In Canada....

 Being an Exchange Student is not easy. It is really hard. You leave your family, your friends, your home and your culture for a year and send yourself to a country that when, it gets down to it, and you know nothing about.  In hindsight you wonder why, in foresight you think its ok it’s going to be worth it.  In the moment you just think, I might be crazy.

 Being an exchange student is not only hard because of what you leave but also what you enter. You imagine going on an exchange and live basically the same life you had at home but more exciting and exotic. Your life here is NOTHING like your life at home. Everything is different.

 At home in Canada when I wanted to go out I just asked my mom or dad and it was always ok and they would always drive me whenever they went to run errands or weren’t busy. Here, my family never leaves the house and find it very strange that you always want to go out. Not to mention your friends are reluctant to leave their own houses to hangout. People like to just sit around, while I despise just hanging around.

In Canada if you had an exchange student in your house and you were going somewhere you would invite them to join you. Like hey I am going to the supermarket wanna come? Here people just come and go ignoring your presence.

 In Canada, you keep food in your cabinets and fridge and around your house. Here you buy the food and you need to eat it so if you are hungry and can’t go out to buy your own food you just don’t eat.  I have lost 15 pounds since I have arrived, which when you think about it, is probably due to the lack of food.

In Canada, your parents get worried and or mad if you spend all day on your computer. Here, parents recommend it. It’s like so what are we going to do today, why don’t you go play on your computer for twelve hours like you have been for the last four days.

In Canada, when you have an hour long test during the day it doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything else. Here it’s like no I am sorry I have a test from 9 am to 10 am. I am busy.

 In Canada, when your bathroom goes under renovation its ok because you can use your parents bathroom or another bathroom in the house. Here your other bathroom is in your parent’s room where the door must always remained closed and it is used by 7 other adults. So not only do you have the awkward entering your host parents bedroom when the door is closed, hoping to dear god no one is in there, then you have people walking in on you showering. Did I mention they don’t have showers with shower curtains here? No, it’s just a room with a shower head and a toilet.

In Canada, once you have a laptop or two plus a desktop you realise Wi-Fi is the only way to go. Here you have to try and get one of the working cables into one of the working holes on the stupid internet thing and hope that a) your connection is fast enough to allow you on face book and b) no one goes and switches your cable to one of the whole things that don’t work. We have five laptops in my house here. PLEASE GET WI-FI.

In Canada, it is frowned upon to eat the same meal two nights in a row. Here, you eat the same food, for every meal for up to three days in a row. Breakfast: rice and chicken, Lunch: rice and chicken, Dinner: rice and chicken. And Repeat until you are out of chicken.

 In Canada, a couch is considered a plush sitting object where three people can sit comfortably and watch an entire movie without the slightest notion of their butt getting numb. Here, a couch is a wooden bench with a thirty year old, inch and a half thick hard as rock cushion on it. Well it’s either that or with the ants on the tile floor.

  In Canada, you drink white milk out of a bag. Here you drink chocolate milk out of a carton that is sometimes not refrigerated and makes you wonder what percent of that milk actually came from a cow.

In Canada, when you become 14 you go and watch 14-A movies, when you turn 16 you learn how to drive, when you turn 19 you go out and have your first drink. Here, 18 is the legal age of consent and to do all of that yet no one does it. Everyone just stays home and plays on Face book, living with their parents. Wwweeiirrdddd!

 In Canada, when you turn 10 your parents give you allowance for doing chores. When you turn 15 your parents make you find a job and stop giving you money for frivolous things. When you’re a teenager most parents only pay for necessities not your weekly visits to the movie theatre or for that cute dress you want. Here, parents pay for everything and anything until you graduate college or university.

In Canada, when students decide to skip school they typically leave school and go home or do something more exciting,  for example Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is every high schooler’s dream way of skipping school. Here, kids skip school and stay at school just not in the class they were supposed to be in. It’s like hehehehe we are going to skip French to go to science ahahhahahah we are soo bad. Umm not quite.

In Canada, coming home late is like 12am. Here coming home late is like 8pm. -__-

 I like Thailand a lot but still after six weeks it is still proving to be difficult. This post was more therapeutic than anything. I love Thailand and wouldn’t dream of leaving it umm quite yet but at the same time I would kill for some Canadian normalcy. Oreo’s anyone?

Xoxox Chantel <3

Normalcy in Thailand ** written on Tuesday**

Dear People of the Blogosphere,

I am sorry to say things in Thailand have reached such a point of normalcy that I do not know what to write about. Well a lot of exciting things have happened but now it all seems normal to have amazing and exciting things happen every day.

