Teenage Hormones and Violins

Teenagers have them and they talk about them, but they never show them. Boys and girls have relationships, but the couple might not even touch or speak to each other in public. Holding hands is taboo. It reminds me of middle school when girls and boys would "date." The girls would stay in one group, the boys would stay in another group across the hall. One girl would pointg to a boy and say, "That's my boyfriend." She might smile or wave, but that's the end of the relationship. Maybe at a school dance they will stand two feet apart and sway to a slow song. Maybe not. It's all very innocent.

The boys don't know what to do with me. I pass them in the hallway and they call out my name, tell me they love me, give me a wai. They never come more than ten feet closer to me. If I smile at one, the entire group breaks into laughs and the boys jump around and pat each other on the back. It's like watching a bad disney show.

I went and visited other classes yesterday that aren't in an english program. The main question from boys was, "Do you have a boyfriend?" And the girls wanted to know what my school uniform was in Corvallis.

When I say that "No, I don't have a boyfriend." The entire class erupts into an "OOOOOOOOOOH!" And some of the boys point to me and then point to themselves. A few of the girls point out their boyfriends in a "He's mine, keep your blonde hair away from him way."

I'm not interested in anyone here and I can't date with the Rotary rules anyway. It's one of the four D's, didn't you know?

Sometimes, the boys assume that I'm a blonde bimbo and that I don't know any thai. They'll chatter away to a friend of mine abouthow cute I am in thai. I look at them, smile and tell them I understand-- in thai. The jumping, patting on the backs and the "OOOOOIH!"s start all over again.

Once a particularly unnattractive boy at the other school tried to make fun of me as he walked pass. "I no can speak thai" He said in a "girly" voice. I got so angry. I yelled after him. "Mai, Mai Chan dai cow jai laa poot pasa thai!" ( No, No, I can understand and speak thai).
His friends laughed at him and if his skin color would have allowed him to turn red, I'm sure it would have.

Today I went to the other school for a violin class. I don't know how well the teacher plays, but he made a joke in thai about how I should be the teacher. NObody plays violin here. In fact, the ones that do play violin can barely eek out twinkle twinkle. I don't think the teacher knows what to do with me. He asked me what I wanted to learn, scales or exercises or pieces, "Everything" I said with a smile. The entire class erupted into an "OOOOOH" and clapping.

He had me play for him. Which makes sense, he wants to know how well I can play. I drew a crowd. People started pouring into the classroom and staring in awe. Emma was there practicing guitar. When I finished I realized that one boy had been videotaping the entire thing. He videotaped everything, from my introduction to my performance, my scales and playing with the class. The teacher had the sheet music up on the wall with a projector and a green line showed what note we were at the whole time. I just thought what a great tool for learning how to read music. He had me sight read, it was like suzuki book one. Very simple. I didn't make any mistakes. I feel like I play violin so well here and I know that in America I'm not anything special. I'm good yes, not great, not amazing, not pursuing a professional career.
I wish I could have shown this class some of the other violinists in my orchestra in Corvallis, or simply other musicians. They have no concept of a viola or cello.

After I finished playing I was introduced to almost the entire class. Half of them wanted to take a picture with me. A few boys just stared from afar, a few wanted to have a picture with me too. Emma and I both had a free period. We sat in glen and quizzed each other with flash cards of the thai alphabet and ate hemp seeds. A group of kids sitting near us asked us what we were eating. "Seeds" we told them. "Ging dai mai?"(can you eat them?)" (Dai, alloy mak) You can, very delicious. They were so curious and so cautious. Some of the food I eat here would seem exotic to my friends back home, but western food and "hippie feed" is completely foreign here.
In the cantina where we went to get something to eat, a boy came up to us and introduced himself and all of his friends to us. One of them had the nickname Ai (shy). I asked, Are you shy? He blushed and looked at his food. Others were only to excited to have their names mentioned. Um and Jackie particularly. Yes, those are boys and yes, those are their names.

