Stamp that passport

I never do finish a whole post because I get so annoyed with how slow our internet is where we live. It is slowly hitting us that we only have a week left in Bangkok teaching, then almost two weeks to travel around, I want to cry just thinking about it! This weekend has been great though to say the least! Friday night we went and watched some old Thai dancing/play (yawn) and then went out to a local restaurant/bar and listened to a band play. While we were there we met two guys from South Africa that work at our competing rivalry school here and talked to them for most of the evening. As usual we went from casual conversation about Bangkok and teaching, to american politics (not by choice) and then to religion. Both the guys were in their late twenties, grew up as christians, and "quit believing once they got educated." Now Christin and I are not ones to argue and prove right or wrong when it comes to religion, so we let them do most of the talking at first. I think because we weren't aggressive about it one of them was really interested to hear what we believed and why. Of course they kept making snide little comments about us being Christians, but overall it was a good night and conversation. It's crazy that we work at a "christian college" here and you can probably count on one hand how many faculty/students are christian. Most people we've met here are like "ooh christians ay? We better watch out or they'll judge us!" It's REALLY disheartening that christianity has that reputation not just overseas (but its worse where christianity is so small) but also among non christians in America. Anyways, so yesterday I went out and explored some of the big malls and marts on my own for the first time and bought two full outfits, but you'll never believe how much I spent all together ($15!!) That is two dresses, two pairs of shoes, two headbands, an ice cream and a smoothie!! Its so big and gorgeous here, the 2nd and 3rd pictures is the area I was shopping at by where we live :) They just put out a bunch of huge tigers heads getting ready for CHINESE NEW YEARS!!! It's february 14th and we definitely plan to celebrate it since we were traveling during our new years :( Christin and I got ready around 5 and went a few train stops up to a place called Sala Daeng where we had a mexican dinner with virgin margaritas, it was really authentic food too (not like las mas lol). After that we shopped around Patpong which is an area of little marts, food, music, and all those sort of beauties of Thailand. We walked by this one area (the picture of neon lights saying "dream boy, fresh beach boy, future boys" etc, yeah, the door was open to one of them and as they were haggling us to come in we saw these teenage asian boys all standing in line, in their white tighties with a number pinned to them. We asked the owner what it was (obviously having a good idea) and he said "women or gay men come and by them for 400-1000 baht (thats $12-$30) for sex or whatever they want. We could see some old white men sitting in there just starring at the boys and we literally freaked out. We left that street and walked a good five minutes in silence. Talk about ruining your night, we were in tears looking at those young boys, we have kids at our school no younger then them!! Ugh it was so disgusting. But needless to say we left that street and shopped some more. We met two guys from New York and hung out and talked with them for a bit, super cool guys! Greg and I wore our tattoo sleeves around all night lol. Since we had a really early dinner we sat at a table out on the street and had some delicious Pad Thai with the boys, but little did we know the whole area we were in was a homosexual area! Christin and I slowly realized we were the only REAL girls (as oppose to the many lady boys around us) on the street hahah.We went upstairs to this Karaoke area and sang for like an hour with 5-10 gay guys, where we met our first southern american!! He was from Nashville with a cute little Thai boyfriend, and his dad is a southern baptist preacher. We had an absolute blast!! One said, "Hmm girl, you dress very pretty" lol. The best part was that we sang Thai songs and we just sang what was on the screen and they were like "you girls Thai very very good!!" Obviously we didn't have a clue what we were saying, but they loved singing some old American music. Christin and I sang "have you ever seen the rain" and they danced around with us and chimed in. Great times. I love the big city, the different people we meet along the way, and the food. I don't want to leave. We slept in today and I woke up sore from all the dancing (excuse me, "creative movement") so I went and got a Thai massage to start the day for 200 baht ($6). You can't beat that, my body is going to go into shock when I get back and don't have my thai and foot massages every week!!

Boys will be boys

This first picture is of the P.E. class that we help out in (that’s the hot british guy lol). This week Christin and I time their fifty yard dash, then the whole class plays chair ball, which means Christin and I stand on chairs with buckets and try to catch when our team shoots. It’s a nice way to get teaching hours and a nicebreak to a long day of teaching! It’s funny because this guy Andy is from GB, so we’ve picked up little words like “lift” instead of elevator and we catch ourselves saying them throughout the day lol. Our kids have a funny English vocabulary too because they have English speaking teachers with different dialects from all over the world!

This picture is of one cute little buddy all decked out in his boyscouts uniform. On Friday all the boys and Thai teachers wear their boyscouts unifroms, which is the shirt, scarf and hat. This is the picture he drew Heidi, isn’t he just too cute? The one on the left is of my crazy 3^rd grade remedial class, I teach them the last 3 minutes of lunch break. They get an hour long lunch break to run around the school, eat down at the canteen or do whatever they want. The ones who are struggling in certain subject areas use that time to do remedials and I get to count it as an hour of teaching time J As you can see on the board behind me we were going over adjectives, and those were words describing Nattipat (the one with the glasses). They obviously don’t want to use their lunch break to study, so they can be a handful some days!!

Austrailian Day anyone?

