สวัสดีค่ะอุดรธานี

Nothing ever went quite exactly as we planned

2011-09-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

So since my last blog post a year ago, things have changed. A lot. I am out of AU and back in my hometown, going to the branch campus of the school I actually wanted to attended. Hey, life happens. Things are relatively boring now. I work, go to school, homework, bed, repeat. Not exactly a thrilling life, but it is fine. For now.

BUT...

There is quite possibly a chance that I might be back in Thailand this January for six months.

Meeting with my academic advisor on Wednesday to see if can make this work. I did not give her the head's up on what I wanted to talk about, so we will see how this goes.

Totally have all my papers (program application, visa application, etc) filled out and ready to send in as soon as I get the OK.

Hoping for the best. :)

Five months later...

2010-12-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

Wow. I have not touched this blog in a while. It has now been five months since I left beautiful Thailand. I still miss it and the more I am away from it, the more I want to return. I will go back to Thailand in the future, I promise.

{{Now to go on a little unrelated (but still kind of related) rant.}}

As for the near future, I have decided I am not into American University as much as I thought I was and will be taking a semester off so I can apply somewhere else. Why? The big issue is that I cannot afford a 52000 USD a year university. I guess AU itself is not bad, pretty so-so, but so-so is not worth 52000 a year.

Where now? I really want to go to Penn State University (main). I am still a bit undecided with what I want to do, but PSU has so many nice sounding majors (Linguistics might be an option for me. :) ) and a nice Chinese language program (Although I do love 张老师 here at AU), but best of all...PSU has great STUDY ABROAD programs. {{Back to Thailand again.}} They have two in Thailand; one in BKK and one in Khon Kaen...AT KKU !! This excites me to no end because that is where many of my Udon friends are going to university. It would be awesome to see them all again ! KKU is also only about two hours (or less, if you are a speeding Thai, haha) from Udonthani, so it would be nice to visit my second home again. The greatest part of this program is that I can go abroad as a sophomore. Spring 2012? Oh man, please work out, haha.

On other note, I will be attending a Rotary meeting sometime this December. I am a bit afraid because I really do not know how to speak about an exchange that went...awful. I still do love my home Rotary club, so I think they will understand.

One Month Later.

2010-08-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

It has been one month since I came home.

I miss Thailand, no doubt about it.

I miss the humid Thai air.

I miss the crowded, less than clean streets.

I miss the songthaows.

I miss Nida and Jane and Toei and all my other Thai friends from Udonpit.

I miss the temples.

I miss waking up early mornings.

I miss going out for som tam.

I miss going to Central.

I miss conversing in a language I never thought I would learn.

Yes, my exchange was less than enjoyable. In fact, a month later, I still have nightmares about my exchange. No doubt about it, Rotary did ruin it. I still have little crying spells thinking about how much I was borderline abused by Rotary.

But I promise you, I will go back to Thailand...next time, on my terms. Next time, I will travel. I will have freedom.

In the end, if I saw what I would have to endure in my exchange (as a human being, not as an exchange student), I would have never gone in the first place, but I regret nothing.

Here is my future.

I will see you soon, Thailand.

Just One Month Left

2010-05-31T03:26:00.001-07:00

And how am I feeling about that ?

I wanted more than anything to have a good exchange. It just did not happen. I do not know what the last month will have in store for me, but no amount of awesome could make up for all the suck.

This year was the worst year of my life, no doubt about it.

I was just blatantly denied an exchange. Before takeoff, you would not have found a single outbound more excited to have the opportunity to be an exchange student.

But even with all the shit that has gone on in my exchange, if you told me I could get on a plane tomorrow for America, I would not do it. I would not even think about it.

Hell, if you could get me out of this Rotary club/district, I would stay in Thailand for another year.

Why ? Because, again, I deserved this. I was granted shit.

Rotary club of Udonthani, Thailand, I really hope you never host an exchange student ever again. Thanks.

PS:

-I changed host families again. If you could not tell, I LOVED my second host so I just do not understand why I had to change.

-My new host family is just as bad as my first when it comes to completely ignoring me.

It is hard. I just really hope some good can come out of my exchange in the last month. :)

Sushi, Sashimi, and Songkran (AKA: "The Best Frickin' Holiday Ever")

2010-04-15T06:01:00.000-07:00

So the last few days were not as enjoyable as they should have been. On Monday, I left for Chumpae with a friend of my host mother's. That night, I started to feel rather ill. On Tuesday (the first day of Songkran), we drove down to somewhere around Krungthep, and I felt like I was dying. I was taken to a doctor and she said I had a lung infection (?). I slept that night and woke up on Wednesday (the second day of Songkran) feeling a little better, but still awful. Since I was ill, I was not allowed to play Songkran.