I rode my bike back to my school and was trying to figure out how my kick stand works (they're very different here). The bike kept falling on me as a group of teenage boys watched me and laughed. My face was bright red from the heat and I tried to smile at them but I ended up scowling. They asked me if I wanted help. In my own indignant way, I said,"no, I can do it myself." Just like I've been saying since I was two. I'm probably too self-reliant. I used to hate it when boys asked if they could help me carry my stuff or if they could open the door. "I can handle it." I'd say.

Now, unless the boy is patronizing, I appreciate it. I like having doors opened for me my things carried. I've become a romantic sap. I like being told I'm kind or pretty or a princess.
I'm sitting in the classroom by myself typing this and playing Michelle Shocked, the Campfire tapes, YesMom, yes Madeleine. I took your favorite CD. It's with me across the world playing in a classroom in Thailand. It's funny where your stuff ends up isn't it?
The other students are either at the military training if they are boys and at housework if they are girls. I'm not required to go to housework. And today putting leaves on a needle in a pattern didn't seem appealing (Although I can put fold leaves and put them on a needles in a pattern quite well...It must be my inner housewife)

Later today I will practice for a competition with Ajan Venus (ajan means teacher). I got roped into singing and playing violin. It's okay though, it means that this week I get to go to Khon Kaen and stay in a hotel room with 15 other girls. Slumber party anyone?
We're singing "a better world." I think that's the name of the song.

After school, I'm going to get crepes with emma, probably. It's my host mother's birthday today and I'm not sure if I should buy her a present. I asked my host father and he said that he wasn't buying her anything because he forgot that it was her birthday.

Yesterday was Aom's birthday. Emma and I took her and Pooh out to the fancy western restaurant in town. She didn't know we were paying when we went. Emma and I both got steak. The chef is french, a frenchman that married a thai women who can speak english but no french. Only god knows how they communicate. The steak was decent, actually it was heavenly because I feel like I haven't had steak in years. For thai standards it was expensive, 220 baht. Normally dinner is 40 baht. But in America 220 baht is maybe $5. Emma and I made Aom and pooh stay where they were sitting while we bought a cake and had it cut. We carried it to the table singing happy birthday in english. I think she was touched. Earlier she had told me that her birthday was her first day in American last year and her host family was really amazing and she missed them. So, I think it brought back a lot of memories.
After dinner Emma and I went back to her house and watched 27 dresses. I kept trying to say my comments in thai. Nan cha cheup kee lay. That dress is ugly. but cha cheup isn't dress. I forgot what dress is. I can remember shirt and skirt, pants, socks, shoes, but not dress.

Tomorrowis Aom's birthday party. I also have to cook steak for my host father's breakfast. He asked if I could cook. When I answered yes, he got excited. Maybe I can convince him to get potatoes and butter too so I can make real mashed potatoes.
Emma is going to help me. In Canada she did a three month cooking seminar.
Ajan Venus said she'd teach me how to cook phillipino food too. I'm excited.

I'm still the same old self. I still like to dance in the rain and be a little silly. I like playing sad music on my violin and so far, I haven't gained weight. It'll happen though, unless I can refrain myself from eating comfort food like, pancake and chocolate sandwiches that are highly processed and in a plastic wrapper and chocolate milk from a juice box.

Apart from being asked if I have a boyfriend, if I'm hungry, if I'm homesick, I also get asked how much my stuff cost. Like my violin, they wanted to know how many baht. Since the violin I brought isn't mine and even then, it's a family heirloom of a good friend so I don't know. But my real violin is probably worth over 70,0o0 baht. Too much to say outright.
I feel like the rich american here, but I'm sure that eventually I will get used to it.
Signing off for now,
Sunitsaa Rassamee (my thai name, because they can't pronounce Suzanne Katz)

