. .. ... .. .

So, I'm almost done teaching. Next week we review, and the week after that is final exams. I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. Sometimes it seemed like it would never end, but now that it is I find myself having trouble believing that I'm moving back to America in just a few short weeks. Words, pictures, drawings can't explain everything I've gotten to see/do/hear/smell/eat/live here. Sometimes it just seems so surreal that this is my life. I am looking forward to getting back to America. I miss my friends and family more than I thought possible. The support I've had from family/friends has been so wonderful. I've strengthened a lot of friendships that surprised me, and kind of fell out of touch with others. But, knowing everything/everyone I'm going home to makes leaving Bangkok seem okay. As much as I complain about missing America, I seriously can't express how much I love Thailand. I have also made some sure to be life-long friendships with people from all over the world. They've all made living so far away seem easy, and we really depend on each other like family. I really am a lucky girl. So my goal for the next 5 weeks is to just really take in every moment I have and enjoy it. I may even miss a few students!

I was talking to a friend the other day and she told me to go have an adventure and blog about it. And I did! Nick and I went to the Grand Palace, which we've been saying we'd do for the past 10 months. The Grand Palace has a very very strict dress code--You have to be covered from your shoulders to your toes. I totally understand this, but seriously....it's like 193 degrees every day. So, it was hot. But it was beautiful. Rama II made the Grand Palace like a billion years ago, and it's still used for government purposes, but not like it was, obviously. We got to see the most holy place in Thailand. It's called the Emerald Buddha. It was in a temple that had gorgeous wall paintings, and it was pretty much filled with gold. The Buddha was on top of a bunch of other holy things, and it was just this huge room where you could sit and think or pray or whatever. It was so so beautiful. After we did that we just walked around the rest of the place, pretty much just walking in circles because it was confusing. Anyway, I don't have a lot to say about it, so I'll just post some pictures.

Ps, I got a nasty burn from a motorbike today. No good.

Standard moments.

I feel as if I haven't painted a clear enough picture of what my classes are like. Usually I spend 20 minutes screaming for them to be quiet, 5 minutes teaching, and then the rest of the 2 hours reading. This is how 99.9999% of my conversations with students go:

Student: TEACHER! ฉันเป็นคนโง่งี่เง่า

Me: What?

Student: ฉันเป็นคนโง่งี่เง่า

Me: I never know what you're saying.

Student: ฉันเป็นคนโง่งี่เง่า

Me: Arai? [which means "what" in Thai]

Student: ฉันเป็นคนโง่งี่เง่า

Me: Arai Wa?

Student: TEACHERRRR ฉันเป็นคนโง่งี่เง่า!

Me: Okay.

This usually results in the student leaving the room.

In other news I had a taxi driver yesterday who spent the entire hour+ burping. Like just letting them rip. Man, I'm going to miss this place.

Beaches, books, and beers.

Once again, long overdue. Let me start off by saying I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, and got to spend lots of time with friends and family. We had a pretty good Christmas in Bangkok--a Christmas tree, stockings, good food, good conversation--all that good stuff.

The first part of our second semester ended on Christmas Eve, and I left for a little mini-holiday a few days later. We had 10 days off school, so instead of wasting away in my living room in Bangkok, I decided I wanted to see the beauty I know Thailand has, which I don't get to see much of in the middle of a big city. In the [very] little research I did on Thailand before I moved here I came across many pictures of Koh Phi Phi, and island in the southern part of Thailand. From that second on, I knew I had to get there. However, it's expensive as shit, especially in peak season. So, I decided to go to the even more popular island of Phuket, which is pretty close to Phi Phi, and while it's still pretty expensive, I knew there were lots of hostels/guesthouses that I'd be able to stay at. I've never traveled much by myself, so I was a little nervous about taking this trip by myself, especially considering I don't speak the language very well, and I was going to be pretty far out of my comfort zone. However, I did move to the other side of the world, and it would be pretty lame of me to not see as much of it as possible. So, I headed south.

My flights were delayed for about a billion hours, so it took me awhile to actually arrive in Phuket. Then I had to find a way to Patong beach, where I was staying. I found a van/bus thing that was headed that way, so I hopped in there. I got dropped off pretty much in the middle of Patong, so I had no idea where I was going. I had been in Phuket for an hour and was already lost at 2 in the morning. I walked around a lot, and thankfully I can ask for and understand directions in Thai, so I eventually found my way. I stayed at a little guesthouse owned by a wonderful, nice, and extremely helpful Korean couple. They were fantastic.

