated. I am finishing up my time in Chiang Mai and finishing classes and finishing my internship and doing final projects...etc... basically that all equals that I have no time! So now I will fill you all in on the past week...
First I will tell you the stamp story... If you have been checking dropshots.com/mkinthailand you will have seen a picture of an envelope with like 4 stamps on it....there is a story behind that. I have had it forever and just needed a stamp. It took me a long time to find the time to be able to go to the post office. I found the time last week when I didn't have internship for a day. I walked myself down there and took a number. When I was called I asked for a stamp. The post office guy just stared at me blankly, so I said it again. Still blank stare... so once again I asked for a "stamp to America". This time I drew out a letter with my fingers and proceeded to point to the corner where a stamp would go. He then kinda understood and pointed me to another desk. So I waited in line there and then went through the whole process again....including the blank stares. It ended with that lady pointing me back to the first desk I was at. So I went back over and took another number. The guy behind the desk just kept laughing at me whenever he looked up from helping the person in front of me. I then went through the whole process again, speaking Thai and English and then he picked up a letter and asked me where mine was. I told him it was at home but I needed a stamp and would mail it at a mailbox...apparently you need the letter to weigh first to buy a stamp...well, no one told me that. So he weighed a random letter that he found and then told me a price. So I said fine, I'll take it. I reach for my wallet and start counting out the money, and he points to back to the other desk. I was so confused but when back over there. I thought I was finally getting somewhere, but then I had to start again. Back to the whole stamp to america thing and then I said the price and she gave me ,not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 huge stamps! There was no way they were all going to fit on my letter...but I took them and said thank you. I had to almost outline the letter with them because there were so many and it was such a small letter. But at least I was able to get them after spending about 15 minutes in the post office.

Exciting News!

I just found out last night that my mom and brother will be coming to Thailand for a week at the end of the program and I'll get to show them where I've been living!! I'm soooo excited but really wish my dad could be coming too....I told him to make it a business trip and come sell textbook to Thailand!
Another piece of excitement is that Spring Break is just around the corner. We're still finalizing our plans but we know for sure that we are headed to Kho Chang. It's Elephant Island. It should be wonderfully relaxing. We're still working on a hotel and all that fun stuff, but we got train tickets to return to Chiang Mai after the beach. We are taking the Night Train from Bangkok to ChiangMai. We're gonna be in the sleeper car with a/c. I'm told it's an awesome experience. There are a bunch of us doing it so the sleeper car might be only us. :)
And...the farewell dinner is this Saturday night. That is gonna be a lot of fun. It's fancy and good food and just a huge party. So I'm working on a video of all the fun stuff we've done in Chiang Mai so far. So everyone is excited to see that! And I'm excited to see the final result too!!

Exams

I got my culture mid-term back and I got an A on that, which is wonderful!! :) And today we had our last Thai language thing EVER! We gave our final speech and did a final group skit. All of which are over now!! :) It's such a good feeling. In the Thai final speech I gave my little 4 minute talk and then they asked me questions. I was really happy because I knew what they were asking me and I knew how to answer and add a little bit more! So I think I did well!! :)

Week Wrapup

It’s been a long time since my last blog update. I guess I just haven’t had that many exciting things to share.

This week was pretty much your average week. Class, Internship, go home, do nothing. Yep…same old same old. It’s kinda crazy to think that parts of my time in Thailand have become that…same old thing. On Tuesday it is officially the ½ way point of my trip. It’s just so insane. I’ll be home in less than 2 months. Wow.

I can’t remember if I told you all this, but I have discovered the English channels on the TV. My family now has let me watch TV. So every now and again I catch an episode of monk on TV. It’s actually quite exciting. I have not been able to watch the Olympics… L sadly the TV doesn’t get that channel. It has Fox News which is good, but it’s basically all just political debates so it’s not exactly the news headlines. To get the news headlines I watch Aljezera TV. Yes…the Taliban network. Haha. But it gives pretty decent world news. Who would have thought?

This week we had art class again. It was much better than my experience with the watercolors. But not that much better. We did ceramics. It was a lot of fun. We toured a pottery village and then were able to make our own bowls with animals on them. After sticking my thumb through the bottom of the bowl 2 times, an art student decided I needed some special attention. So he called over another art student who helped me make a wonderful looking elephant bowl. Then later in the week we painted 2 plates and carved a mug. The painting doesn’t look all that great, but the mug looks good. I had an art student draw a fish on it and then I carved it. I’m excited to get them back. Hopefully nothing bad happens in the firing.

This week we also finished up our Thai language class!! What a wonderful feeling. My brain has been done learning Thai since week 2 of class, but now it’s all done. Tomorrow we have our final exam. We have to do a skit with a group…in Thai. We had to write it and then perform it. So hopefully that goes well. And then I have a final speech. I still need some help with that and it’s 12 hours away. So hopefully my host mother will be able to help me soon.

This is our last week of internship. We have only 3 days this week because tomorrow…Monday….is a national Buddhist holiday. It’s Maka Buja Day. It celebrates the spontaneous gathering of 1500 monks in front of the Buddha and the Buddha gave the rules of conduct for them. So no school for everyone else in the country. . We just have classes. Sunday…today is actually the holiday but tomorrow is the bank holiday.