Continual Shocks

As I said in the last entry, things have started to become almost normal. Even so, I have little tiny experiences that remind me that I'm really in a different world. Last night I took off my shirt to take a shower, looked down and saw a pool of sweat in my bellybutton. That's when you know how ridiculously hot this place is, and it isn't even in the hot season here.
Emma and I went swimming at my school's swimming pool and you're not allowed in if you are wearing a bikini. Luckily, my swimingsuit isn't, but Emma had to wear a shirt over her swimming suit. The standards set for men and women differ in so many ways. Boys wear speedos and walk around in their boxers while women (unless they are swimming) can't show their shoulders.
On another note, the band instructor wants to examine my violin. He wants to know what "key" it's in. I tried to explain to my host father that violins don't have a set key, that violinists don't play in military bands and that we can play in any key. He didn't understand it. I have to bring my violin to school tomorrow so some musical butcher can mess with it. Por said, "can't you change the key?" he motioned tuning with the pegs. I started to grow indignant, but I kept a smile on my face and said, 'No, the notes of the violin strings stay the same. we don't change them."
Speaking to someone who doens't understand music about my instrument in a foreign language is painful. It's hard to describe what exactly I do with my violin when the closest this anyone in this town has come to western music has been a high schoolband. I said I didn't want to play in the military band and my host father said, " No, no not military band, string combo, with saxophone, string combo."
I don't play jazz. I play classical. I play in quartets, chmaber orchestras and symphonies. I don't play with saxophones. I had this sense of forboding that I was going to be experimented on. Violins are rare things around here, and people don't know much about them. In fact, they don't know anything about them. Just what they sound like.
The Military band of my high school is well, Imagine level one band from middle school playing the thai national anthem. They also play it in a key that nobody can sing in every morning during roll call.
Yes, we have roll call. Every student in the school marches outside. We face the flag. We listen to the teachers. Today we had policemen as guest speakers. We melt in the heat. We stand and "sing" the national anthem as the thai flag is raised. We turn to our right and face a gold buddha statue. We all chant. The military band plays. And then we go to our classes. The entire rigamaroll takes a little over half an hour.
After school today, Emma and I are going swimming. Emma goes to the other high school in the town. Today was her first day. I wonder what it was like. They don't have an english program so all of her classes are in thai. None of her classes count here though. I am trying to take credits back from this year. Khun Por Dang (Dang is his nickname, it means red) says I can get a transcript. Anyway, I'm curious to see how her day went. The dress code is really strict and her peircings are not necessarily conventional in the thai sense. She has a bar across her ear on the left side. Not big, but I got in trouble for wearing rainbow studs.
The other school apparently has violin classes. I'm jealous. Even if nobody can play well, I'd like to be with other people who can play even a little bit. I'll ask Por if I can take a class at the other school. I'd rather do that that join the "string combo."
Signing off for now,
Sai