The first day there I wandered around to find coffee and ended up at the beach, so I stayed there for the rest of the day, because I had no idea how to get back to my hotel. However, I had forgotten a crucial supply for the day. I had coffee, water, snacks, books....but no effing sunscreen. Thus, I got possibly the worst sunburn of my life. Sooo painful. But that's not all that interesting, I guess. Anyway, the Thai guy who was in charge of the beach got me all settled with my chair (80 baht for the day....score!), table, and umbrella. We talked a lot and he was always willing to bring me more beer, sweep the sand off my chair, move my chair in and out of the sun all day, and all other kinds of things. We quickly became best friends, obviously. He called me his favorite teacher. We had an on-going battle about spicy food--he said it was weak and not spicy in Bangkok, and I assured him it was not. We finally settled it when he went and bought some soup from a local street vendor and we tasted it. It kicked my ass. He was so right. So that was pretty much my first day. I read a lot, swam a lot, looked around a lot, drank some beers, took some naps....pretty amazing day on the beach. That night in search of dinner I ended up at a restaurant that was pretty much a whore-house, but I didn't realize that until I was leaving. So that was silly. Good food, though.

The second day I got to do what I had wanted to do for the past 10 months. I booked a day trip to Koh Phi Phi. I was going to just take the ferry and figure it out myself, but I'd probably end up lost in the jungle or something. So for like 40 dollars I got a full day trip. I, as is my standard, never really knew what was going on, or where I was supposed to be, but it was hands-down one of the most amazing days of my entire life. It was definitely the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I spent most of the day with an Australian couple who were also on the trip. She was 16 and he was 34. They were really fun, but I'll just leave it at that. We went to three or four different islands (2 of which are considered Phi Phi) via speedboat. Now, I've never gotten sea sick, but I now understand why people do. While the boat was fun and all that, holy shit, it was bumpy. So we went to a small island and walked around for a bit. That wasn't actually all that fun, but it was pretty. I spent most of the day just looking around. We then went to Monkey Beach, where you can feed wild monkeys. However, there weren't any damn monkeys. But the beach was nice, and the water was amazing. Then we went to Pileh Lagoon, which was just.....I actually don't think I can explain it. My friend Sarah saw a picture and called it the Mermaid Lagoon. I think I'll just leave it at that. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Then we went to Maya Bay, which is where they filmed the movie The Beach (you should watch it because it's pretty. the movie kind of sucks though. read the book). It's the most popular part of Phi Phi island, and it's pretty obvious why. Pure white sand, completely clear water, with cliffs and the jungle surrounding it. And, obviously, leonardo dicaprio has been there. Anyway, we had heard before we got there that we could only stay for a little bit because they were shutting off most of the island because the King and royal family was going to be there. The King is a huge deal, so I wasn't surprised that when we got to the beach there was lots of security. BUT THEN, the royal family arrived! I got to see them arrive! I know none of you who read this have been to Thailand, so you don't know how huge that is, but it is. It was awesome. Ok, so then we left Maya Bay and went to another beach which was pretty much the same as the others. Then we went snorkeling. I've never been snorkeling before, so I was pretty excited. You didn't even really need to go snorkeling to see all the way to the bottom of the water, but it was still awesome to do it. I don't like fish, in fact I hate them, but it was pretty amazing to swim with them. There were huge corals and lots of different kinds of fish everywhere. There were also sea urchins that were at least the size of my head. Terrifying. I think I got stung by something while I was out there, but I'm not dead, so it must not have been something bad. So that was my trip to Phi Phi. Something I'll never forget. Ever.

The next day was pretty much the same as the first day, but with a lot more sunscreen. I did, however, go parasailing! So fun. I asked my favorite Thai guy about it, and he told me to get on his motorbike and we flew down the street to another beach. They grabbed my purse and stuck it on a chair, and started harnessing me up. I've never parasailed....I had no idea what was going on. At one point the guy who was attaching the sail thing told me that all I had to do when he told me was run. He didn't give me any direction, didn't say when to stop running, he jus told me to run. I was so confused, and positive that I was going to faceplant and then be dragged in front of the hundreds of people on the beach. Thankfully, I was wrong. When he told me, I ran, and then all of a sudden I was up in the air. I got to see all of Phuket, and it was stunning. When I started coming down I realized they hadn't told me anything about how this whole thing was going to end. Slightly terrifying. So I just crashed into the water. It was really funny.

So, I guess that is a very long-winded version of the highlights of the trip. It was wonderful to travel alone. I'm glad that at 23 I know that I can do that, and do it pretty well. It's very...freeing. I think it's so important for people my age to get out and just...do something. So, I guess I'm proud of myself for doing it.