Who knew there was one day out of the year that Australia dedicated to no work and all play? Because I sure didn’t, but Christin and I quickly have become fans of this holiday! (this is ole Aussi Phil and I comparing whose mouth is bigger lol). It was January 26^th and we took the liberty of celebrating it with a group of Aussi’s we met here one day. After a long day of work, we threw on our bathing suits and a $4 dress we bought at the beach and headed over to their hotel. They have a sweet pad to say the least, although its nothing compared to our large shower/toilet/bathroom and cold tile floor, with rock solid beds…its pretty amazing. We literally just sat and marveled at their marble floors and huge rooms. Two of them had on matching shirts that said “Australia” with kangaroos all over it lol. They “grilled some ribs on the Barbie” (although ribs is totally not a norm in Australia), some corn, potato salad, and peas. Given the fact that T

hailand doesn’t have a Wal-Mart so finding ingredients for all that food was hard, it was quite deliciousus. Lets talk about how Christin and I DEMOLISHED some ribs. I’m talking they made at least 10 racks of them and there were about 7 of us all together. We hadn’t had a rich American meal like that since we’ve been here so we were in tears eating them haha. Don’t be mistaken though, we are dreading coming back to the states and eating all of our greasy, 4 person servings every meal lol. After we ate and chatted a bit we all went swimming and played games, it really was a lot of fun. Wednesday we went to see 3D Avatar (for my 3^rd time since its been out) at the Paragon mall since none of the girls had seen it yet. Before the movie starts the whole theater stands out of respect while they play the King’s song. Lets talk about how they played a video while his song played of him helping the poor, getting crowned, and little things like that and I CRIED!! Hahaha I couldn’t help it, he just seems so sweet!! After being here a month and hearing the anthem, seeing his face plastered all over everything, and the respect this ENTIRE country has for their king just hit me while they played this little video and we all stood in a MOVIE THEATER! Seriously though, can you imagine if we stopped walking, traffic, everything, and stood to play Obama’s song? No, there would be 10000 law suits so that “people would have the right to stand or not” yada yada yada. I have a lot of respect for the level of respect that people have for one another (from what I can tell). But with all that said, the movie was really good and I’m just glad Christin can start taking part in conversations now lol. Every time we’re out talking to different people and the conversation dies, it automatically leads to “so have you seen Avatar?” Because face it, that is one thing all nations have in common is American entertainment and movies, lol. Last night we were out and about and found a new area we didn’t even know existed RIGHT BESIDE where we live! In between these other two HUGE malls there is a long, patio like area and they had live music, and a bike show (who would have thought we’d see Harley’s and true bikers in Thailand??). So Christin takes a bold step and I SITG'd to the extreme, that's how we roll. That's all I'll say. Afterwards we celebrated by listening to the live band and eating noodles from a little stand. These people cook enough of each different dish of noodle to feed atleast 50 people and pile them like two feet high on trays and just stick them out on the table. I got one called “mai mai pet” and it was soooo good! As we set and listened to music, looked at the little shopping tents along the streets and the two huuuuuge lit up buildings we were sitting between, we were in tears thinking about leaving. We only have one more week of teaching, 4 days of beach, and one week of Chang Mai and Chang Rai and we’re leaving (3 weeks)!!!! We have come to LOVE the Thai food, like seriously. We eat it for almost every meal (except for the 7 Baht= 20cent McDonalds ice cream cone we get everyday). Pictures don’t do justice and capture just how big this place is. I know I’ve said it before but its literally like Times Square on 4 or 5 different corners of where we live. We casually walk to dinner and everynight there is something crazy going on. There is never a moment we DON’T have something to do (I mean I know in Cleveland we have Las Mas…but lets be real) lol. This last picture is a little BNF love to my theta folkies (if any of you even read this!)

Weekend Festivities

This weekend was great. Friday we celebrated “tap night” Thai style, and I even wore a dress with a cute little purple and navy blue owl on it that I bought here. We met some Russian’s and a few groups of Thai people and just hung out for the evening and listened to some good music J Saturday was a long, rough, yet eventful day for me. We got up at 8:30 and saw some museums/touristy things…I honestly couldn’t even tell you what the first two places were cause I hate that kind of stuff (yeah, I’m still immature and don’t appreciate historical things). We did see the temple that had the biggest golden buddah in Thailand (first picture, people are paying reverence to it and giving gifts). Then we had lunch in China town, that was super cool until I got sick and had to SPRINT to the restroom (or “hong nam” in Thai) where I started uncontrollably throwing up. Remember, they don’t have normal toilets, no they have “squatty potties” which is a little porcelain bowl about 5 inches high. So I’m aiming for this little thing only to find out I threw up all over my shoes. In America, not a big deal you can wash them off in the sink. THEY DIDN’T HAVE A SINK THOUGH. We shopped around China Town awhile which was a neat place, it just had millions of little shops all over the streets. After lunch I was sick, hot, and not wanting to be out and about…and what did we go see? The Kings Palace. It was cool and I’m glad I can say I’ve seen it, but I was neither in the mood or impressed by it at all. That evening we rushed back and got ready because we had plans with some Austrailian friends we made here our first week. We went out to dinner on Kho San Road, which has tons of little shops, restraunts, and bars. I was done with Thai food for the day so I had some yummy fish and chips and we all people watched for a while. Kho San Road is where all the backpackers and people stay so it was the first since we’ve been here this last month that we’ve seen just an area full of “falangs” or foreigners! It was so weird and I didn’t really like it. We live/hang out where all the local Thai people are and its really fun, but it was interesting to hear and talk to people from literally every country. Sunday four of us headed to Hua Hin beach again and once again, I got burnt and I’m peeling. While we were laying out and our cabana boy was delivering our drinks, we met our first Amerian since we’ve been here a MONTH!! There are a few americans where we work but we literally haven’t talked/seen any when we’re out. Then Monday Christin and I went back to Kho San road for some shopping and dinner and it was quite the experience. Its funny because being here everything is so cheap, so you know what the expected price of a dress or shoes should be. Since that is where all the foreigners hang out they jack the prices up and they would ask for 300 baht (equivealnce of $10) and we’d be like NO WAY!! In America we’d buy a dress for $10 in a heartbeat!! But since you KNOW you can get the same dress down the street for $5 you’re mad when they ask for that extra dollar or two lol. We took a shopping break at a restraunt there on the street and met our second American. He was from NY and was quite a jerk, I don’t know why we talked to him as long as we did. Probably because we met the Switzerland people he was hanging with and before you know, we were walking around this little chill out area talking to people from London, Swtizerland, Portugal, Netherlands, EVERYWHERE! We got into a lot of interesting conversations and tried to take pictuers of most of them. Meeting different people has been by far my favorite thing about being here!!