Thinking I was not going to get better soon, I was sent back home to Udon on a bus. The bus ride itself was comfortable though. I slept a for about two hours, but spent the last seven (yeah, it took that long with Songkran going on, haha) staring out my window, watching everyone else play Songkran (And throw water at my window!!!). I went to bed yesterday really hoping for an overnight recovery.

I woke up today and got what I wanted. Sure, I was not 100% better, but good enough to play Songkran! A friend, Waw, had told me the night before that I could play with them, so I was just waiting on the IM.

Well, before that, my host mother knocked on my door and told me that we were going to eat lunch at OISHI EXPRESS!!! (A sushi bar). Honestly, I absolutely loveee sushi.

Lunch was going awesome, but I saw the sashimi (sushi of the raw fish variety) and thought 'well, why not?' I NEVER had the guts to try (or apparently the gut FOR) sashimi, but I gave that up to try it this once. I had some raw tuna, and some raw something else. How was it? Well...

Never again.

Ever.

Back home now, I got an IM from Lily (rather late, so I was getting myself worked up) saying that she was going to find my house and pick me up.

She did that and we waited at her house for a bit before driving off to...somewhere to walk to Nong Prajak.

Now before I go further, Songkran is Thai new years. It is a three-day holiday were everyone goes out in the street, by foot, by motor scooter, by pick-up truck, and THROWS WATER FREAKING EVERYWHERE. Admittedly, the water is hardly the cleanest (usually lake water, so not the worst), but you have to ignore that.

Anyway, on the way from Lily's house, we got pretty wet. I was already happy, but I could not have imagined what was in store next!

Once in Nong Prajak, we walked around for a while before find some COMPLETELY RANDOM PEOPLE and asking if we could hang out in the back of their pick-up truck. Of course, this is Thailand, so they said 'yes.'

We started throwing water and it was a blast, but there should be a few rules for Songkran, such as:

-NO PRESSURE WASHERS. OW OW OW.

-NO GROPING THE FOREIGNER

-NO KISSING THE FOREIGNER

-NO TOUCHING THE FOREIGNER'S FACE JUST FOR THE SAKE OF TOUCHING A FOREIGNER'S FACE

-NO VIOLENTLY TEARING OUT MY EARRINGS. Ow again.

-NO PUTTING ICY-HOT ON YOUR HANDS AND RUBBING IT ON MY FACE. That did not feel good. ):

Yes, as you can very well imagine, all of these happened to me, haha. Seriously. To the douche (pardon mon Francais) who put Icy-hot on my face: You are a jerk. To the guys who were touching my face longer than they should have been, NO. To the GIRL who kissed me SMACK ON THE LIPS, wtf?

But other than that, Songkran was a blast. To the kids who threw ice-water on me, you guys win Songkran, hahaha.

Oh, and you creepy guys who would not shut up when you found out I spoke Thai, you were still fun. Thanks for offering me the beer. Good thing it is Songkran, so it was totally acceptable to throw it in your face! :D

So sure, my Songkran was short lived, but still, today (or those 2.5 hours of Songkran) was the best day of my exchange. Pity it could not have lasted longer. I am not complaining though, because honestly, those three hours were better than Christmas Day. (:

สุขสันต์วันสงกรานต์ (Happy Songkran)

บาย ๆ (bye bye)

Jaz

edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention...when I came home, dripping wet after playing Songkran, I reached in my pocket to find a banana! Crazy, crazy Thailand.

A New Beginning

2010-04-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

I start my exchange today. I am very excited.

My new family is incredibly kind. I have only been here three hours and they already made me feel at home.

But to be honest, it is very weird in this new room. I spent more time in my room in my other host family's house than I have spent in my own room in America during my entire life, and now that I am never going to see that other room again, it is very strange. I will get over it though, haha

My one complaint about the new house (seen above) is that is it in a neighborhood kind of far from downtown Udon, which is where I normally go when I go out, but as long as I am able to get out of the house, I am perfectly fine, haha.

Here is a picture of me in my new room. It is really cute. :D Do not mind my face, haha. It is April and April is the hottest month in Thailand.