I'm a lucky girl. A very, very lucky girl.

Ok, picture time, if any of you made it this far.

[Snorkeling--Khai Nai]

[Maya Bay]

[Maya Bay, again]

[Maya Bay...last one, I promise. It's just so pretty]

[One of the tour guides. Hilarious]

[Pileh Lagoon]

[Pileh Lagoon]

[Going into Pileh Lagoon]

[Yours truly]

[First glimpse of Phi Phi]

[Vacation.]

[Patong Beach]

PS....I'LL BE HOME IN 9 WEEKS!

English Camp

I already have a feeling this blog is going to have tangents. Just...so you know.

That being said, I'm going to go on a brief, clarifying tangent. I want you to briefly look back on field trips you had in high school. Do you remember how often attendance was taken, how you were never allowed to be alone, and how you could never ever go in water aside from a shower, or have co-ed sleeping quarters? Yeah? Ok, think the opposite for Thai field trips. We took students to see a movie a few months ago, and they all lined up and then just scattered--some jumping on motorbikes, others walking, others taking the bus or a taxi, and others who probably just went home. It's just up to them to get there. Insanity. Now, this works. I'm not shit-talking Thai field trips. I'm merely pointing out the difference.

So, English Camp. Don't let the name fool you, there is very little English spoken on this 3-day excursion. We took our LVT (language major) students, levels 1-3, with higher vocation students there to be our helpers. Going into English camp, I was by NO means looking forward to it. I had heard just terrible things about it, and that the students were awful and that it was just going to be three days of no fun. I was pleased to find that I didn't feel that way. Would I ever want to do it again? No, probably not. But it was so much more fun than I had expected.

So we left Bangkok at "7" am (The "" are because in Thai time that really means like 9:30) and headed south. We went to a resort on the Ocean (that might not be true, it might have been the Golf of Thailand.) that was about six hours south of Bangkok. We stopped at a Temple on the way there, but I don't think I was appropriately dressed and I was starving, so I didn't really look around there too much. It was pretty though. Lots of mountains. We got to the resort and everyone grabbed their luggage and then we found our rooms. The teachers had a house, the older students had a house and the rest of the students were in the hotel part of the resort. Worked out pretty well, actually. So then we sat around. Mostly what English Camp consisted of was waiting. Always freaking waiting. So everyone got changed and we met back at the beach for games and silliness. We played tug-of-war. And a lot of it. I hate tug-of-war. But it was fun to watch the students. So then we all jumped in the water and played in the waves. That night there wasn't much planned except for some stupid games that had absolutely nothing to do with the English language. Then all the students got drunk. Hi-Laaaaaarious. That means hilarious. I thought I would hate drunk students, but boy was I wrong. First of all, they're all drunk so they're super nice and generous. Especially generous with their whiskey. So we kinda toured a bunch of different rooms, said hi to the students we like. The first years, who are only like 15 got super drunk and it was just....it was just really really funny.

The next day we went to a temple that was way up in the hills over looking the water. It was stunning. There was a little temple thing at the entrance, with a huge statue. It was awesome. Then if you walked for like ten miles and up fifty-one thousand stairs, there was a huuuuuuge temple. Once again, I wasn't appropriately dressed, so I couldn't go in, but I hung out outside, and it was gorgeous. That afternoon we had to play more stupid games, but this time the teachers ran the games so there was actual English being spoken. I got tired of my game by the end and just had students tell me a word in English, but it went well overall.

The second night was "fancy night." Students got all dressed up, which was fun and cute, and there was a talent show thing. Teachers sang, students sang, students danced, students dressed in drag...there was a lot going on. But it was silly. Then the teachers had to do a fashion show. And anyone who knows me can probably guess how I felt about that. If you don't, I'll tell you. Barf. Barf is how I feel about that kind of thing. So Nick dressed as Harry Potter and I was Hermione. So that was awesome. After our fashion show we [teachers] sat on the beach and were given pieces of yarn or string or something. The students then came up to us and kneeled and we tied the things around their wrists. It was just like a respect/good wishes/thanks type thing. It was really pretty, actually. There was also a seafood buffet that night and drinking and general merriment. The next day we sat around for about 13.6 hours and finally made it home. So, I guess that's just the gist of it. I'm not sure how this got so long. Sorry 'bout that. But here are some pictures:

[One of my favorite students, Mai. She's just wonderful]

]Teachers playing tug-of-war. Terrible]

[Clearly more concentrated on smiling for the picture than on the game.]