So after taking a 4 hour nap and sleeping for 12 hours last night, Christin and I didn't wake up and go to school till around 12. I taught three straight 2nd grade classes so even the half day felt really long. We've been taking our meds and drinking plenty of water so I'm already feeling a little better today. The sleep really helped! I'm stressing because my Regions banking account won't let me withdrawl money because I forgot to tell them I was going out of the country, and I left my cell phone in our lobby yesterday during our nap and now I can't find it :( No one has turned it in so obviously someone stole it, but it won't cost but maybe $15 cause its a "GO" phone. Other than that today went well. Nothing real exciting so I thought I would tell you about our room This first picture is the view of our bedroom from the bathroom doorway. The first day we moved into them the two twin beds were separated by a desk and Christin and I quickly pushed them together to make one large queen size bed lol. The mattresses are rock solid, like no bed I have ever felt before. Like seriously. We have two desk and one big HUTCH (my fav). We split the hutch which is plenty big enough for the two of us, and we have our own desk which we obviously DON'T use since we spend so much time at one during the day! The beds are indeed rock hard, but they ended up not really sleeping that bad, I actually like them now lol. That "open" area by our beds is where we do our intense floor/ball workouts! This second picture is our bathroom, when we first saw this we literally almost cried. The shower head splits the sink (to the left, not pictured) and the toilet on the right. There are no walls, no nothing, just one huge room and floor with a curtain shielding the toilet for some reason when you shower. You would think it would be between the sink and shower, but no. While you shower if anyone opens the door you are totally in the middle of the room. Again, I thought "oh no" but i love it now! We have to wash our own panties/bras which sucks, but where we stay washes and hangs up our clothes for us. We always fill a bucket up they provide us with water and laundry detergent, and scrub our undies the old fashion way lol. Hang them up in the corner. Glad Mumsey taught me how to hand wash before I left. I barely knew how to use a washer, SURE didn't know how to hand wash things!! I'm daddy's little girl, and Mumsey's world. What can I say?? :) A maid comes every other day, so I can't complain. It's a pretty nice little place in a GREAT location! Okay thats all I have for now.

Under the Weather

So Christin and I woke up after getting a GOOD 2 hours of sleep...maybe! We coughed our heads off all night and just woke up feeling like crap. Of course, the one day we feel bad the BTS trains were "delayed" so it took us FOREVER to get to school and we did alot of unnecessary standing around. This picture is from our office of the boys in the morning standing for their national anthem and then they do exercises. It's like a 30 minute process and we have a huge glass overlooking them so I love watching. Everyone...including people walking down the street, cars, everyone....stops while the school plays the national anthem. The boys are so cute all singing it at once in front of our building! As soon as we got to work our supervisor Chris saw us and sent us to get medicine immediatly cause he said everyone had been getting this cold virus thats going around and it only gets worse...so we had to hop BACK on the BTS and we spent $30 at Boots getting perscriptions. We headed back to school, taught one class, and they sent us home for the day. We layed around and skyped/stalked people from school (LOVE OUR NEW BIG BROTHERS!!) and it made me miss them. Such a fun week this is at Lee University!! We took a 3 or 4 hour nap then got up for dinner. Every day we are marveled at how big this city really is, living here and getting in routine we sometimes forget how cool and big it is. We sat outside awhile tonight just marveling at everything going on and the beauty of the buildings and decorations. Asians sure know how to make malls/sidewalks/whatever look stunning. This second picture is a wall with water running down it and the picture doesn't do it justice cause the whole place is lit up with stairs and a live band playing nearby. I hate taking pictures because you can't capture everything, it just really doesn't do it justice! Christin and I always get our little 7 baht ice cream cone from McDonalds after dinner, and tonight we just sat on the stairs and looked around and soaked it all in. We wanted to go see Avatar in 3D Imax but they had false advertisement about the price and we were mad so we just decided not to. Plus we need to lay around and rest tonight! I love skype, its so fun to get to see and talk to people from home! It's crazy because within 1 hour I skyped my Epsilon grandbig, big, little, and grand little. I love that purple. I wish you all could see Christin and I sitting here now listening to this band practice in the lobby area where we stay looking super rough and listneing to them practice the same song over and over and over for two hours!! Every night they do this. SO ANNOYING. Along those same lines...we have a bird outside of our apartment. Every night, every evening, and every morning it chirps "who-o" in a rising tone (and super loud). Have you ever seen Failure to Launch? Well thats us...wanting to sit and wait for it with a BB gun lol. This trip couldn't be going more perfect. I know all I talk about is Christin on this thing, but thats because our office is together and we room together. I love the other three girls with us...we all mesh so well...I wish I would have known them better these last 2 years at Lee. BUT this trip is making up for all that time passed becuase we spend everyday together!! lol. So we work at "Bangkok Christian College" which is a 1-12 boys school, although 95% of the teachers and students are buddhist, there are still bible verses around campus. On our building as we walk in is the last picture. If I wasn't teaching and didn't want visible tattoos I would totally get this verse in the Thai script you see above it tattooed somewhere. Mumsey, Fatha, calm down, I'm not going to do it lol. But Thai script is so pretty...and after the little things that have stressed me out this week there couldn't have been a better verse for me to ponder on as we walked into work. I love it.