On that subject, Songkran festival is coming up soon. I am super-excited for it, but unfortunately will not be supplying any pictures as I do not have a camera anymore (these pictures were taken with my webcam). Maybe if I can find a cheap digital camera between now and then (doubt it), I will be able to show some lovely pictures. I really do not know where I will be playing Songkran yet, but still, it is incredibly exciting.

Anyway, I will wrap this up. Again, this is a rather haphazard blog post, but I was really excited to change host families.

Jaz

10 more days of this hellhole

2010-03-31T20:19:00.001-07:00

I got the word four days ago that I will (finally) switch host families, no thanks to Rotary Thailand.

Thank you, home district. Maybe now I will finally get to experience an exchange. Here is to the last three months. (:

ps: Sorry my posts have been so short, but as one might imagine, I have not been doing anything. Besides, I do not think pages of my bitching would be the most entertaining to read. (:

edit: (I lied. I am going to bitch some more)

To anyone who has been calling me unkind names over the last few months, get over yourselves.

Do you think that if I was truly causing my own unhappiness that I would still be here in Thailand? I had the opportunity to go back home on several occasions, but I did not. Why? Because I know that I deserve better.

People do not seem to understand the severity of my situation. I do not like to talk about that part, but the reality is that my district here just does not care about me. My host family does not care about me. I have friends that do care about me, but there is little that they can do. I was given this wonderful opportunity by Rotary and Rotary also ruined my experience.

I talked to my host Rotary club's president yesterday about switching families. He even said himself that the club has NO TIME for youth exchange. The only reason they hosted me was because they had one student go out, therefore, they felt obligated to host as well. That is not a good sign.

Now, about my host family? They are neglectful. They have left for days at a time, leaving me alone. They lock me in the house and leave for hours on end. They forget to feed me. They just forget about me. This is not a situation anyONE should ever be in, let alone an exchange student.

People do not seem to understand that I am a social person and I very much enjoy HUMAN INTERACTION. I have gone days without such. I tried to talk to my host mom the few minutes she is outside her bedroom at night, and she just seemed uninterested. I never see my host father; he is always in another country, and my host sisters just ignore me.

I have never once thought about throwing in the towel because, again, I want to experience an exchange. I have never once thought, 'oh, enough of this shit, I give up.' because I am stronger than that.

Hopefully, in ten days, I will start to experience what I came here for: culture, language, people, interaction, and the like.

Good luck, Jaz. (:

Rotary and I have a Hate-Hate Relationship.

2010-03-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

[REDACTED]

What a roller coaster this is.

2010-01-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

Thais are the freaking most gossipy, dramatic people on the face of this earth.
Seriously, if you cannot find something better to gossip about than the way I freaking wear my UNIFORM SOCKS or how early I get off the songtheow, you have a sad, sad life.

If no one saw it anywhere else, Rotary wants to send me home early. Why? Well, because I am 'not willing to adjust' and 'treat people like strangers' and 'spend too much time in my room' and 'never go anywhere.' Well shit. Why do I never go anywhere and spend too much time in my room? Well, because I am still locked in the house often. Seriously, I have escaped out of my window and climbed over my gate several times, but I cannot go anywhere far for fear of being questioned.

As for treating people like strangers, I admit, until I know someone really well, I do not speak much to them. I can try to change this, but people need to be willing to start conversation. Sorry, I am not the type of person who will walk up to someone and say 'HI!' but I will not ignore you if you feel like conversing with me.

Finally, as for not being able to adjust, there are some things I really do not agree with when it comes to Thailand ("foreigner prices," for example), but I do tolerate it. But what the hell? Just because I am white does not mean that I have the money to pay TRIPLE the admission cost as a Thai. It is not fair. Most of my friends do not know what it is like to juggle between activities, work, and school like I had to do. They have parents to just give them money when they need it. Sorry, that is not how my life is like, so yes, I am a bit stingy, but put yourself in my shoes. I make the equivalent to about 85 USD a MONTH in Thailand. Yes, I have a house provided for me, but I have to pay for food, transportation, and necessities. I just do not have the ability to pay you 100 baht versus the 10 baht the Thais pay.

But with all of this shit going on, my exchange does have positives to it. I successfully purchased an external hard drive the other day. In Thai. I was rather proud of myself. Although I spent my entire salary on a hard drive, I successfully saved all the files on my damaged computer.