[The class these kids are in makes my head nearly explode. But these kids are okay.]

[Big ass statue]

[IEP, higher vocational, kids]

[View from the temple]

[Foreign Language Teachers! L to R: Nick, me, Nahoko (Japanese), Ploy, Liu (Chinese) Som, Jill, and Joel]

[Nick and Ploy]

[Teachers. Stairs. You know.]

[This is Ching. He never speaks or does classwork. I just leaned he knew any English at all. And he spends his class time messing with his hair. But for some reason he's pretty much one of my favorite students. I've heard him say probably a total of 15 words.]

[This girl got best dressed. Whaaaaat?? The "dress" didn't even have any sort of back to it. You stay classy, CSB.]

[Hermione and Harry. Notice the branches. I mean wands]

[Thai midnight snack: grilled whole fish and cockles. yum. not. ]

Oh, did I mention that every single meal was fish or seafood? NOT COOL.

Ok, this is long as shit. I'm going on vacation in a couple weeks, maybe I'll write another after that. Ok bye.

I don't have a name for this season.

Bangkok is weather weird. The first few weeks after I got back from England it was goooorgeous here. However, right before I got back most of the city flooded and then it got VERY hot again--for example, Thanksgiving was well into the 90s. Anyway, with this heat came the mosquitos. They swarm everywhere, even inside. It's straight up disgusting. I've been getting eaten alive for a few weeks now, but nothing compared to what happened to me just a mere 24 hours ago. I have a friend who is moving, so we went to a little get together at his old place. We sat outside their place, which has a beautiful deck overlooking the river. We were just there for a few hours, but in two hours i got SIXTY-EIGHT, that's 68, mosquito bites on my feet alone. I mean, my legs got eaten too, but seriously. 68. So that's how my life is going.

In other news, we made a Thanksgiving feast, and it was delicious. I'll post pictures sometime.

You should watch this video, because this song is amazing. Okay. That's all.

Loi Krathong

I officially have a new favorite holiday. And that is Loi Krathong. "Loi" means "to float," and a Krathong is a little raft thing made of flowers and bread. Krathongs are made of bread so that when they are put in the water the fish will be able to eat them. I love that. Anyway, the holiday happens on the full moon of the Thai 12th month, which in the real world [jokes] is November. My very basic understanding of the holiday is this: the Krathong, which is made of banana leaves and decorated with flowers, is topped with candles and sticks of incense. The Krathongs are then released into a canal, river, or really any body of water. Before you release your Krathong, you make a wish for the new year, and once you put it in the water you essentially let go of anger, feelings of unrest, grudges, and really any negative energy. By doing this you are able to start fresh. Isn't that awesome?? It's beautiful. The whole week before the actual day is spent making Krathongs and shooting off fireworks. It was a very noisy week! But we did buy some sketchy fireworks on the side of the road, which was excellent. So that's what Loi Krathong is.

I went to the Rama VIII bridge which is actually not all that far from my house. I went with Nick, our friend Cleo, and some teachers from our school. We took taxis to the bridge. Or we at least tried. Traffic was some of the worst I've ever experienced. We ended up walking a lot of the way there. There were thousands of people trying to cram into a not very large space. There were people selling food, beer, fireworks, Krathongs, and pretty much anything else you can think of. The Rama bridge is by no means the only place to go, but it is probably the best. The Rama bridge is beautiful and there's a lot of space under it by the water. It took us about an hour to get through the crowd so we could release our Krathongs. I can't really explain much else about that, but it was just really amazing. After we put our Krathongs in the water and watched them float out to sea, we headed up to walk on the bridge. It took 20 minutes to walk up the stairs because of the amount of people. Wah. Anyway, there were people lighting these huuuuuge lanterns from the bridge. They floated up and the usually-polluted sky was full of these beautiful lanterns. It was seriously one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Then there was a fireworks show. As it turns out, Thai people are super skittish about fireworks, and it is hilarious.

Well, I guess that's all about Loi Krathong. I just really loved it. Here are pictures:

[Lanterns, pre-liftoff]

[Lanterns in the sky, from the bridge]

[Fun boat]

[Liu, Nahoko, and Nick. CSB represent!]

[We're silly]

[It was well over 100 degrees. Boo]

[The amount of people we had to get through to get to the water]

[Silly Krathongs]

[Cleo and me with our Krathongs]

[Yay Loi Krathong!]

An American, living in Thailand, visits the UK

As always, this post is being written approximately a month later than it should have been. I'm terrible, I know.