 For example last Friday, I went to a boxing match at the gym where I practise. It was really cool.  It was like a competition and demonstration, so they had little kids competing and older kids demonstrating. Later on in the evening the pro’s who practise at that gym where going to fight but, I had to go home so I missed that.  I went with Sara, the exchange student from Italy. We arrived around 9pm and left at 11pm. It was really cool since the owner of the gym trains me sometimes we got VIP seats and everything. Yeah the like main head coach owner person likes to train me so sometimes he will take me away from my other coach to work on harder stuff. He is really insane he like pushes me and pushes me. When he coaches there are no breaks. It’s ok though because I learn a lot and he teaches me different styles of boxing like wai cru and mae may muay thai, which are ancient styles of thai boxing.

 The next Saturday, I met up with Sara and a new friend from school named Tiffany. We went to SermThai and watched a cover dance competition. Now cover dance is not something I am entirely found of because, I don’t like the style. I think it’s too sexual and lacks over all talent. Any ways Tiffany has a cover dance group and her group is actually pretty good because they focus more on choreography than trying to look like the singers. She introduced me to some of her friends who are Bboys. Of course I go the typical, “wow you’re so pretty, I like you” that I get from every guy here but aside from that they were really cool. They did a demonstration for the dance competition and they were really good too.

After the dance competition we went to the night market, on a search for some cheap but nice new high heels. All three of us love high heels and agreed we need more. Unfortunately we are all basically broke until October 1^st so no shopping is in our immediate future. After we finished looking around the night market all three of us+ 3 tote bags+ one back pack got back on the motorcycle. We dropped Sara off then me and Tiff went to her friends 17^th Birthday Party. It was really cute everyone did their best to talk to me in English and they all showed me how to cook the dinner and everything. After dinner we went out to Karaoke.

We went to Karaoke at the university and it was so much fun. In Thailand you rent a room for karaoke and there are lights and sofas and everyone sings and dances. It was a ton of fun. After we finished Karaoke I and Tiff went back to her sister’s dorm room for a sleepover. Tiffany lives with her sister in her dorm room at the university because her parents work in Bangkok and her other sister lives in Phuket.  I had a shower put on my PJ’s and we cuddled up and watched a movie and talked for hours. Tiffany’s English is really good and she likes talking so we get along really well.

The next morning we woke up and she drove me to my vegetable carving lesson. We were a bit early so we walked around the shopping centre and talked some more before grabbing chocolate milk and ice cream for breakfast.

I went to my vegetable carving class and epically failed at trying to curl green onions. I managed to break everyone I did. My teachers son, who is about 11 was watching me and laughing saying mai sawai, mai sawai, (mai sawai=not beautiful).  After that I went out for lunch with my brother and his friend, James. Then we went to a Maha Sarakham United soccer game and then we headed home. It was all quite typical. I hang out with James and Go most days because Go is my host brother and James is his best friend. It is just how it usually works out.

Yesterday, I had exams again. I thought I was finished on Friday but turns out I finish on Wednesday. Anyways it is really a waste of time for me because the only reason I have to go to school is to write the English exams but now I am not allowed to write the English exams because the class copied me. So now I just sit in the English office for 8 hours while everyone else writes exams. It’s boring.

So that is my life in Maha Sarakham. Not much really.

 That being said, I do really love Thailand. I am constantly thinking about when I am going to come back. I am really happy that I was chosen to come to Thailand; it really is the perfect country for me. I love everything about it. Or I am slowly learning to love everything about it. One day I am going to move back here and marry a Professional Thai Boxer and live on the sea. Yep, that is the plan.

So that’s it for now. Care packages and money are always graciously accepted. ;)

xoxo Chantel <3

A Weekend in Thailand

 ** This  post is belated,  I wrote it on Sunday, but forgot to post it :P **

Blog Readers:  Chantel, What did you do this weekend in Thailand?

Chantel:

Well this weekend started out like any other by leaving school with my mom and brother. I went home showered and played on my computer until it was time for bed.  This would be considered exciting by Thai teenager’s standards. It stormed really hard Friday night so I didn’t go to sleep till GASP 10 pm.... how rebellious of me.

 On Saturday, the exchange student from Italy asked me if I wanted to hang out. We spent about half an hour trying to figure out something to do. Unfortunately there is nothing to do, except shop and go to the movies. Considering all the movies are in Thai we opted for more shopping. We walked around SermThai for a little bit but it was too crowded and crazy so I suggested we go to a market nearby. We shopped for a few hours.  I didn’t buy much. I am basically shopped out, attention and money wise. We headed back to SermThai and decided to go to Swenson’s for ice cream.

