Kick

So recently I have started to study Muay Thai (Thai Boxing). And because I haven't really exercised since like Sophomore PE....these Muay Thai sessions are kicking my butt. Sure I've been jogging and have worked out a bit but not since I've been in Thailand.

I've only gone to two sessions so far, but the sessions are two hours long and with a personal coach. His name is Jom and he is a Muay Thai Lumphini Champion. Lumphini is a name of an area in Bangkok and is also the name of the National Muay Thai Boxing Stadium here. So, he's a pretty good coach. And, like everything I have done on exchange, Sophie goes with me.

To continue, yesterday about an hour in to our practice, a little girl comes in to watch Sophie and I fail at hitting our teacher in the right way. Then Jom sends me off to go practice on a punching bag while he works with Sophie. Naturally, I start practicing and immediately hurt my shin while trying to kick this bag of what seems like pure lead. Then, the little girl who was innocently watching us earlier decides to come up and show me how to properly kick in a Muay Thai fashion.

The Kung Fu Kid would have been impressed.

This little Thai kid, about half my height, continues to consecutively kick the punching bag about ten times, turning the seemingly lead bag into jelly.

At the end of the practice Sophie and I finally realize that the Thai kid is Jom's daughter. We meet the rest of his family and they all turn out to be like crazy good in Muay Thai. Even the five year old could probably knock me out!
But for now, I'll just keep going to my practices and hope that I never get on the bad side of this Thai family.

Book: I broke down and bought a book, I have The Cartographer and I'm on page 46 because I'm trying to save it for my train ride next week. So, far I enjoy the humor that the main character has!
Thai: kick................................tip

Crab

Yesterday my host aunt called me into the kitchen outside to help her cook. She handed me some garlic to unwrap and went about the kitchen doing kitchen-like things. I started unwrapping the garlic to get to the smelly center when I looked over at my aunt. She was wrestling with six or seven dead red crabs with a butchers knife. Then she looks up at me and asks if I'd even done this before. She wasn't talkie about the garlic, she was talking about the beastly crabs she was wrenching open. I obviously said no and asked if she ever had. She then started laughing and said that she never had either. We both started cracking up, threw all the crab bits and pieces that were on the counter in a pot and started walking to the market. I don't know what it is with this family and seafood but it sure does cause the market by my house to make more money.

Book: Finished remember me trilogy- oddest boom I've ever read.
Thai: plah..............................fish

UPDATE

Well, so much for blogging more often.

So here it goes! An update in five parts!

Part 1: Transcript
School is back in session! This means the city is bursting with students in neatly pressed blue uniforms and the buses are packed so much they almost fall over when they turn. And what does this mean for me? Short term, I went to school yesterday and today to get my transcript (which involved a lot of running around the school, some phone calls, and having to speak a little German?) and say goodbye to my teachers. But I mainly went back to school to meet the new farang teachers....eh...not what I was expecting. And in the long term, since I now have my transcript, and have no classes, I don't have to attend school. Although, school will still affect me because not only is there already traffic in the evening, there will now be traffic when school gets out, and in the morning, so my commute time to the city will now be around 2 and a half hours.

Part 2: Tradition
Sophie and I have a lot of little exchange traditions that we do about once a month. Drink starbucks and eat krispy kreme, eat doner kabobs whenever we see them, get the same snack at 711 every time......are you starting to see the pattern here? They all have to do with food. Well, except for one, once a month we will go get a massage at this spa where all the misuses are gay (we did not know this when we first went there, but once we figured this out- well, it became a tradition). Anyway, we started a new one! We go to this one restaurant right across from this ancient temple and have lunch and then after that we go sight seeing. Last week we had fried rice and went to a mosque. Tomorrow we are planning on going to the National Museum after we eat!

Part 3: Brownie
There is a farang couple in my housing community! Their names are Mary (American) and Pun (Thai) and they have five kids (all under 10) and one on the way! They invited me to have dinner with them, an American dinner. We had barbecue chicken, salad with bell peppers, homemade thyme and rosemary rolls and BROWNIES. I might have eaten three brownies because they are the first brownies I've had in nine months, and they were delicious!