Anyway, because I'm a teacher I have amazing amounts of time off work. It really makes me think I should have gone to school for education. Okay, not really, but still--it's a great amount of time spent not working. I had most of the month of October off, so I packed up and headed to England to visit my mom and Jonny for three weeks. They live in a beeeautiful town called Cheltenham. It's a little north/west of London (I think), and it's pretty much just amazing.

I visited England in 2008(I think) for 8 days. In those 8 days my friends and I packed in so much activity and sight seeing that it probably took me weeks to recover. This trip was a bit more relaxing--as I had three times the amount of time there.

I've only been living in Bangkok for 6 months, but it appears I have totally forgotten what normal weather feels like. When I got to England I was FREEZING! I got a bit used to it, but for the first part of the trip it was pretty brutal. We packed a lot of stuff into my time there, so I'm just going to re-cap the big things on here. Because I'm lazy.

1. Cheltenham Literature Festival. Hellllll yes!

This was really a combination of the fates aligning and heaven opening up to make me happy. The first week I was in Cheltenham the Literature Festival came rolling in. What could be better? Probably nothing. We had tickets for a few events, and we randomly happened upon others. A few days I didn't even attend any actual events, I just walked around the festival and spent all my money on books. We saw authors speak about Frankenstein, Fantastic literature, and also specific books. I saw an author named David Nicholls, and pretty much fell in love with his work. I got to meet some amazing authors, and the whole experience was just amazing. Being surrounded by tons of people who share my ridiculous love of books? ohhhhh yes. Amazing.

2. Walter Peyton Manning Robertson

So the week before I arrived in peaceful Cheltenham, a little bit of crazy moved in. This five-pound fur ball is named Walter. He's a Wire Fox Terrier, and is-- I'm just going to be blunt--totally crazy. I haven't been around a puppy in 15 years, so I think I forgot how nuts-o they really are. Walter is the top of the crazies. He is super smart, and enjoys to be naughty. Pretty much all of my clothing now has holes in it, and it was not out of the ordinary for him to attempt to de-pants me. What a guy. He was really funny though; I wish I had taken a video of him, because he hunts everything. So fantastic. So that's Walter. Here are some pictures because he's so damn cute.

3. Bath

The first time I was in England we didn't have time to go to Bath, and I was pretty bummed I didn't get to see it. This was quickly solved my second week in England. I think that I'm going to mysteriously get very, very rich and move to Bath. It's an amazing town. It sits way down in a valley and it's tiny and there are hills everywhere. Like a British San Francisco. Well, I've never been to San Francisco, so I'm making that up. But anyway, it was gorgeous. We walked around the town, ate yummy food, and then went into the baths. Holy amazing! I could have spent all day walking around the baths. There was so much history and so many stories, and ohhhhh my. I loved it. So that's Bath!

4. Sunday R0ast

There are approximately fifty-thousand reasons why I want to live in the UK. I now have one that has moved to the top of the list. That would be Sunday Roast. It's basically like Thanksgiving dinner every freaking weekend! One of the first weekends I was there we went to George and Marion's house. They are wonderful. They are friends of my parents and they are just fantastic people. We talked and ate and drank, and just had ourselves a grand ol' time. The food was amaaaaaazing. We had about five different vegetables, beef, turnips, Yorkshire pudding, potatoes (two kinds), and wine. Lots of wine, actually. Then there was dessert. Two desserts. Oh my. It was one of the best meals I've had in a long time, and the most fun I had had in months. We got Sunday Roast again at a little place that was either in Wales, or just close to it. It was charming. Also delicious. I should only blog about food. Yes. Yes yes. Anyway, this is where we had Sunday Roast the second time.

5. Castle Crawl 2010

Because England and Wales are like a billion years old, there are castles all over the country. Jonny had the wonderful idea to see how many castles we could visit in one day. I had never been to Wales, so we went to one in England and three in Wales. It was a pretty amazing day. We wandered around all these old ruins, and it was just breathtakingly beautiful. We took an audio tour of one of them, and just freely wandered around the rest. I took like five thousand pictures, but here are a couple.

6. Misc.

Well those are the major things we did. We also had lots of wonderful days walking around, shopping, eating, and enjoying the beautiful fall weather. There were beautiful parks and funny people and cool clothes and fun shops--all for the taking. Jonny's birthday was one of the last days I was there. We drank a lot of wine and ate some delicious food, and had a pretty great day.

It was a wonderful vacation, and I wish I could go back like....tomorrow.

Okay, that's all for now.