We bought these huge sundaes. I got like a strawberry banana one and Sara got a chocolate one. After we finished we were paying when I ran into my host cousin, May. She offered to give us a ride home. This was awesome because although I am pro at taking the bus into town, I hadn’t taken it home by myself yet and that was a little nerve wracking. So we went with her and her friends. She called my mom and my mom invited Sara to spend the night and then accompanying me to my fruit carving class the next day. After a few phone calls, it was set we would go to her house so she could pick up some clothes then we would head home.

It was funny because my cousin is in university and we were in her friend’s car and they kept making stops to pick up and drop off people because everyone is home from university and needed rides. So Sara kept asking, “Oh is this where you live?”  I was like, “Nope, I have no idea where we are.” It was funny because we could relate on how we never knew what was going on.

When we got home, I showed her my room and she agreed that it is beautiful. Sara has to share a room with her host sister and is having troubles adjusting to it. This made me so thankful for my room. I then brought her outside to play with the mini sticks I brought. My family loved this; they thought it was so cool to see the two exchange students bonding over a sport from my home. Unfortunately, it kinda sucked because I only had a bouncy ball and   ornamental mini sticks. They had no curve and were just terrible. The ball was bouncing all over the place and the dogs were going crazy. Then we ate shower and talked for a while. We each had a shower and went upstairs to watch a movie on my laptop. We fell asleep at around 11pm.

 We woke up this morning around 9am. Sara was excited to have cereal for breakfast because her host family eats rice every day for every meal. After breakfast we showered again, (Don’t worry this is normal in Thailand) and then got dressed for the day. I threw on this grey oversized T-shirt dress, which proved to be a mistake later. Next we sat and went through my Thailand Guide book circling things we wanted to do or see. We both agreed we wanted to go to the sea and the full moon party.

  My brother called us down and we were off to our fruit carving lesson, or we thought. We went to my brother’s friend, James’ house and then the two of them took off, telling us to wait in the truck. So Sara and I are sitting there hungry, hot and so confused.  There was a seven eleven across the road so we were like should we go? I don’t know they told us to wait in the truck? We ended up just sitting in the truck until they returned. Turns out they were getting another fruit carving knife for Sara, why they didn’t bring us, I will never know.

 So this week at fruit carving I learned how to carve a watermelon into a flower. It was fun but kinda labour intensive and all I wanted to do was eat the watermelon. After we finished, Sara and I went over to the shopping centre and walked around for a bit.

I think I should mention this shopping centre is my best friend and my enemy. It has become my guilty pleasure. The clothes are sold wholesale so everything is super cheap. Which would be great if you just went there once, thing is my family goes to that area everyday so I am constantly tempted. I have already bought four dresses there. But I am stopping, I swear.

 After we finished walking around, I had bought another dress and another hair bow, but hey, you can’t have too many dresses or hair bows. We went and found Go and James and headed back to Sara’s house. We dropped her off then  Go and James were hungry,( how typical, I hang out with these two quite a bit and they are always going out for food not just like a snack but a full meal), so we went out for rice and chicken. I kindly refused, it was three in the afternoon, just after lunch and almost dinner, I don’t know how anyone could be hungry.

So as we were leaving it started to rain, just lightly, I didn’t think anything of it. My brother went and ordered more food from a street vendor and I went and sat on a bench with James while the vendor made it. Then it started pouring and the wind picked up so we stood up to stand against the wall. That’s when I regretted the whole oversized t-shirt dress. The wind caught my dress and blew up around my head. I grabbed and pulled it down as fast as I could, but it was too late, James and my brother were already laughing at me. Oh Thailand, what you put me through. So I firmly held my dress down and waited out the storm.  We headed back, dropping James off at home, and then returning to our house. Once again it proved to be a fairly decent Sunday.

 Tomorrow we have school and I am already dreading it. The only good thing about school tomorrow is that we have exams starting on Wednesday then we are out of school for like two weeks or a month or something.  I have been told different amounts by different people.  I am so excited. Did I mention how much I hate school? Well I do, and not having to go to school makes me happier than anything.

 So count down the days until school ends, with me and we can all celebrate.

xoxo Chantel <3

The Recommended Dose of Fun

 This weekend was fun, but in like an average fun way. Like the recommended dosage of fun, I guess you could say. It started out like any other weekend by the bell ringing signifying the end of school and the start of a two day break.

 I went and found Go, none of this waiting in my mom’s office nonsense. I hung out with his friends for a bit, and then we went and saw his mom. We put our stuff in the car and went to go meet up with some friends for milkshakes. We took a song tow to meet a few mores friends at a little milkshake place. I got a Oreo milkshake and it was delicious. Go ordered this bread dish that was toast with chocolate syrup and sweet milk on it. I tried a piece and although it sounds strange it was one of the best things I have ever eaten. After the milkshakes, Go and I caught a song tow to Big C to meet up with our parents.