This past Saturday we had one of our Agape Saturdays! They are always fun. We just went to Agape in the morning and hung out with the kids until lunch. We play jump rope and did balloons and face painting and Aj Mike came and played Santa and did magic tricks. Then after all that we had ice cream! So yummy!! J I’ll post pictures on dropshots! Dropshots is all full on videos so I’m gonna try to upload a select few to my blog! I can’t write the kids names online so that’s why the Agape kids won’t have names. But they are super cute kids!!

Today we had Thai cooking class. It was so much fun. We learned how to make green curry and pad thai and for dessert we made deep fried bananas. It was so delicious! When I get home I am cooking it all! We had the class at the university cooking school so every group of three had their own kitchen area to make it. So I actually got to do the work and learn how to make it.

I have 2 more weeks living with my Thai family. Which in some ways is a really nice thing. Recently it’s been kinda rough. I think my host family has just had too many prior host students and they’ve just given up getting to know people. So they don’t really know me and they are not really making an effort. It was like that all along but now I feel like they are just waiting for me to leave.

I’ll go from feeling really discouraged and then they will do something out of the blue…like invite me to watch Avatar with them. It’s so nice to be invited to do something like that with the family. It’s such a rare occurrence that it makes me feel so special.

I think that’s about it. I wrote a paper on the culture of my family which is pretty interesting if I do say so myself. So if you’re interested in reading it let me know. That’s all for now. Now it’s time for dinner…rice and ___.

Art Class....the bad sequel...

I call this post the bad sequel because you know how sometimes when they made sequels to movies they just turn our terribly and you wonder why they felt the need to continue the story when the story should have just ended? Well, that is how I feel about art class, only there was no choice in the making of the sequel. It just had to happen. Art Class happened on Friday. We had two sessions...and it was TERRIBLE! Seriously! Some people would probably love to have 5-6 hours of art class in one day...but not me! Some art I really enjoy and find it super fun....but when I have to freehand draw things and then paint them, I HATE IT! We started out slowly by drawing an animal. I drew an elephant and it turned out pretty well if I must say so myself. But then I had to paint it and blend the watercolors AND do shading on this thing. Everyone kept telling me to just picture it with a light shining on it...well I just can't do that. It's impossible for my brain to see it like that. So my elephant looked pretty special. In the middle of my elephant painting, we had to break for lunch. This was a welcomed break, especially because it was birthday lunch. It was two people's birthdays so we had a special lunch. This means that Aj. Mike pays and has it specially catered and that we had the best thing of all... CAKE! This cake was funfeti with pink icing because the girl whose birthday it was always has the kind of cake and her best friend...who happens to be on the trip...told Aj Mike that and he got her a special cake. So it was good cake.
But then the torture began again...back to art class. I finally finished my elephant (i'm getting a headache just thinking about this whole ordeal) and then we had to paint a whole other picture. We had to trace a painting (a famous one) and then paint it exactly like the original one. This meant mixing colors and all that fun stuff. It was just so time consuming. About half way through this I had to find my i-pod and turn up the volume so I could just try to find my happy place. I was just getting so mad at this painting. And not because it was hard, just because it was annoying and I was so over painting. It was not fun or relaxing to me. I finally finished and turned it in. When I turned it in I felt like I could have cried...not because I was sad, or happy because it was done, just because this painting made me so frustrated.
I figured it was all up hill from here...no more art class for the rest of the day, but then they gave us our final art project....and the hill suddenly hit a dive and it was down hill again. Our final for the art class is so take one of the famous painting they gave us and draw one of the people in it. Freehand draw a person. Then paint them exactly the way they are in the picture. And there is no chance for tracing this picture because we have to enlarge it. It's not gonna be good...so if anyone is in Thailand and can draw or paint, I would pay you do to this art final....any takers?? I'm dreading this painting and putting it off like it's some type of deadly plague!

Art Class

Mom, I know you are gonna love this! Today, we did watercolors in art class. They gave us all our own set of really nice watercolors, a watercolor paper book and some paint brushes. First we had to draw a flower and then we had to paint it. Mine turned out terrible! And I'm talking terrible! I tried to blend two colors together in the pedal like they showed us and it just looked so ugly. The one art student...who ends up helping me a lot in this class, tried to teach me how to do. But first he had to teach me how to properly hold the paint brush. Apparently I don't hold it correctly. Then he tried tirelessly to teach me how to blend these colors and use the watercolor paints...and I just couldn't do it. On one of my tries it didn't work and he called over the head art guy and they both had a good laugh. Then the art professor came over and got a good chuckle and suddenly most of the art students were gathered around my painting all laughing. Luckily I don't take art that seriously and was not offended in the least...in fact, I was laughing just as hard as they were. The kicker is that since I didn't finish in class, and my painting just looked so ugly, I have to do one for homework. ALL BY MYSELF! And it's gonna be graded! haha...but luckily I'm only taking the class pass/fail. So all I have to do it pass!
In the bag of art supplies they gave us today was also colored pencils made from sticks...they look cool and some charcoal. So Friday's art class should be fun too! This is right up your alley Mom. If only you were here you could do my art project for me and it would look good. Haha.