Sense of Normalcy

It's amazing how quickly things have become routine. I have a ritual now to my daily life. I have friends, I have boy problems (sort of), I have complaints about my parents (only marginal, llike any teenager would have), I have a set routine.
I'm tidier here than I have ever been in my life. Seriously. Every night before I go to bed, I iron my uniform for the next day and take a shower. I then spray Deet over every imaginable place on my body and add to that layer baby powder. It is so humid here that if I didn't, I would be sweating buckets AND eaten alive by mosquitoes. I read myself to sleep. Mr. Martin has given me six books to start with and will give me more when I return the first few. I'm already onto my second.
I wake up at 6 am and for some reason, I am even cheerful about it. Maybe because it is the only time of day that has reasonable weather. So, I wake up, I shower, I put on some more deet and baby powder. I put on my uniform complete with socks and big black mary janes. I eat my cornflakes and I arrive at school at 7:15 am. Having teachers for parents really puts a damper on your sleep patterns. I'm the first kid in my class to get to school.
School is like a big party, all of the time. Yes we have classes, but I only have classes in english (I'm in the english program). When I have a class in thai I try to participate. I even take math tests! The teachers here are so much more relaxed than the teachers in America. They call the students fat, or ugly, or beautiful. They ask if you have a boyfriend, or have a crush. Sometimes they make jokes about your love life and their own. Hearing a teacher call my friend fat was really a bit of a culture shock. Everyone laughs here. In Corvallis we would become indignant and the teacher would at least get admonished from the administration.
Anyway, there's class and then lunch. LUnch is served in something called the "Cantina."
There are stray dogs everywhere. The food varies a lot and comes from individual vendors, wizened old women missing teeth. There's rice, curry, soup, noodles, hot dogs, fried chicken, snacks, fruit, and a fruit juice stand selling coconut, pineapple, papaya, passion fruit and everyother "weird" juice you could imagine. I bring 40 Baht with me to school. That buys me lunch, a drink, a snack for later and a bottle of water. It's the equivalent of $1.25.
Then we have class and school in officially over at 4:00 pm or see mung. I normally have to wait around for my host father and I leave school at 5:00.
Yesterday though, I went out with my friend boo (I found out that it's actually pooh, like the bear). Anyway, Pooh and I convinced my host mother to let me ride pooh's motorcycle, if pooh drove and we both wore helmets. Nobody wears helmets here because the motorcycles only go 10 miles an hour, but we wore them anyway. We were a sight to behold. School girls wearing their mary janes on a motorcycle.
I really liked riding the motorcycle. It's was such a free feeling. Who knows, I might want one instead of a car when I'm older. It's cheaper than a car too. So we rode into town and stopped at a temple. Neither of us knew quite what to do and we were the only people there. We made a wish and lit some incense. After that we drove along the river. You can see Loas. It is astonishingly beautiful. Tall green jagged peaks everywhere covered in forest. I hope I can go there someday.
After looking around the shops (I'm going to buy a pair of hot pink pointy toed jellies when we go back!) Pooh took me to her favorite restaurant here. It's a vietnameses crepe shop. In america, crepes are soft. Here they are crunchy and the waitresses cut them into bite size's peices for you. I had one with strawberry and custard. The store owners were shocked. I guess putting fruit and custard together never occurred to them. Pooh's choice, tuna with chili, was perfectly acceptable though. When I go back I think I'll have chocolate and banana. We also ordered soda. The soda was blended with ice and was a little bit like a smoothie. It came in a plastic parfait dish with a spoon. I had sprite, Pooh had oreo. The Oreo came with corn on top that was drizzled in chocolate sauce. Canned corn is a dessert here. It's eaten with chocolate and with watermelon, it gets put on top of icecream. I'm utterly befuddled by this strange idea.
I got home at 6:30 pm and then had to get ready for the Rotary meeting. I went to my first one. It's small and at a very nice hotel in a conference room entirely dedicated to Rotary. Emma, the new exchange student was there. She's as tall as me and even blonder, but her proportions are completely opposite. She has the longest torso I have ever seen. When she was sitting down next to me she was 6 inches taller than me. I thought, if her legs are as long as her torso, she must be over 6 ft. But no, she's actually a little shorter than me, so my shallow pride in my height hasn't been damaged. My pride in my fashion sense has though. She is by far, the most fashionable girl I have seen in a while. She hasn't gone to school yet and doesn't have any friends here yet. I invited her to come with us shopping tomorrow. She seemed really excited to have been invited somewhere. Her host parents have left her home alone all day for the entire week. She starts school on monday.
I got my cell phone to work and I called mom and dad. It was so nice to hear their voices. Dad's philly accent came through so clearly on the phone. It was comforting, but he sounded like my uncle.
I also recieved my first real letter. My friend and former rotary exchange student from the Czech Republic sent me a letter. It was so nice to have mail. I just sent off a bunch of letters to people in the U.S. and a response to my Czech friend. I even sent a postcard to Charlie. Life is moving forward so fast and I've only been here a week and a half.
Signing off for now,
Suzanne