We were going out for dinner to celebrate with my other host brother, Keng, for finishing his master degree. We went to the MK Restaurant and feasted on duck and other food. I say other food because the restaurant was set up like the hot pot buffet, with the pot in the middle and then you just put in what you wanted. I finished off dinner with a lovely bowl of strawberry ice cream.

The next morning I woke up, and was just planning on hanging out at home, when my friends called and asked me to go to the movies. My mom said that was fine. I figured she was going to drive me in to town but no we pull up to the bus stop and she tells me I am going to take the bus, BY MY SELF! Equipped with the required 15 baht and the knowledge of the word for bus station, I got on and just hoped for the best. In all honesty, that’s basically how I do everything in Thailand.

 I arrived at the bus station 20 minutes later and walked around looking for my friends, who were nowhere to be found. No worries, a telephone call and 10 minutes later, I was on my way to the mall with my friends Tai and Tack. We walked around the mall for a while, to kill time before the movie, some movie star was there so it was really busy. I bought an Oreo blizzard, as a reminder of home and a snack for the movie.

Next we went and saw a really cute Thai teen comedy about teenage pregnancy. It was in Thai but it had English subtitles. It was about three couple’s just finishing high school and how they all dealed with pregnancy and pregnancy scares. I would love to find a copy to bring home. It did a good job representing life in Thailand.

After the movies, tack and I walked back to the bus station and caught the next bus home. When we got to the bus station (a temple by the way, the bus station is at a temple), we walked around a bit went and prayed and took pictures. Then I went to call my mom but Tack said she could just give me a ride home on her motorcycle. Uhhh, ok?  To make things better I was wearing a dress so I had to sit sideways on the back of a motorcycle speeding down the highway. I LOVE THAILAND!

She dropped me off at home and I walked in to find only my Khun Yai, home. My first thought was, “OMG! What if my parents went looking for me? I haven’t talked to them since they put me on the bus!!” So I went on Skype and ask Tack if she told my mom, she was going to drive me home. Nope, she didn’t. So now I was panicking, I asked Tack to call my mom and tell her I was home. I have found it’s easier for my friends and my parents to talk then for me to try and explain in English. She called my mom and said, “its fine, you mom was just surprised you rode a motorcycle.” Yeah, that’s all! Parents here don’t sweat the small stuff and I think that’s why their kids don’t misbehave. Who knows, but that’s my theory.

This morning, I woke up and got dressed and was informed that, Go’s English tutor’s wife, wanted to teach me the art of fruit and vegetable carving. So while go learned English, I learned how to carve vegetables, carrots, to be exact, into lovely leaves and roses. It was very difficult but it’s ok, because when I finished I was rewarded with banana bread and hot chocolate. It was the best banana bread and hot chocolate I have ever had.

Then I came home, and worked on editing a video of a tour of my house here. Cribs: Thailand Edition, I called it. It should be up quite soon.

So that was my weekend, not very productive but quite lazy, just the way I like it!

Xoxo

Chantel <3

Just Living Life

 Every day brings something new; especially when you are 30 000 some odd miles away from home.   At the same time I am just living life day by day and I am happy to say that I have developed a routine here. It’s starting to feel more like home. I want to let you know that not every day is a crazy adventure. Here is a typical day in my life in Thailand.

 Every morning I wake up around six thirty and literally roll out of bed. It is so painfully early. I hate it. I then run down stairs and have a quick a shower, followed by either a pb and j sand, bowl of cereal or a muffin.

At around seven thirty we leave for school, it takes about 20 minutes to drive to school. I usually do my best to sleep the whole way. This can be quite difficult considering the roads in Thailand are very bumpy.

When we arrive at school my mom drops my brother and I off at the front gate, then every morning before class, the whole school has an assembly. The assembly usually lasts for about 20-30 minutes and it is extremely boring especially because I never know what they are saying.

Then we have four periods of random subjects that change each day and make no sense.

Lunch time is equally boring and long. Every day I eat chicken and pork and some weird leafy green vegetable with rice. I never actually eat the rice though. Then we go back to the class room and I usually pass out on my desk for about half an hour.

Then we have three more periods of random subjects that make no sense.

Then school is over. For some reason the girls I hang out with always walk me to my mom’s office when I tell them I am going to go wait on the bench/ table/ with my host brother. They always insist on “dropping me off” with my mother. I always abruptly leave and walk around school find other friends or just sit. It’s really boring to sit in the English office, so I would rather not.

Around four thirty we leave school and drive to pha-la or in English the physical college for boxing. Boxing is the best part of my day. I love it. It is very hard work but it is so much fun. If I could box all day every day I would.

Then I come home, shower, eat dinner and go to bed.

That is a day in the life of Chantel.

xoxo

Chantel <3