Part 4: Parade
So on Sunday I was riding the bus through the market, and about 50 feet from the bus stop, the bus just randomly stoped. So I looked out my window to see that there was a huge traffic jam, so naturally I get off the bus and start walking to the bus stop so I can cross the street. But I couldn't cross the street because there were hundreds of Meshis (Buddhist nuns novice monks (mostly nuns though)) dressed all in white walking in my way! I looked down the street to find that there was indeed a Buddhist parade going on. It was fully outfitted with monks, soldiers, a picture of the King (as always), a huge Buddha on the back of a truck, horses, and even 10-12 elephants to finish it off! While I'm waiting for the parade to pass I spot 3 farangs in the middle of all the Meshis! Without a second thought, I plowed my way into the crowd and wiggled my way though all the white robed women to finally find the farangs! Turned out, guy #1 was a photographer from Spain who knew guy #2 who is an American and was a monk in Thailand a couple years ago and has now returned to learn Thai and will become ordained as an official monk later this month. Guy #2 is currently staying at the temple where everyone was marching too and where the guy #3 from Denmark is staying as well. The parade was to celebrate Buddha's birthday and so everyone was marching to this temple where they had some relics of Buddha. I ended up marching all the way with them to the temple. Half the time talking with my new acquaintances and half of the time chanting with the Meshis. Guy #2 asked my about my plans for the future (as all adults do since the age of 4) and for once in my life I sort of actually had a plan? I told him about how I hope to go to Georgetown and possibly work for the UN, I also mentioned how I'm not so sure if I will be accepted at Georgetown, to which he said,
"Sometimes, you have to take a lasso and pull those stars down to Earth."
This made me look at applying for college in a new way and throughout the evening Guy #2 kept on slyly mentioning phrases that were full of wisdom and kind ideas. And all I could think about was that if he isn't already enlightened now then he sure will be in his next life!

Part 5: Open
Guy #2 also told me something that his friend who now works for the UN who used to do street-art  always tells young people this one quote. The quote is "the mind is like a parachute, it works best if it is open." And I think that explains what happens when you go on exchange. You free fall for a long time, make mistakes everyday and get confused all the time but then you decide to open up your parachute and then your mind is finally open so that you can find your place in a new culture.

Book: Page 637 of the third book of Remember Me by Chris P. These books are a bit strange and has a awkward plot but I'll just keep reading it anyway.
Thai: Bird............................................................nook

Normal

Before I went on exchange I talked to as Thailand rebounds(people who went on exchange) as possible to try to figure out what my life would be like this year. And I was always shocked at what they had to say.
For example, they would say stuff like "Yeah, it's about 40C outside but you wear pants anyway."
And they would say it like it was a completely normal action. Like they had been doing it their whole life.
But the thing is, on exchange, things do become normal, and the strange thing is that you don't even notice it happening.
For instance...
1. Elephants in the street.
2. Dog fights outside my house.
3. Getting lost on the bus.
4. Getting lost on the street.
5. Getting lost on a boat.
6. Eating rice during every meal.
7. Showering more than twice a day.
8. Wearing pants when it's 40C outside.
9. Drinking soda out of a bag.
10. Always drinking from water bottles with a straw.
11. Always using a fork and spoon to eat everything.
12. Calling something more than $1 expensive.
13. Forgetting English words and how to use proper grammar.
14. Finding holes in the floorboards on the buses.
15. Eating foods and not knowing the contents of the food.
16. Lizards, spiders, flies and mosquitoes in my room.
17. Saying Thai words instead of English words.
18. Eating just fruit for a day.
19. Not knowing the date/time/location I am in.
20. Eating when I'm not hungry and not eating when I am hungry.
21. All my friends here are from different countries/states.
22. My worst and only fear is being deported.
23. The outdoors being hotter than the indoors.
24. Buying everything from 711.
25. Spending hours a day on public transportation.

And then there are things that used to be normal, that I now find bizarre.
For example.....
1. Finding a bathroom that has a western toilet/toilet paper/soap/a sink.
2. Eating western food for every meal.
3. Driving instead of walking places.
4. Places that are super clean.
5. Drinking tap water.
6. Taking warm showers.
7. People enforcing safety rules/laws.
8. Speaking in English all the time.

There are more things but I am just so used to life here that life in America seems so foreign to me.
I guess I am slowly becoming Thai and so far, it's not so bad.

Book: Finished where the Red Fern Grows, The Da Vinci Code, Someone Like You by Roald Dahl (it's his book of short stories) and another book of short stories of which I forgot the name. And now I'm reading Remember me- its a murder mystery/sci-fi thing? I'm not really sure but so far it's pretty good!
Thai: Kit kum........................................................................................................................Belt

Shrimp

I successfully switched host families!