Losing weight

So I bought a $4 exercise ball from Walmart before we left, and we have broke it out and began our serious lose-weight-cycle. We take turns doing squats, sit ups, pushups, etc with the ball...and I can already tell I'm trimming down just a little. I love it, its good to expend a little energy at the end of the day! A poster with exercises came with the ball and I thought I should bring it too lol. When I pulled it out of my suitcase I realized I had nothing to hang it on the wall with, so after a minute of thinking and then it happened. I saw some pads sitting in the corner of the room...I mean adhesives are all the same, right? I would have loved to see our maid's face when she came to clean today and saw our poster hung up by pads, so trashy. Last night while we were working out we turned our air conditioner on high, and like dummies we left it on high all night long :( We both woke up in the middle of the night coughing our heads off, runny noses, and dry mouths. Christin has been coming down with a cold or cough from the pollution for a few days, today was my first drowsy day :( I get tickled at how everyone here wears masks but I'm seriously thinking about getting my own. While we were riding in the car to get our hair done the other day I was looking around and the pollution is literally so bad it is ALWAYS smoggy just above the tall buildings everywhere. Some days when its really hot I feel like I have trouble breathing just walking to the BTS station, its like I have been smoking for 10 years now. No bueno. The guys advised us to get some Vitamin C and it would clear right up. School was pretty slow today, but I've been reading A Change of Heart, but Jodi Pocci and its really good. I have to make myself stop reading it to go to class sometimes. I would make my parents proud right now because this is the second book I've read this trip and I HATE READING :) I was NOT blessed with their love for art and literature! I feel like we are in a routine since we have to teach five days a week, but it never fails that I see new things everyday, I love it! The cute little buddy (i put a picture of carrying the books a few blogs ago) sits beside the teachers desk and today while Jayson was teaching Science and I sat at the desk he just stared at me the entire hour. Its funny though cause while he's working I stare at him. HE'S SO FREAKING CUTE. I kept looking over at him and he would griiiiiiin and get back to work, he's the first kid I just fell in love with here. But because we are all "falangs" (what they call us, it means foreigner, they casually switch L and R sounds alot lol) we people watch, and they watch us right back. It's really fun but somtimes it gets kinda awkward. Okay so one thing that I haven't really indulged but I've fully embraced the idea of is STREET FOOD!! Everywhere you walk there are little vendors along the sidewalks with fruit, meat/pork on a stick, sticky rice, sushi....everything. It is the cheapest way to eat and it smells DELICIOUS! I've been very cautious because its easy to get sick eating that food, I mean you never know if their hands are clean or if the foods fresh before they cook it. But I HAVE started eating it a little bit since I've been here a few weeks and my body has built up some bacteria here. The second picture is one of our highschool students getting a snack by the school afterwards at one of the street food stands. It's really a cool concept, of course my chubby cheeks wants America to pick up the idea lol. Can you imagine a las mas taco stand by the school? YES PLEASE. So this bottom picture is of one of my 3rd grade buddies I passed watching soccer after school. Doesn't he just melt you're heart? Okay Epsilon and Lee University folk....doesn't he look like an Asian Drew Smith (Tori and Jamie's bestfriend)??????? hahahah i kept thinking...he reminds me of someone!! Then as I was taking the picture it hit me. It's crazy that I'll be walking down these huge streets in the middle of BANGKOK and think I see someone from home, even though the person is obviously Asian!! They still look similar to people back home, and I'm not crazy, it's happened to all the girls. So I just found out that where we are staying is actually a boys dormatory for colleges here in Bangkok lol. We met some of the guys tonight after dinner and played a little pick up game of soccer then basketball (you know which one we dominated, and its NOT soccer). One guys name is Duo, he goes to college down the road, and speaks very well english. He was an exchange student for three years in Mississippi. I'm telling you, we meet the neatest people EVERYDAY! After we played around with them awhile we walked some parts of the streets around where we're staying we haven't seen yet. It was more out of the city where the locals hang out, very cool place to see. Hopefully we'll eat at a little outside dinner area there this week! Tomorrow is 80 baht movies night ($2.50) so I probably won't make it back in time to blog tomorrow! Sorry Mumsey, going to have to cheat on you again and watch Sherlock Holmes and all the newest movies without you!!! Right before we leave here we are treating to ourselves is to go watch Alice In Wonderland (which I thought was Allison Wonderland till I got to college lol) in 3d Imax because it comes out the week before we leave! It's going to be amazing.

Asian Michael Jackson? I do believe so lol! Today has had many highs and lows. School was great, I had 3rd grade for half the day and they really are precious. Its funny cause I always ask John "What should I do now?" and he's not certified so he's like why don't you teach me something new!! lol it just feels weird coming into someone else's classroom, using their lesson plan, and doing something completely different. It's fun though, I love the freedom to try new things and have help. One thing thats crazy is Christin and I haven't spent more than maybe an hour straight away from one another except for when we're both in class each day, and we see each other between almost every class lol. I get tired of people pretty quick and can't spend a long amount of time with but a few people, and Christin made it on that short list! Who would have known? We are some compatible as travelers together. We're down to do whatever the other one wants, we have our alone time by listening to our iPod, working out while the other one showers, just whatever it takes to make it work. It really is great. I don't miss home. Sometimes when I talk to people I feel like I'm missing out on epsilon stuff and things like that, but I'm definitely not homesick at all. I was in a really bad mood after we left work today and what did Christin do? Suggested a thai foot massage--this is why I love her. It was a much need way to spend our dollars. After we got our massage and Christin's "lady-boy" kissed us on the forehead awkwardly, we hit some gooood food. We splurged a bit and had mexican for dinner...which has only happend like 3 times since we've been here!! We had a delicious chicken quesadilla and chicken nachos...which was quite the treat after eating straight thai food for a few days. What I don't miss about mexican and american food is how full you feel afterwards, we literally waddled back to our apartment which never happens. I'm always full after I eat some chicken and rice, but never uncomfortably. On our way to dinner we saw a modeling shoot going on in the middle of the street (the picture where they are holding rakes), its cool because we always see random things like this in random places. Its like we forget we're in a huuuuge city because we live here now and its normal for things like that to go on (we see boxing matches by the mall, all kinds of random things!) I love the fashion here, if I were about 40lbs lighter (which isn't impossible) I would totally pull of their poofy shorts and baggy shirts. Speaking of losing weight, Christin and I laughed at dinner about how we spend 50% of our day justifying what we're eating. Whatever we eat we're like "I mean we walked extra today....we ate thai food all week...we saved money by not ____!" And before you know it, we've treated ourselves to a nice dinner, with a 7 baht McDonalds ice cream!! lol, exactly what we said we woudn't do (story of our lives here). Now I am sitting in the lobby impatiently waiting on the Lee University Help Desk to answer their phone so I can get on WebAdvisor and confirm my enrollment before they purge me out of my classes! Today was overall a great day minus all the monotonous conversations I had on facebook, but hey thats what I get for chatting instead of teaching, huh? We made up for it with all of our great "bad" decisions we made.