Pit

"Pit" means spicy in Thai. When you hear that all the food here is spicy, it's not a joke or a common misbelief. It's the truth. Thai people can't imagine food without tablespoons of chili. IN fact, if the soup, rice, curry, fruit or anything else isn't mouthwateringly spicy, it's bland. Now, I like spicy food, so it's not a problem. But sometimes I miss the idea of subtlety. Nothing in Thailand is subtle. In the United States we think that Americans are the least tactful people in the world. I believed that anyplace else would be less brash and aggressive. Not so. In Thailand (although all the people are incredibly nice) everything is over the top. From the modern ruins of uncompleted skyscrapers in Bangkok, to the roar of motorcyclists everywhere, life itself is bigger than life. Even the weather follows this rule. If the sun isn't scorching hot and you aren't sweating buckets, you are in a torrential downpour larger than one you've ever seen in Oregon --and it rains alot in Oregon.
There isn't much variety in the food here. It's either thai, or chinese. It's either spicy or bland. I've gotten used to it and take it as normal. It didn't even occur to me to ask for food like pizza or sphagetti here. We eat a lot of sphagetti at my Dad's house. Angel hair or linguini is topped with pesto or a heavy tomato sauce laden with ground beef and bay leaves. So when my host father asked what I would be eating for dinner tonight if I was in America I simply answered, "Sphagetti."
The next thing I know, my host mother, father and I are driving in my host father's 1990 nissan truck to the only western restaurant in town. I'm touched by the gesture but the western food here is a far cry from what we had at home. I think I'll try to cook for them someday but getting the ingredients might be tough.
We arrive in the restaurant. "buffet, buffet!" My host mother tells me excitedly. In reality it is a conglobulation of decades old crockpots filled with sauces that I don't recognize, one with a sign that says sphagetti sauce. It looks like alphabet soup, without the alphabet letters. The noodles are overdone and sticking to each other. They are big and fat, like the whole wheat noodles that I would eat from time to time at the house of a vegan friend. I take some anyway because strangely enough, the idea of american food is still appealing. I heap some mashed potatoes onto my plate, some sphagetti and some of the so called sauce. Remember what I said about thai people not understanding the interplay of subtle flavors, textures and palettes together? It applies to mashed potatoes too. Part of the glory of mashed potatoes is the blandness. The absolute simplicity.
These mashed potatoes had little or no butter, no salt and tons of pepper. I ate them anyway and loved that they weren't my dream potatoes. But I was also wistful. "Is there salt in thailand?" "Have they ever had real mashed potatoes?"
After I finished my Mae (host mother) kept motioning for me to eat more. I went up and got a fried egg. It was actually pretty good-- although shaped like a flower with the yolk perfectly in the center. There was sausage too. I couldn't figure out what kind of meat the sausage was. Orange sausage is not something we have in the U.S. I decided that since I wasn't asking what was in anything else I ate (I'm pretty sure I ate some animal's intestine fried the other day) I took some sausage too. After eating it, I still have no idea what meat it was. It certainly wasn't tofu though.
The restaurant that I am sitting in is hardly more that a street stand. The crockpots and plates of salad sit on top of pepsi tablecloths. It is a strange dichotomy of east meets west. A poster for the temptations is stared at by a laughing buddha statue and the king, while I'm sitting eating my sphagetti with a pepsi watching the olympic boxing tournament in thai. My host father asks me how often I eat ice-cream in america. "every day?" he asks. I almost laugh. twice a month I tell him. He wants a quantitative answer, "Not often" isn't good enough. I'm asked if I was on a diet. I said no, that's just how I eat.
Americans are well loved here, but there are still stereotypes. Everyone in America must be fat. Everyone in America must be ugly. Everyone in America must like burgers and french fries. Everyone in America must be christian. When I say that I am not christian people guffaw. I try to explain that I'm jewish, but they don't know that word. I say from isreal and they gasp, "MUSLIM?"
"No, I'm not muslim." I finally give up and say Jewish, like with Hitler. They understand now. "You hate hitler?" Is my next question to answer.
"Chai." (yes) I say it with a smile though.