And so far I like it.
The house is smaller and doesn't have air conditioning but the living room is full of antiques and I have two big windows in my room. I now have five ginormous pet goldfish and A DOG! The dog is named Look Joop, it's the name of a Thai desert. I have a host mom, Mae Gai and a host aunt (she's a relative but I don't know how my host mom is related to her), Pee Ju, and a host sister who is already out of college and working, so she doesn't live in the house anymore. They are all so nice and they speak Thai to me! But probably the best part about living here so far is that there is a....
a.....
A WASHING MACHINE!

Those seven months of washing my own clothes has finally paid off! I can now just throw in all my clothes into the giant glorious metal machine, and stand by while it brightens my whites and removes stains. No more scrubbing or stretching, pulling or rinsing! Ah, how I love washing machines.

Another nice thing about my new family here is that Pee Ju can cook! So I get to eat home cooked meals again!
They told me that breakfast is around 8:30 to 9ish but if I oversleep they will put some aside for me so I can eat it when I wake up. How nice, right?
So I set my alarm for eight o'clock, determined not to miss my home cooked breakfast with my new family.

I woke up at 9:30.
Humbug.

So I slumped down the stairs and slid into the kitchen and long behold breakfast was not served yet! I made it in time! Because this is Thailand, 8 actually means 9:30, no matter what family you live with.

But this was no ordinary Thai breakfast. I see the usually things on the table: rice, vegetables fried in oil so that they are limp and no longer green, pork- always pork and wait a second....
I see a full sized, bright orange, face and all- SHRIMP.
My host mom comes into the kitchen already dressed for work and looking professional, a juxtaposition of what I looked like this morning. I was fashioning a bed head, a fabulously frumpy bright orange t-shirt from a much needed English camp I went to, black floral boxer shorts and thanks to Thai weather- I was sweaty all over.
"You can eat," she said, as she motions to all the food on the table.
So I start scooping some rice on my plate and some limp veggies when she takes THE SHRIMP and places it in front of my face. She sets it down on the table, scooting my plate over so THE SHRIMP is front and center.
"You can eat," she said, as I sat there gawking at the orange beast.

I manage to mutter "How?".

I have seen plenty of people rip open shrimps in my life, but I still don't really know how to go about ripping a head off of a crustacean.
She starts laughing at me, and takes THE SHRIMP and calmly breaks it open for me and sets it on my plate. Luckily I got the tail and she took the top half.

Next thing I knew, she was asking if I wanted to go to work with her today.
YES YES YES!
It's been so long since anyone has offered to take me anywhere that I was so excited!
I had thirty minutes to get ready and then we were out the door.
We dropped Pee Ju off at her office and then Mae Gai and I went to a hair dresser where she got her hair curled for work. I asked her if she went there a lot and non nonchalantly responded with "about twice a week."

While in the car, sitting in traffic, she turned on the radio to 105.5. Which happened to be the international hits station so we tapped our toes to the beat and bobbed our heads along. Then my host mom asked if I liked Japanese food and I of course said yes.
We then picked up her friend and drove to this fancy hotel right across from Lumphini park. I pass this hotel every time I go to the park and think "That is one fancy place."
So here's the thing about hotels in big cities, it's super easy to sneak into them. Just walk right in, go to the elevators and pick your floor and you're golden. Now I don't sneak into hotels to do anything bad, I just try to get to the top floor so I can see the view of the city or figure out if they have a nice pool. But this hotel is different, you walk in and they ask if you need anything and where you are going. So I don't recommend sneaking into this hotel, but I do recommend staying there if you ever do come to the city.
Anyway, so I figure that we are just parking at this hotel and then walking to a restaurant to market.
Nope.
We are eating at the hotel restaurant.
My host mom leads us through the huge luxurious lobby and to a fancy Japanese restaurant where met another man for lunch. It turns out he was a Rotarian, who was Japanese and I assume he is living in Thailand because he can speak Thai.
All the waitresses were wearing Kimonos with white socks and wooden flip flops. I checked if any of them are dead.
Thanks to my lovely Japanese friend, I found out this funny fact: When wearing a Kimono or any other traditional Japanese robe thingy, cross the left side over the right side panel. If you cross the right over then you're dead. Whenever Japanese people bury their dead in the traditional robes, they place the right side of the robe over the left to signify that they're dead.
None of the waitresses were dead.
So I'm skimming the menu, looking at all the funny words that I can't pronounce when I come across what I wanted- raw tuna on rice. Yum. But then I see something I didn't think I would ever see in Thailand.
UNI
Uni are sea urchins.
Uni is also a name that my mother wanted to name either my sister or me.
My father saved us from that tragedy.
I asked me host mom if i could have either the tuna or the uni, she ordered the tuna for me, unfortunately. Although she was concerned about me eating raw fish. Which I kind of understand but you should see some of the things Thai people eat.
After this she actually went to work on the 21st floor of one of the skyscrapers in the city. I waited by the front desk. Then we went to a mall where Pee Ju, Mae Gai and I got facials- which was really REALLY nice. And went to a market where we ate Pad Thai for dinner.
The next morning I woke up and alas, no shrimp.