Jonny Walker, keep on walking.

Who ever thought chain wallets would come back in style? (Yeah, I definitely owned a "No Boundaries" one!! lol) On Fridays, all of the boys from first 1st-12th grade wear their little boy scouts uniforms and they look precious! This is one of my little third graders carrying books down after P.E. and he really is as cute as he looks!! Friday was a pretty easy day, with the exception of one class. The hot british guy is the P.E teacher and he let Christin and I teach his class while he covered for the computers teacher. Oh my gosh, mistake number 1 2 and 3!! It was the 3rd grade class I have half of the week and it was straight disastrous!! As soon as we walked in the classroom my cute little buddy is doing the "suck it" sign, we all 32 of us pile on ONE elevator and they are yelling and jumping from floor 3-15, then as soon as we step foot in the basketball gym they go absolutely crazy. Soccer is the big sport here so we didn't even consider that 3rd graders can't play a lick of basketball so we tried to have them dribble, split up in teams, everything. Finally we (being Christin) got them to settle down and listen for just long enough to get them to do a relay race dribbling the basketball...my team one..both times :) I was so caught up in the moment I didn't even think about letting Christin and her team beat me the second time so it would be fair...but hey its life :) hahah what a bad teaching mentality, right? She was mad to say the least. Friday night was a big night for Christin and I. We stayed up awhile and hung out with a dude from Kenya and his thai girlfriend/chef where he was staying. We also met a few different groups of locals and needless to say, we brought the party. We were so worn out from a long week of teaching that as soon as they started playing some American music (they LOVE LOVE LOVE the 90s here) we couldn't refrain from getting up and dancing around the whole place. No we didn't get taken. But we made some cool friends and some of the girls numbers so we can hang out again while we're here :) Saturday morning we got up about 9 and started our journey to Hau Hin beach. There are vans leaving to and from there every 30 minutes during they day so we payed about 180 baht each way (5 dollars) and headed 2 hours south to the beach!! Gosh it was absolutely amazing and beautiful!! There wasn't much "beach" but we found a little fancy spot and rented a chair for $3, had lunch, and totally fried our bodies lol. The water literally washed under our chairs the whole time, and we had a cute little cabana boy bringing us food and drinks :) We are such suckers for people who walk around selling things, we each bought 3 dresses each within the first 10 minutes of being there, but hey you can't beat a $4 sun dress!! We spent a good 5-6 hours there and met some interesting people from the Netherlands and London, thats the thing I love most about being here. There are so many different people, cultures, and nationalities and we always meet neat people wherever we go. The bus ride home seemed forever but after a long day we hit up the food court for dinner and hit the sack by 10 lol, getting old. This morning we went and had our hair chemically straightened, conditioned, and waxed for $50! (Thank you mommy and daddy, you're money has been disappearing for very good causes as you can see, lol). It was almost necessary though because the humidity is awful here and our hair just isn't use to it. We got tired of looking sloppy everyday with our hair in a pony tail. After this weekend though we are tan, with straight shiny hair, and i'm ready for P.E. class!!! hahah, okay last picture, this is the beach where we were. Last entry I said I was beginning to miss people at home...yeah not as much as I miss that beach right now as I am getting ready for bed, to start my next week of teaching!! Student teaching in Thailand is such a hard task as you can tell :) Right? Oh, and sorry I never skype, I'm really bad at this internet thing. I mean I'm in a city that never dies...I'm doing good to get back and in bed on time :)