On saturday, I'm going shopping. I have friends here. Three groups of friends actually. There are the silly girls the grade below me that are all in love with my host brother, the silly girls in my grade that ask me if I have a boyfriend everyday and want pictures of the handsome white boys in America and the smart girls who study hard and want to travel. I'm shopping with the smart girls. I was asked to go somwhere today but I wasn't allowed to because I don't have a motorcycle helmet. All the students have motorcycles. You don't even need a license to drive one. Nobody wears helmets because with this heat, you'd die of sunstroke much faster than you would in an accident. Boo and Om said they'd bring their helmets next time for me to borrow.
I'm excited to try out the thai fashions. Those high waisted pants that everyone thought were stupid in the U.S. are very chic here. In fact, the newest style is a highwaisted mini-skirt with ruffles. Imagine it in orange or neon green. I'm going to have one hell of a wardrobe when I get back.
I'm signing off now, but send me an e-mail if you have any questions.

Landmark

I've made it through my first week without any scratches, although quite a few mosquito bites. Yesterday I had my first full day of school. I arrived there at 8 and left there at 5. That's typical for thai students. Strangely enough, I think I only had an hour of actual school during the whole day. I took a math test from the thai math teacher. It was on the unit circle. Watching the teacher grade my test was amusing. I had the right answers, but had gotten them in a completely different manner from the way she was taught. It made me laugh. I also had english class from a British Ex-Pat named Martin. The entire class took maybe fifteen minutes. Afterward, Martin asked me if I had enough books to read. I said that "No, I didn't because I was afraid of the weight limit." He offered to bring me some. His personal favorite author is Arthur C. Clarke. I asked him if he liked Heinlein and Vonnegut. He said he hadn't heard of them!
During the last class of the day, I met my match. I can't remember her name, but she was strict. She teaches thai language. I was supposed to write the thai alphabet.
In america, it doesn't matter how neat you are, as long as it is legible. Here it is a different matter. My letters had to touch both the top and the bottom of the line, they had to line up in perfect columns, and if one line of a letter was slightly too long, she would draw a red X over it and make me write it again. Imagine Mrs. Beachump to the 5th power.
Om (an exchange student recently returned from america) sympathized with me. She said she had grown used to american teachers and it was an adjustment coming back. I told her how I missed having milk and cereal. She promptly told my host mother that and this morning, when I looking in the fridge, there was a gallon of milk.
Milk is different here. It comes in individual rectangular packages and a straw. But when it tasted like real milk, you can't imagine how happy this made me. Little things that remind me of home are precious here. A few days ago, we went out for sushi. The sushi and wasabi reminded me of going to Shogun Bowl with friends and getting sushi with A. before prom. Thai people assume that all farangs (foreigners) can't handle spicy food. When I loaded on the pickled ginger and wasabi, my host family was shocked. They kept trying to warn me. "Pit, Pit!" (spicy). I think they don't know that we have sushi in america. Well, I ate it and took it like a champ. When my eyes teared up and my face turned red, I turned around, smiled and said, "Chan Chop wasabi ka." (I like wasabi). It brought me back to horseradish eating competitions at the passover table and my friend bryce eating a HUGE chunk of wasabi for two dollars in Bend while on an orchestra tour.
Today, I didn't have school. It's the queen's birthday and the thia equivalent of mother's day. Yesterday morning everyone in the school lined up in the auditorium to give food to the monks in preperation for the holiday. We knelt while the monks chanted and then made their rounds. This culture is sometimes so backward. Women can't touch monks because we might arouse them. That would be a sin. Thailand is also fairly racist. The lighter your skin, the better you are treated.
I am treated very well. I also get a lot more attention than I did back in Oregon. Men and women shout out "Beautiful" to me in the streets and at school. Girls want to touch my hair and people want to have their picture taken with me. The boys ( who at first stayed away) have become more bold. Today I was with Mae at one of her dance classes and two thai boys walked past the open door. They turned around and began to stare at me. Mae got up to try to convince them to leave but one shouted "I love you!"
They stayed for ten maybe fifteen minutes and then left. Thirty seconds later they were back. "Good Morning!" "I love you!" It was afternoon, but many of the thai people who don't know much english think that Good Morning is standard. The girls in Mae's dance class laughed really hard. One girl asked if she could braid my hair. I let her. I haven't had anyone braid my hair since, oh, I don't know how long ago.
Mae and I left soon after my hair was done. The next thing I know, we're at a beauty parlor. Mae is going to get a pedicure. Don't get me wrong, in thailand, a beauty parlor is nothing glamorous. Getting a pedicure and manicure isn't about the massage chair and the mini whirlpool for your feet. Your feet go into a cold plastic bucket of water and you sit on a blue vinyl couch with rips in it.
Mae asked if I wanted a hair cut. I said yes. The last few times I've gotten a haircut, I've done it myself. The woman who ran the business took me into a back room to get my hair shampooed. In america, getting you hair shampooed is like a head massage. It's gentle and the water is warm. It takes ten minutes, tops. Here, your head gets a beating. The water is freezing and the woman scratches your head until you feel like your skin can't possibly take it anymore. That's when the freezing cold water comes as a relief. The shampooing alone takes forty minutes.
After that experience, which I'm sure I will repeat some day, I had had my hair trimmed.
It's been a long time since I've had a real haircut. My last haircut was with Lynn, who died in her sleep sometime in her mid-fifties. I was thirteen.
I once thought my hair looked a little bit like buffy's hair in buffy the vampire slayer. It looks more so now. And I'm surprisingly okay with that.
It's been a really good day.
Tomorrow I will go back to school. I'll probably sit around and do nothing. I'll read some more. Maybe I'll have a class in english. I have to say that I miss being productive. Thailand seems to have a lot of holidays and a lot of time. Everything moves slowly. Om explained it to me. In Thailand you will be told that you have three minutes to get ready. In reality you have thirty, maybe forty. Being late isn't considered rude and you don't get in trouble for it at school. If you have an appointment, it doesn't matter if you are an hour late, the person you are meeting will wait for you. I have never appreciated punctuality more.

