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