Okay so I have been a little lazy this week writing on my blog. It’s just that where we are staying only has wireless in the office till 10pm, and I never quite make it in time lol. Soooo since we have to be at the school till 4 with no students and I have no lesson plans to do today I decided to write you lovely people (all 10 of you that probably read this ha). It’s okay mom, they gave me permission to get online and chat or do whatever I want to right now. This week has been awesome, I taught my first lessons!! They were not as expected, but they went okay. In Thailand the kids are taught to sit quietly and listen to the teacher, in America we do a lot of Q & A, student interaction kind of stuff. Not here. I was asking the class questions as I went and trying to get them to stand up to do examples and they were so confused, they didn’t say TWO WORDS!!! I was freaking out; I was thinking “Oh gosh, they either don’t understand the lesson or my accent!” But at the end the teacher was like “Awesome job, they loved it!!” As they did their homework/class work I walked around and checked and they did really good on it so they obviously got it (which made me feel a lot better). My cooperating teacher explained to me that here, they just present the information, write an example on the board, and let the kids do the rest by themselves. They are just way to smart here, although I defiantly have my low functioning kids that can still barely speak English in the 3rd grade and we’re teaching in ALL English…go figure. I teach remedial classes of 5 or 6 students in the morning (zero period) and during their lunch break. But the kids are great, you can’t help but to fall in love with them. It is taking me forever to memorize their names because, well here are a few: Teetouch, Nattatik, Atid, Suriwat, Natthipat, and on and on. Like I can barely pronounce them still, but I am getting better at understanding the kids accent. They always get tickled when I try to say their name or start talking fast…being here helps me remember to really annunciate and speak clearer (both of which my father says I NEVER do) haha. I love it here, I am used to the food, there is still some that I just can’t manage to belly down, but I know my favorites. In the picture are some of the kids getting food at the schools canteen. The school provides lunch for them, but if they want more they have a 45 minute lunch break where they can buy all kinds of food here. My favorite food here is sticky rice and mango…it’s a desert. The lady that works at this little place in the canteen makes it for us every day and what they do is they poor warm coconut milk over the sticky rice and cut up a fresh mango…gosh its heaven. Christin and I have a few places we like to hang out in the evenings and we’re pros at getting around on the BTS sky train (it’s like the metro). We still have tons to see and do and the time is winding down SO FAST!! Only about 3 more weeks of teaching if we get our hours done, and then two weeks of traveling!!! Hopefully this weekend we are going to spend a day on the beach, then get our “bonded” which means chemically straightened since Thailand hates our hair lol. We bought a $10 straightener and as soon as we walked out of the door to take the BTS to work, our hair was two feet tall and curly. It is very humid here and we are tired of being simple/ugly everyday with no makeup and our hair pulled back. Hopefully its strong enough to straighten my thick hair, if not I wore the ponytail for a good 20 years, another month won’t kill me lol. I haven’t gotten home sick at all, I never do, but reading/hearing about all of the induction week activities starting back up makes me sad. I’m not really missing it because I’m clearly in an amazing place throwing down with cwalk everyday but it’s hitting me I’m graduating soon and it’ll be over for good. I will be around for Formal, so watch out new girls..I’ve learned jujitsu (sp) since I’ve been here, ha I wish everyone was here with me, my family, friends, everyone. It’s just so fun and there is so much to see and do and it feels pointless because you want everyone special to you to be able to go through these experiences with you. MAN that was a long sentence, but you’re following right? I hate that I’m going to come home and have this amazing experience and no one will fully understand. But, that’s why people need to step up and go teach overseas with me for a few years. Duh. I literally walk through my school day wishing that I could video the everything and put it on my blog. I’m sitting here watching about 100 kids play soccer and run around on the concrete in front of my window. I always forget the Thai kids are still learning English, and today I had a third grader ask me what a “footprint” was because we were doing math word problems and it was so cute. It took them FOREVER to understand, then one kid got it and translated it in Thai and they were all so excited. It’s the silly little things I love about being here, and teaching. Okay I know I’m rambling on about how amazing it is and you don’t care, but I wish you were here!!!! I'm now finishing this blog from our apartment, and today Christin and I both had our Ipod in on the BTS and were crunk and ready for our evening activities, and did a movie scene dance all the way there haha. Must had to have been there. Its almost 9 here now, and today is the first day I've had emotions of missing people back home. Some expected, some not. The last picture is the Tuk Tuk we rode...its like a motorcycle with a carriage on the back...out in the open. We almost died lol.

I don't have any pictures right now because I forgot my camera (but i will put them on this blog tomorrow!) We had a tremendously fun weekend since we moved to our new apartment. We were staying on the 15th floor of one of the school buildings in apartments, but now we have moved to an apartment right by two shopping centers: the paragon and MBK. Both of those are pretty big so there are tons of shopping, foods, and extra curricular activities :) We really do have a huge "downtown" area which is like new york with an atlanta crowd just as soon as you walk out of our apartment complex...its amazing!! Christin and I have been out to the "Coco Walk" every evening which is just a row of outside dinning, bars, and bands. Its so much fun to just sit out there and relax after a long day. Teaching is going great, everyday we get to know our teachers more and more. They are all in their mid to late twenties so we have alot to relate with them. This weekend we went out roaming and met a group of Australians and hung out/karaoked with them awhile, to fun. Tomorrow I am teaching my first full lesson to a 3rd grade math class. The cool thing is there are two 3rd grade math classes each day, so to ease into it I watch John teach the first class, and I teach the 2nd period. I'm so glad I got stuck with cool people to teach with. We are allowed to start traveling around as soon as we finish our 100 hours of actually teaching...and we are busting butts to get it done as soon as possible. With our 25 hours a week of classroom teaching and a few small remedial groups we should finish in about four weeks...leaving us a little over a week to head to the beach and then North Thailand, Chang Mai. Our new apartment kind of sucks, because the beds are hard as rocks...our shower is in the middle of the bathroom with no walls or anything, and it just smells funny and has tons of bugs!! But the experience and location just makes it totally 110% worth while. I have so much to blog about, but seeing as I'm a "professional" now, I guess I'll leave the fun stuff to my journal. Tomorrow should be a fairly easy day because I'm only teaching one lesson, then Christin and I are going shopping for a new outfit (at the most it will cost us $6) and HOPEFULLY buying a cheap thai straightener (which will be passed down to little Baker) since ours blew up the first day we used it. I would not trade this experience for the world, I really want to go to Spain and teach awhile. The food is getting better and better each day, we're acquiring a taste and sense of what we like. The people are great, I never get cat whistles from men like I did in Egypt, everything is a 3rd of the cost as usual so I'm saving money, and the culture immersion as a whole is great, Christin is a superb wing man, the teachers we work with are great and showing us around, and I love love love the kids here. We went and traveled to the "ancient city" of bangkok and fed birds and all kinds of fun touristy stuff. I have plenty of pictures to put up from this weekend so hold that thought.

Today was probably the best day I have had yet in Thailand. We skipped out of "Kids Day" which is like a national thing here and went to "survey" for the new kids camp location this year. It was Christin, me, and four of our cooperating teachers (Christian, Chris, Jayson, and John). We went two hours north of Bangkok to a camp area where we...practically just rode fourwheelers, shot bow and arrows, and rock climbed. Talk about an amazing day as a teacher...and what better way to really get to know your "cooperating teacher"? hahah. The kids had a "sports day" where they cheer and dress up and march around. These kids were the most precious things I have ever seen, especially the little buddies that dressed up like corn cause they great was promoting healthy eating! It is 2:45 am here and JoAnn just left the apartment for the airport cause she's leaving to head home tonight!! I'm going to miss her so much, we couldnt ask for a better leader for this trip. I want her to adapt me as her grandchild (not due to her age) but she would be the ideal one for sure! This picture to the right are two of my kids playing a game while they wait on their "green team" to get back from the march so they can cheer. Its late and I'm really short on words, but tomorrow morning we move to our new apartment, crossing my fingers and hoping its nice!!! Goodnight america.