Book: Page 196 of Where The Red Fern Grows, Lydia lent it to me and so far it's a very sweet book.
Thai: shrimp..........................................goon

Switch

Tomorrow I switch host families.

Switching host families from my first family to my current (second) host family was hard.
During the last month of staying with my first host family, I got really close to them. I felt like they knew me and I was comfortable. I was finally fitting in.
And then I switched host families.
That's what exchange does to you, it never gives you a chance to settle or to be emotional stable. But that also means that you don't get cocky and you learn not to presume things. It's a fair trade off, or at least I think so.

It was a Sunday when I moved. I spent the day before hanging out with my exchange friends.
I slept in and woke up to the glaring Thai sun peeking into my window. I took a shower, got dressed and started packing up the last of my things. And I packed the only way a teenager with way too much stuff for the size of her suitcase could pack. Throw everything in, close the lid, sit on it and pray that you can close the zipper without tearing the fabric.
I hear a knock on my door. The way my host dad has always knocked on my door.
knock knock "Too-ree!" knock knock "Too- ree!"
I open the door and see my host parents waiting. They ask if they can help me with my things and we all take multiple, MULTIPLE trips down the old uneven wooden staircase that's just big enough for one Thai person. My host parents of course laugh at me and all my stuff.
Then we go and take pictures with the old gals at the shop next to my house. These funny ladies at what I called the "Bingo Shed" always smiled and wai-ed to me when I walked to and from school.
And we drove over to my second host families' house.
We pull up to the house and my host dad hops out of the car. I have my hand on the car door handle, ready to get this meet and greet over with, when my host mom turns around and looks at me.
She doesn't speak English that well, I think she is just shy. And that made what she said next, all the more special.
"Turi, I love you like a daughter."

Now, how am I supposed to leave.
How does Rotary expect me to get out of the car, the car that picked me up my very first day in Thailand, say goodbye to people who love my like family and move into this new orange house in a gated community in the middle of no where and try to become apart of another family just so I can move in another three months?
Rotary expects this because they know you can do it. You decided to sign up for exchange knowing this, filled out applications knowing this, said goodbye to everything you knew knowing this and finally got on a plane to go live halfway across the world knowing this.
So, yeah, they expect that you can change host families.
And so I hauled my heavy heart out of that comfortable car and moved into my current host families house.
I said goodbye to my first host parents and gave them a hug.

And so I have been living here for three months now. I don't feel like I really fit in with my current host family. We had some problems when I first started living here with them but now its ok. I'm just ready to move on. To start something new. I don't have any nostalgia, I'm just kinda over it. Give me something new!

So I have a bright outlook for my third host family.
You could say that the class is half full. But you could also say that it is half empty. Why?
PACKING.
I have so much stuff. A ridiculous amount and I have no idea how I got all of it. Half of it I don't use but need- like warmer clothes that I can't wear here but I still need them back in Washington. I have a ton of books that I will probably have to ship back, which will be expensive and I already have to pay for an extra bag, great.
It's a new optimistic Turi, but she comes with a lot of stuff.

Book: Finished The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo and it was really really good and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series. I knew the book was going to be dark, but it took me by surprise. I also noticed how both the Swedish mysteries I have read take on the same plot points. Follow one character with special talent to figure unusual things out, follow another character, solve crime even thought the case is more than five years old, one character strangely enough saves the other characters' life just in time in a underground steel holding cell?, perpetrator dies in accident? and the end.Strange. But they both turned out to be good books.
Thai: backpack/purse...............................grup- pao

Sterotypes

There are a lot of stereotypes about farangs in Thailand. Thailand put Americans and Europeans together. Actually they put anyone not from Thailand in one group. But that’s beside the point. And I sort of wonder what stereotypical things I do as an American.

My first host dad noticed how I read a lot. And later mentioned how he always sees foreigners reading books, especially on public transportation.

I haven’t seen any foreigners reading on transportation.

