So yesterday marked the half way point of my exchange. It’s crazy isn’t it. A lot has happened in these past five months. Some of it good, some of it bad but all of it amazing and life changing. I have learned to adjust and to go with the flow. I have learned the value of family. The importance of finding yourself within a healthy loving family and the importance of always fostering the relationship you have with your natural family. I have learned that a day is long, but a week is short. I have learned that nothing is going to change unless I make it change. I have learned how to stand on my own two feet and live independently. Lastly, and I think the biggest thing I have learned is the value of taking care of yourself and loving yourself.
The last post I left off in preparation for Christmas Eve. I was worried about celebrating the holidays in Thailand because they don’t celebrate Christmas but they still cash in on the phenomenon by encouraging shoppers to buy gifts by putting Christmas trees up in the malls. I however had a wonderfully unique Christmas and couldn’t be happier about how I spent it.
I went down to Khon Kean around lunch time on Christmas eve with my arms full of bags filled with pies, cookies and devilled eggs. When I arrived all of the exchange students met up at Mama Kai’s shop. Mama Kai is a host mom in Khon Kean who let’s us all hang out at her house. She is a wonderful lady who treats each of us like her own child. Everyone had brought a little something. We had pudding, eggnog, spaghetti, pancakes ( with real CANADIAN maple syrup), and lots of sweets. We ate a little bit before heading out to a Christmas party thrown by the Rotarians. When we arrived there wasn’t much to do, so me and my friend went and found the Kareoke Machine and managed the tell the guy to play English songs. The exchange students alternated all night long singing cheesy songs. We had a delicious dinner and a gift exchange with the thai adults who were there. This resulted in us receiving some strange gifts like wall clocks and photo albums and the thai people receiving gifts like cookies and nutella. I ended up with a white and pink Hello Kitty purse, but being not so fond of Hello Kitty I traded with my friend for a plush dog with antlers. After Dinner my friends melissa, Nick, Emo and I headed back to Mama Kai’s for a Christmas Eve sleepover. We sat downstairs and ate our pies out of the pan before heading up to bed.
I woke up the next morning to find out the Melissa and Nick had to go to a few provinces over for breakfast leaving me and Emo with nothing to do on Christmas. After Mama Kai invited me to go out for Christmas/birthday dinner with them and stay the night again, Emo and I decided to go visit my friend who lives alone in a village about an hour outside of Khon Kean. We went down to the bus station and just hopped on a bus to Chumphae, with out telling my friend. We arrived there and took a tuktuk to her house to visit for a bit before heading home, for Christmas dinner. I spent the night at mama Kai’s again before heading home to Maha Sarakham.
Not much happened between then and New Years Eve. On New Year’s Eve I headed back down to Khon Kean to celebrate with my friends. When I arrived, I met up with my friends Emo, Nick and LJ. The guys decided they wanted to get their ears pierced so we hiked around the city in attempt to find a place that would peirce ears. After finding a place in a nearby mall the guys all braced themselves for this “traumatic experience.” You had to be there they sat in a row holding each others hands bracing themselves for the exetreme pain. It was hilarious. The place charged you for the earring not the piercing so, I figured I might as well take advantage of the 60 cent price tag and get my ears pierced for a third time. Also it was fun to rub in the guys face how nonchalant I was about it
We went back to Mama Kai’s to shower and get ready for our night out. We went out for a quick dinner, then came home and just had a bowl of cereal because dinner was gross. Then we walked over to the big celebration. There was a big concert and according to the t-shirts sold every where 200,000 people celebrating with us. We hung out at the mall’s beer garden with the Khon Kean Rotarians until the countdown. After that we headed out to find a club to go to. We went to a smaller less known one so that it would be less crowded…. It was still packed. We danced for a bit then headed home. All the Khon Kean kids and LJ were heading to Bangkok to the next morning at 8 am, but I had permission to stay and sleep in at Mama Kai’s and to just have the maid’s let me out. So I slept in til around noon then headed home by bus.
On January fifth, I switched host families. My new host family lives in town and is wonderful. Our house is beautiful, we get English TV channels and I have air conditioning in my room. Honestly, what more could you ask for? My dad is a Police Officer, my host mom works in an office and I have a host sister named, Beauty, who is a year younger than me. She went to the United States for an exchange last year. She speaks perfect English but the rest of my family only speaks Thai, which is great because I will HAVE to learn Thai.
The morning after I moved into my new house I headed down to Bangkok to teach at an English Camp. Unfortunately, I ate some meat on the way down and got sick when I arrived. So I stayed for two nights and one day before heading back to Maha Sarakham, still sick.
I then headed back to Bangkok on the twelfth with my friend Melissa to teach at another camp. We left Bangkok at midnight on the twelfth a few hours after we arrived and drove three hours south to a small town called Hua Hin. We stayed on a resort for the three days we taught at the English camp. It was a lot more fun doing it with someone else. It gave me someone to hang out with in the off time.
Then on the fifteenth we headed back to Bangkok for a few days.
More to come VERY SOOON
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