Today was a great day at school, the boys are slowly warming up to me and approaching me throughout the day. I learned a few good behavior management techniques from Christi, one of my cooperating teachers. She is from Texas but you can't hardly tell with her worldy accent. It seems that most Americans that have been here for a few years create this accent that is a little of everywhere and I always have to ask where they are from...which sounds silly once they tell me one of the states lol. Dr. Joann (our lee professor) is leaving late tomorrow night to go back home so we had a going away dinner for her tonight with a few of the school directors and teachers. They took us to one of those buildings with a revolving top floor that over looks the city, and it was absolutely amazing!! We went up to floor 85 and took pictures (all the ones at the very bottom). It is going to be strange when she leaves because we really will be on our own, she has played a huge role in getting us from point A to point B...this may be interesting! When we're not in the classroom, they have us two desk prepared where the rest of the teachers are, they don't use desk to plan in their classroom like we do. They have little cubicle offices and its where they all hang out, its literally like a show off the Office" lol. I put a picture up so you could get a feel of what we see half the day when we're not teaching. Christin and I just sit back and listen/watch everyone and giggle.I want to share a few "taboo" things in Thailand and just culture points I've learned in this last week, you may find some of them intersting.

1. Never show the bottom of your foot or point your toe at an elder or someone in authority over you (The feet are considered the lowest part of your body and its a sign of disrespect, so its best to NOT cross your legs!)

2. Instead of shaking hands o

r waving to someone, everyone "wia" (pronounced whys) to one another. Lowest respect does it first (students wia to us then we wia back).

3. Thai's do not like to be touched on the head, which is very tempting to do to little kids. Like the feet are considered the lowest, the head is considered the highest and it is disrespectful.

4. When Thai's o

ffer you food, you try everything and clean your plate t

o be respectful and show them that you appreciate and like the food (trust me...you eat enough to kill someone...even if it is rice!! They are very hospitable here).

There are many more but its been a long day and I literally when blank as I started typing that lol, I'll add more later. We have a kid named

(american pronunciation)=kiddyporn. It made me laugh. Tomorrow is Sports Day at the school, but it is not exactly Field Day like you may expect. No. These kids have been practicing cheers for it all week, and when I say cheers I mean similar to cheerleaders. They dress some of the high schoolers up, put makeup on them, and they cheer. The younger kids just do stomps and cheers. This culture has alot of "lady boys" so

they call them, and its where men dress as women and it is almost impossible to t

ell the difference sometimes. Sadly, this is very excepted and WANTED by many families! They encourage their son

s to one day become these "lady boys" by saying..."you are so sweet, you will make a great girl." About 40% of the culture is homosexual, and it sta

rts at very young ages. Girls also wish to be guys, and they are termed as "Toms." They are much easier to point out than many of the lady boys...I mean "lady boys" even have their own BATHROOM!!! Most

of the boys do not want to be "cheerleaders" but it is an old thai tradition and the school leaders have failed to see the culture change. I am not telling this out of my opinion, these are things Thai's here in Bangkok of shared with me about their culture. I can't notice these lady boy characteristics in my boys because they are so young and I like to not think about these precious little buddies in any other way, but on

e thing I can say is that they are mini Van Gohs!! This tiny, shy little guy in my class named Kattanik can draw and color better than any child I've ever seen. He colored a science workbook page about mountains, streams, etc....and he shaded and faded out the colors and it was just unbelievable. The kids here are going through a "Ben Ten" craze, which I had never hea

rd of. I believe its similar to Pokemon or something, but they draw these little alien, dinosaur creatures and it would blow your mind. I will try to take some pictures next week to post on here.

A Great First Day

(The picture to the left is the kids playing soccer on the field in the middle of campus, Christin and I watched them for a minute during our lunch break...they actually are pulled out of classess for these games!!

Middle right: Our dinner cruise a few nights ago)

Today was my first day actually in the classroom observing and I loved it! Christin and I are in the EIP building (English Immersion Program) so we are teaching all subject matter, whereas the other three girls are in the IEP (Intensive English Program) so they are teaching only English. The students and parents get either one of those programs, or the Thai only program where they are taught by thai teachers in thai. I am really glad I'm teaching in the EIP because my students are more fluent in English, and I am able to teach all subject matters which will help me in preparing to teach once I graduate. I am team teaching with three different teachers in grades 2nd and 3rd and I cannot wait. I loved all of my cooperating teachers and my two main advisors, so it helps my nerves going into my first student teaching placement! I observed my supervisors two classes today (6th grade science) and it was interesting to see how behavior management works in Thai classrooms, because as I mentioned before it is tremendously different than ours. He let the students out 15 minutes early and the school is fenced in with security so when they are not in class they are allowed to just run all over with no supervision which seems so crazy to me. I think they pay attention in class because they are allowed so much freedom inside and outside of the class to get all of their chatter and energy out. The schools co

lors are purple (yeaah Epsilon!!) which I love, and they presented us with little fanny packs yeste

rday and a purple collared shirt to wear today. We have an hour lunch break so our advisor, Chris, took us to a nearby coffee shop and bought us a delicious american breakfast for lunch! It is going to be difficult to go back to the uptight strict standards of the classrooms and schools in the states! One thing I already think I will have trouble with his memorizing and pronouncing my students names because they are so different than what I am use to. Also, I have trouble understanding what they are saying in English because they speak so fast and use tones that we don't. It amazes me how intent they are during class and their willingness to soak in every word you say. These kids are very bright, I mean obviously, most of them are already speaking two languages! Sorry for all you non-family or non-teachers, I'm sure this blog really bores you, but today was the first day of the rest of my life!! haha, I'm just glad it went well. They asked Christin and I to go on a teachers field trip friday to check out an area they want to take the kids for summer camp (and we get to ride fourwheelers and stuff!!) Picture below was the room where we all 6 got thai massages yesterday..."Health Land" is our favorite part of each day:)