Until yesterday, that is.

I have spent the last five days in the monkey filled town of Lopburi. It was a vacation away from my current vacation from school. I spent it swimming in lakes under a sunset by the moments, playing with monkeys at the temple, eating corndog balls at the King Narai festival, drinking smoothies at Noom’s, sleeping with Meow the cat and creating funny stories with my exchange buds.

So yesterday when it was time to come back home to the city, Sophie and I were going to take the train at 12:30, but since Thailand is never on time, our train was delayed an hour. So Sophie took a van back, I gave Sophie my sweater to take with her because van air conditioning is like the tundra winds on crack. I decided to wait with my friend Lydia (Rhode Island) until the train came. We took turns reading from this silly book of short stories about animals as we sat by some old temple ruins. To be specific we read a story about a particularly sassy fly who eats vomit, and another one about a motherless circus bear. Yeah the book was a little strange.

So I get on the train. And the train is so small, too small. Only about three or four cars and there were so many people that many had to stand- including me. Luckily this was the rapid train so it only stopped every half hour or so. I stood for the first two hours which wasn’t a big deal- I’ve done that so many times before on the bus.

So I’m standing on the train, leaning against a pole, reading a story about a mediatating raven, when these two old ladies over me a seat. Because that’s what old ladies do on trains and buses in Thailand. And so I squeeze myself between this two frail ladies and continue reading. I start speaking to them in Thai and they say “Put Thai die gang mak!”, which literally translates to “Speak Thai can clever very.” And that’s just what old Thai ladies say on trains and buses.

The lady on my right looked like one from an animated film. Ya know the old Gammy who is hunched over, has a sassy mouth and is the tiniest thing ever. Yup, I sat next to one of those.

The lady on my right was kind and spoke really fast and quietly. And since we were sitting on an open train car- I could not understand a word she said. And so I did what all farangs do- smile and nod.

And one point, the lady sitting to my right asked me if these two other foreigners on the train were my parents. I explained that they weren’t my parents and that I came to Thailand on my own.

The couple in question looked like they could have been my parents, I guess. They were both tall, they lady had blondish brown hair like me and they also were speaking in English.

They were also both reading novels.

And I thought to myself. Oooooooooohhhh, that’s how these stereotypes start.

Book: Read and finished Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris, which was a bit strange but cute. Now I’m on page 151 of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and so far love it. It’s strange though because this is the third book this read that I've read that was originally published in Swedish.

Thai: nung……………………...sit

2/15/13

Today was my last day at school. I will go back sometime around mid May for the new school year.
It was a good day.
I ate my regular PBOT, had a doughnut (it was one of my friends' birthday), studied a little Thai, studied a little Tagalog, finished my art project, and gave the teachers that were leaving the school a letter I wrote to thank them.
I also got locked outside of the art room for a half hour, my Thai teacher had a meeting and couldn't teach me Thai, a Thai teacher told me that I have a big American accent, and my Tagalog teacher told me that he finally had a real, normal conversation in Thai where he understood everything for the first time. He's lived here ten years.
Just another average day.
I finished it up laughing with Sophie and Saeko over our ridiculous Exchange Student eating habits.

Sometimes I've had a hard time going to my school. There are some weeks where I just wanted to come home crying but then this past month has been really good.

Here's the problem. I'm not a very good 'leaver'. Even if I hate a place, even if I feel miserable being there, when I leave it, it turns into the best, most magical place ever. Backwards, I know. I don't think its a great quality but I can't seem to get rid of that characteristic and honestly I don't think I want to. I think it's one of those imperfections that makes me, me.
But luckily I don't have to leave just yet. I have five more months to get even more nostalgic.

Book: Finished Footnotes by Tommy Tune and it was really interesting and a delight to read! I think I was a dancer in a previously life, or at least I pretend to be, so it was fun to read about his time on stage.
Thai: Khon Diow......................................................................by myself, alone

Pig

I have been learning Chinese at school. I love my Chinese classes- but more on that later.
Today I was reviewing food.
My teacher taught me the word pig.
So she asked me:
Ni shi zhu ma?
But I thought she asked:
Ni chi zhu ma?
So I stupidly responded:
Wo shi zhu.
And then she started laughing at me.

So, she asked me if I was a pig.
I thought she asked if I ate pig.
I said I was a pig.

Lost in translation, yet again.
I laugh at myself as well.