The King Plays Saxophone

There are pictures of the king everywhere. He's giant. He's taking pictures. He's playing saxonphone, he's walking his dog, he's with his wife. he is everywhere.
George Bush arrived in Thailand the same day as I did. There was a giant picture of George and Laura in Bangkok. I took a picture of it.
I'll start from thw beginning. I got on the plane with 5 other exchange students. It was such a long flight that my butt hurt from sitting. I'm not kidding. All I wanted to do was stand up, but the man next to me was asleep so I culdn't go anywhere (I had a window seat).
When that flight was finally over, I had a lay over in Tokyo for 2 hours. Did you know that in the Tokyo Narita airport you can rent a shower? I would have, but we didn't have enough time. Instead I walked around and took pictures. I also bought a weird candy necklace and some postcards. A few of you might be getting one in the mail soon.
We met up with other exchange students from the U.S. and Canada. Some of them were nice, some boring, and some weren't sociable at all.
I ended up sitting next to a girl from alaska with the unfortunate last name of Roach. We talked a lot and watched some weird indian movie called KRAZZY 4, about four crazy indians that escaped from a mental hospital.
Anyway, I landed in Bangkok at 11:40 at night there and met up with por and mae, my first host mom and dad. We went to a hotel and slept there for the night. Everything in thailand in open. The rooms were the only thing that weren't outdooors. We ate breakfast on a giant paddio outside. Rice, steamed vegetables and egg with bitter melon (surprisingly good).
Mae and I walked around Bangkok for an hour and she bought me some soda which the guy at the counter opened and poured into a plastic bag with a straw! I drank soda out of a plastic bag. It seriously made my day. We then left for an 11 hour drive to Nakhon Phanom. I'm the exchange student that lives the farthest away from any of the other exchange students in my district.
Anyway, More has happened but I'm too lazy to write about the fatc that I was introduced to so many people today that my mind has gone blank and that my host brother is really shy and can't talk to me, or that I went to school today in a cute little uniform and had to introduce myself to the class that I'll be with. It's all starting.
I woul upload pictures, but I can't figure out how right now.
Write you all later.