A much better day

Yesterday was our first day visiting the school (Bangkok Christian College) which really isn't a college. It is an all boys school grades 1-12 with 5,500 students in the middle of the big city of Bangkok. The facilities are amazing and there are alot more teachers from overseas (america, GB, new zealand..etc) than I expected. They have over 70 native English speaking teachers here...and thankfully a few of them are good looking men my age :) It was crazy one of the guys I met was from Roswell, Ga...and attractive, hey-o. But back to why I am here lol, I fell in love with the kids the moment we got here, they are so freaking precious!! We are staying on the 15th floor of this huge school building for the week (that is a picture of the view form our window!!), and on the way up the 6 of us hear a loud group of boys, of course we stop on their floor and ATLEAST 15 hop on with us!!

It was quite the first impression of the kids. One thing that is much different than the states is the classrooms are very loud and seem unorganized but they really aren't. The thai culture is very laid back but the kids seem to be respectful, our american kids would be a nightmare in this classroom setting but these boys are very good. The school is gated so the kids run alllllll over the place all day, and because they are allowed to get their energy out they are very well behaved in the classroom. Besides seeing the kids and falling in love with them yesterday...we went to lunch with some of the head directors of this huge school, and it was awful. I was stuck in the middle of two conversations so I was just bouncing back and forth and then I got the nervous giggles and couldn't stop. So here I am sitting DIRECTLY IN FRONT of the second highest director hysterically laughing for no reason...besides she kept insisting that I try some of the food on the table when I clearly was not interested lol. Then they taught us to say "not spicy" in thai is pronounced..."may pet" (mai pet). I leaned over to christin and said...lets just hope they don't think we're speaking english and serve us dog or cat. Then we both got so tickled we couldn't swallow our food and it was just embarrassing. We laughed on and off obnoxiously and honestly couldn't stop. THEN, they tell us you have to be careful cause "mai" could mean NO or DOG!! So then we were tickled because if we didn't use the right TONE we would order spicy dog instead of saying NOT SPICY. Needless to say we left the table wanting to throw up we had eaten so much, cause the Thai culture wants you to feel welcomed so they continually offer you food and its rude to not accept it (even if you want to throw up at the sight and smell of it...trust me). But the main meal we ordered was actually pretty good. We got an hour and half long aromatherapy massage which made up for EVERYTHING, then for dinner we went to the Blue Elephant which is the equivalent of the Bistro--very elegant. We had cocktails (non-alcoholic...thank you lee university) and I got chicken and pinapple in half of a pineapple shell, DELICIOUS. Yesterdays food (except for the FORCED appetizers) gave me up for my health on this trip. Today we woke up and had lunch with the Board advisors and had a little orientation. Our main lady is named Kosum and she's so amazing, we'll have tons of fun with her. We are leaving here shortly for another massage and then shopping at River City. Tomorrow is our first day in the classroom :( Wish me luck...(or in thai "kor hai chok dee"=good luck!)

I miss American food!!

WE NOW HAVE OUR LUGGAGE!!! Yay!! So the trip has been amazing so far, but I seriously just don't know if I can physically live off this food :( Yesterday we went to on a boat ride down the river and it was so interesting to see the different people that live on the river and just see the big city of Bangkok. We stopped by a snake farm...which was really disturbing cause the guys were making them mad and picking them up with their mouths and just weird stuff. Christin and I are totally 110% tourist still right now, we definitely got little Thai hats (which also conveniently turn into fans) to wear on the boat and everyone was just laughing at us. I mean we figure we might as well live it up while its still exciting to be a "falahng" as they call us (meaning foreigner). Then we shopped awhile and got an hour long thai foot massage. Christin's girl did hers so hard she had bruises up her thigh haha, but mine was just enough to put me to sleep for five minutes :) I love the massages here and Joann wants to get one EVERYDAY!! One thing that kind of bothers/grosses me out is all the white men over here with little young asian women. I'm sure some of them "are in love" but I can't help to think its like a mail-order-bride thing...or sex slave kind of stuff. So gross. Another thing I have noticed is that the girls here are freaking gorgeous...but not so much in their old age lol. Never in a million years (or 23) have i ever found an asian man attractive, but I have most def seen alot of asian guys i find attractive here. No worries, I love the white man more though. Everyone here is so friendly and fun, unlike Egypt where I got glared at badly all day and whistled at by the men. For this to be such a huge sex trade industry I don't feel threatened by the men at all....and neither does Christin obviously. We went on a dinner cruise last night and she started the night out sick, and ended it by dancing with some creeeeeeper who then wouldn't leave us alone lol. As I said last night, it doesn't matter your ethnicity or location, all creepers have the same heir haha. We're about to head to lunch with one of the head ladies from Bangkok Christian College where we will be teaching, and hopefully the food is decent. Our hotel provides some "wester style" breakfast along with rice and stuff, so Christin and I eat the junk out of breakfast cause we never know how the rest of our meals are going to go :( We haven't quiet figured out the voltage thing yet, we have a converter and adapter and still...it fried our straightener. Guess we'll be the fat, tall, americans with ugly curly hair till we buy a thai straightener. I'm nervous to plug my computer up so I may not be on for a few days. But I can assure one thing...I will probably attend 10 more jewelry stores in the next day. People here get commission off taking you there, so randomely your taxi will take you there when its CLEARLY not where you asked to go. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining its just the little funny things we're getting used to. It really is amazing here, I love the fashion, people, and big city :