Book: tommy tune page 159- an autobiography which is surprisingly good!
Thai: mow.......... Pig

English

As one might have noticed by my past few blog entries, that my English speaking and writing skills are deteriorating. Unfortunately.
I was warned about this before I came to Thailand, but it didn't make much sense to me at the time. Now it does though. Now I understand this very well.
See what happens is that everyone is speaking broken English to you, and therefore you speak broken English back to them so they can understand you. And so sometimes I might go a couple days speaking a mixture of broken Thai and broken English.
This has been going on for the past 6 months.
I think it's pretty safe to say that I am terrible at speaking English.
ALTHOUGH
I now understand English better. A lot of times people will ask me "Is this right?" or "Why is it this way and not that way?" about English. Something I've never been asked and don't really have an answer. At first I really had to think about how to explain why English grammar is the way it is, but I find that I'm actually getting a better idea of the language that I speak. Yeah, I learned grammar at school and have taken English classes but they don't teach grammar the way you would learn it if it was your second language.I'm glad I get to learn about my own language because people often don't think about what language they speak, they just speak it.
And this has brought me to the conclusion that I hate speaking English.
I think English is a beautiful language and I'm very lucky that I know it so well BUT I did not choose to speak it. Everyday I am talking with people for are bilingual or multilingual and yet I can only speak English fluently. Yeah I can speak a little Thai, a little Spanish, a tiny bit Chinese, a bit German and a bit French but I so wish that I could speak these languages fluently or at least conversationally.
And so one day, I hope that I won't need English in my everyday life to function.
It's hard for me to explain exactly why I don't want to speak English but I think it's easier to say that I want to learn other languages.
So I'll start with Thai (obviously), and hopefully my Spanish will improve when I get home because I'm going to try to get my house to only speak in Spanish (they don't know this yet (sorry in advance mom but I guess you'll also be learning Spanish)), Sophie is teaching me a German word a day, my French is improving (I can read it fine but I can't seem to pronounce anything correctly) and I feel like in my Chinese classes I am always making progress.
It'll be tough but I know I can do anything- heck I've made it through six months in Thailand!
Also don't worry my blogs will continue to be in English.

Book: I stopped Adventure of State because I just couldn't stand reading it anymore. But Sophie lent me Eat Pray Love and I just finished it today! It was so amazing and beautifully well written. I definitely think its worth a read!
Thai: Go shower, bathe, etc.,................................am nom

Friends

Exchange is like being born again. You're in a new family, a new culture, you have no friends and you can't speak. Luckily you can feed yourself though. And the hardest thing about exchange for me is friends.
I left the friends I've known forever.
I've come to a new place knowing no one.
I've made amazing friends instantly.
And I will have to leave them at the end of the year, and might not see them for years.
To come back to friends that may have moved on without me or that I've possibly moved on without them.
It's a terrible cycle that may cause emotional trauma and sometimes I think, WHY THE HELL I AM PUTTING MYSELF THROUGH THIS?!

And then I remember why.
It's because these friends I've made, are so incredibly awesome. And because they're awesome, I know that we will be lifelong friends.

And so now I will start a series of blogs about my friends. Because I owe my awesome exchange year all to them.

Book: Page 49 of Adventure of State
Thai: best friend.........................................poo-ang zee

Void

Now I will tell the story of how I received a "VOID" stamp in my passport.

It was November 5, 2012 or 2555 in the Thai calendar. It was hot enough day, over 30 at least, with the sun shinning down on the pollution filled city of Bangkok. It was also the day that I had to get my visa renewed. And it was of course a good day because I didn't have to go to school.
What I find interesting is that even though one might have a year long visa, it still needs to be renewed every 90 days. It's also incredibly hard to immigrate here. One of the foreign teachers at my school has lived in Thailand for 12 years and is married to a Thai women but he still has to renew his visa every 90 days and is denied Thai citizenship.
So off to the Bangkok immigration office we went! My host family said that I only needed to bring my passport with me, they had everything else planned out already. As it turns out I only needed my passport, a picture of myself and a form from my school confirming that I attended there.
We arrived at a huge, and I mean HUGE building in the middle of nowhere with a gigantic picture of the King on the side when my host dad told me that we were here. Now in my head I was picturing that the immigration office would look like the DMV. Boy, was I wrong.
My first impression of the building was that it was filled with long, boring white hallways with florescent lights, and then I walked further into the building. About 30 feet inside the building opens up and you fill like you walked into a spaceship just like in the movies! It was incredibly expansive  The white walls turned into windows that all had captions and titles underneath, the floor turned into a window to see below into the food court  and all of a sudden I really did feel like an alien.
We were a little early, it was lunch time so the office we would reopen at one. The problem with that is that there were so many people there! I asked my host dad is we should get in line and he responding with:
"Oh, no, I have a friend."
And that's all I needed to hear.
So one o'clock came around and the doors opened, farangs fleeing inside to be the first one to renew their visa.
We casually walked in after them.
A lady in a government uniform, much like the ones my teachers have to wear every Wednesday, greeted us and asked me to fill out the top half of a form. It might be hard to immigrate into Thailand but it just might be too easy to get a visa- although I'm probably biased coming from the US. I was filling it out at her desk when she all of a sudden handed a hot pink camera to a coworker and started taking pictures of me (and her posing beside me) filling out an immigration form! This raised a few questions in my head.
1. Isn't there a no camera sign right outside the door?
2. Should I be excited about renewing my visa?
3. Don't you work with foreigners everyday?

But that's besides the point, so I finish the form and hand her my passport. She disappears for ten minutes and tells me I can wait out in the main room where all the other farang are. So I go out and sit next to a man who is holding a red passport (I couldn't see the front of it to read the country) who looks like he's in his 20's or 30's. We start a conversation. ( I can't remember all of what he said but I do remember some).
Me: So, where are you from?
Man: Mexico.
Me: Oh that's neat, my dad's from Mexico.
Man: Really? Where?
Me: Torreon.
We continue on to more small talk.
Me: So what brings you to Thailand?
Man: I'm a PhD student here.
Me: What do you study?
Man: I'm studying Thai culture.
Me: Oh wow, that must be fun.
Man: Yeah, I'm researching the underground rock scene in Bangkok.
You meet really cool people at immigration, trust me.

I was called back into the Pink Camera Lady's office and she handed me back me passport along with my photo, paperwork and receipt  I was a little confused as to why I got all my paperwork back but didn't think much of it until I looked in my passport and there was stamp from the Thai immigration office but it also had a huge red VOID stamp slapped across it.
I quickly asked my host dad why I had the mark of death in my passport and he said that we went to the wrong immigration office. See we went to Bangkok Immigration office when we don't live in Bangkok. We live in Nonthaburi. Nonthaburi is right outside of Bangkok but all the public transportation that's in Bangkok runs through Nonthatburi. It's like West Seattle and Seattle.
And so we went off to another immigration office, this one had a parking lot of dry brown dirt that reminding me of fair grounds. It was smaller than my house back home, used a number system like the DMV, and I was the only white person in the joint. It wasn't a spaceship but I got my visa in less that 20 minutes.

Book: Page 18 in Adventure of State
Thai:station........................................suh-tawn-nee

Lucky

Sometimes I just sit and think about how incredibly lucky I am.
I'm half way across the world.
I have friends that live on 6 different continents.
I can speak a little of six different languages.
I have friends who I love and love me.
I have an amazingly supportive family.
I am so lucky to say that I'm apart of Rotary. A organization that changes the world everyday and has changed my life so much. I know that I have changed as a person- for the better and that I owe that all to Rotary.
Rotary gave me the opportunity to be an exchange student and that is priceless.

Book: Page 10 of Adventure of State
Thai: train............................................rot fai

1/31/13

Today was a good day.
It rained for the first time in forever.
I ate bread, apples and mashed potatoes.
Understood my French teacher.
Translated a whole page in Chinese.
My Tagalog teacher is back.
Kids in my class learned American slang today and I had to explain what shawty was.
And I chatted with some people back home that I haven't spoken to in a long time.
Simple yet good.

Book: page 3 of Adventure of State
Thai: dong..................must, have to

Mystery

My host family is a little mysterious. Well, not really but I think it's because they cannot explain some complex things in English.
My host dad apparently lives in the South of Thailand.

Sophie lived with my host family now for about two weeks earlier this year to "teach" my host brother English. So when my host family does things they invite Sophie too which is really nice of them. Therefore Sophie and I are solving this mystery together and are finding out more but very slowly.

Here is what we know:
He lives in the south.
My host parents are still married.
He visits sometimes.
He works in the south.
And that's about it.

So today I was talking to Sophie on the phone when my host mom walks through the front door. My host brother (Toey) follows her and then another man I do not recognize. I figured it was a friend or business man because my host mom often has business meetings with people at the house.
And then she said, "This is Toey father."

I immediately told Sophie that I would call her back.

To be continued...

Book: Finished The Destiny of Natalie X and Other Stories today and it was quite good. MOving on to Adventure of State. Another book from my host family's condo.
Thai: baker..................................lightswitch

Staring

There are many phrases that you are taught as a kid.
Don't talk to strangers.
It's rude to point.
Don't stare.
Or my mothers favorite, don't forget the napkins.

It has come to my attention that Thailand may not use these phrases as often as we do.
Especially about the staring.
Now I live right on the outskirts of Bangkok so there aren't foreigners where I live. For example whenever I see another foreigner in town I try and talk to them because the sightings are so rare. Although us farang (Thai word for foreigner but a better translation would be white or even better not-Thai-and strange- looking) are rarely sighted, we do still exist.
Although I'm not sure all Thai people know this.
For example, whenever I take the Song Tao (truck with a cage in the back, purposes as a bus) there is always one person that will stare at me or look extremely confused as to why I exist.Sometimes this happens on the bus but not so much anymore, maybe I don't notice it.
When I first came here it felt awkward and embarrassing but I'm way past being embarrassed by anything at this point. One time I stared back at the person, just to mess with them, they just kept on looking at me.
This fact just makes me laugh.
I've met one other farang on the bus before and it turned out he is a teacher at the school next to mine and has lived here for ten years.

Farang are always on the river boats though.
That's why I take the bus instead of the boats.

Book: Only read about 20 pages today so hopefully I'll finish The Destiny of Natalie X and Other Stories tomorrow.
Thai: doo.......look/watch

Eggs

It began Saturday evening, when my host mom picked me up at Tesco after I came home from a fun day spent with Saeko, Sophie and Waldir (Mexico). Normally I sit and read while I wait for my host mom to pick me up outside with her car, but this time she met me inside. She said she needed to buy some eggs for a donation she was going to give. We split up in the store, I go and look for a laundry brush (I have to wash half my clothes by hand) and she goes off to get eggs. We met up about two minutes later by the produce. I assumed she was going to get about two to four dozen eggs. But oh no.
The cart is half full with eggs.
HALF FULL.

We arrived home with a car full of surprisingly unbroken eggs- I was nervous the whole ride home because Thai driving laws are.....lax. My host sister then informs me that on Sunday we are going to 2 temples and so that my host mom can give away the eggs. Well, I assumed she was giving away the eggs because 1. there were so many eggs, 2. my host mom said "donation" and, 3. we were going to the temples in the morning aka "give monks food time because they can only eat in the morning".
Well, as it turned out I assumed wrong.
(I'm sort of used to being wrong about my assumptions while living in Thailand because everyday something surprises you here.)

I woke up Sunday morning and quickly got ready because my host mom told me we were leaving at eight. So I stride into the kitchen to grab and apple for breakfast and to my surprise my host mom is in the kitchen boiling all the eggs!
"Chu-ah die mai ka?"- Can I help you?
"Die, die."- Yes. (Or literally: Can, can).
 "Count 100 eggs in here and 100 in here," she continued, pointing at a box and a woven basket.

And that's when I realized that my host mom had just bought and boiled 200 EGGS.

At 9:30 we all finally piled in the car and started making our journey to a temple outside the city. That's when I asked my host sister about The Eggs. She explained to me that my host mom prayed to Buddha and promised him that if her prayer came true she would bring him 100 boiled eggs. And my host mom's prayer came true so that is why we have The Eggs.
And all I could think at that moment was "Buddha is a statue."
So I asked what happened to The Eggs, if they went to the monks, or poor people in the community or whatever. I again assumed wrong. She explained that you bring your promised gift (most commonly eggs but you can bring fruit, flowers, firecrackers and other things too) to the temple, wai to it and do other traditional things at the temple and then after you're done you can take your gift back home.
And so that's what we did.
Oh, but I had one more assumption to be proved wrong. So we had 200 eggs and we were going to two temples. 100 eggs per temple right? Nope. We used the same eggs twice.

And thus that is the story of how there came to be 200 hard boiled eggs in my house.

Book: Finished Childhood's End, The Casual Vacancy, Water for Elephants, An Abundance of Katherines, and I am The Cheese. Now I am on The Destiny of Natalie X and Other Stories which is a collection of short stories. The reason I came upon this book is because my host family owns a condo and they bought a furnished room which had books in it that were in English so they said I could have them. I'll probably finish it tomorrow since it's really short.
Thai: song roi kai...............................................200 eggs

Well, I haven't blogged in a while but I've decided to blog everyday I am home until the end of February.