And this weekend, perhaps, I will go to Krung Thep to meet up with a friend. She is going to show me around. I have never really been around Krung Thep because I do not have the time or money to travel, but she is letting me stay at her house for a few days. I am very excited.

And I leave with this. I went to Central after school today. I have not had Dairy Queen in YEARS, so I decided to get a Blizzard. The regular Blizzard size?

Hahaha. Oh America...I love you and all, but no wonder everyone calls you fat.

Hoshi-, an update.

2010-01-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

I hate Thailand.

I hate Rotary.

I am sorry, really.

I was never more excited to do something in my life. I was so excited to leave America, to learn a new language, a new culture, a new lifestyle...

Only to be shown all this disappointment.

I can only look forward to coming home and going to university.

On that note, I was accepted to American University in Washington DC. It is nice to know, but unfortunately they are quite a bit slow on getting my financial aid packet together, so at this point, I really do not know if I can go. That, in itself, sucks because many schools are closing in on admission deadlines. Oh well, I can always hope, right?

Well anyway, happy new year. Hope everyone had a great break. Hope you were not locked in your room for the duration of it like I was.

Ehmm.

ps: RAINBOW CYCLONE REAVER! Hurr durr.

I want out of Thailand. Now.

2009-10-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

I am starting to think that Thailand was not the right choice for me.

But who knows? Maybe it is? It is hard to tell when I am fucking locked in a house for days on end.

Well, the dashboard melted, but we still had the radio...

2009-10-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

I felt the need to blog again, haha. No being pissed off at the world this time. I am in the Land of Smiles, so I should smile, even if it is through my teeth, haha.

But seriously, I am in a considerably better mood than my previous blog shows.

Two days into my October break, and I am bored out of my mind. All my Thai friends are still in school as they are testing until tomorrow. After that, they will be going to study in BKK for a few weeks. Thankfully, I will be leaving for BKK on October 9 and will be a tourist with my host father for a few days. Unfortunately, my first day in BKK will consist of me taking a college entrance exam, WOOOOOOOOOOOO.

My last few days in Udonpit consisted of skipping class, dancing in the rain, dressing up in Thai dance garb, and drinking boba tea.

This is me being Thai:

Hahah. I hated that day.

Anyway, on to a different topic, friends!

Most exchange students seem to generally make more friends with other exchange students rather than the natives. Maybe it is because I am the only exchange student in my Rotary club, but this is definitely not true for me. At first, I was rather upset that I was placed in m. 5 (11th grade in America), but have made so many friends in class 5/19. Generally, most days we go somewhere after school. I sure love breaking the "no riding on motor scooters" rule! (But seriously, I do not understand how they could enforce this rule. Motor scooters are the only way for a Thai student to get around. Thais are not allowed to drive cars until they are 18, but even then, the only people I see driving cars are 30+ ).

My favorite thing to do after school is going to get som tam with my friends, followed by a nice trip to Central (six story mall with bowling, karaoke booth, arcade, and a movie theater on top) or a night market.

Or just going to Jane's house and hanging around while she sleeps; that is pretty fun too, hahaha.

Sorry that this blog is so haphazard, but I have no clue what to cover as I have done so much more than I have the patience to type, haha.

I really should start updating more frequently, but until I stop being so lazy.

Until later,

Sawatdee kha.

SDFGASDFS

2009-09-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

Note: I typed this in a notepad document and am just going to copy-paste. Excuse any language-usages errors; I did not proofread.

I really do not know what to write, but I thought I would update.
I was having the time of my life until I started noticing some things with both my friends in Thailand and my friends back home in America. Starting with my Thai friends, well...I cannot tell who is my real friend and who is just out to go around with an American. Thai people are very nice to your face, but, unfortunately, they might just go behind your back and talk about you. Unfortunately, they will also talk about you to someone else right in front of you. It is hard to discover it in this way; using your language barrier to your disadvantage. I think these people are forgeting that not only am I sitting IN FRONT OF YOU while you are saying these things about me, but also that I am an exchange student and one of the reasons I am here is to learn Thai. Yes, that does mean chan kao jai kun. Please stop talking about me. Please stop calling me fat. Please stop saying that my Thai sucks. Again, please stop talking about me. If you are going to insult me, direct it towards my face-in Thai or English, I do not care.

On the topic on my friends in America, where are you? Just because I am a few worlds apart does not give you right to ignore me completely. I almost ended up not going on an exchange because I thought I would miss my friends and guard too much. I guess I do not have friends to miss if those friends continue to ignore me.

Another thing-WHO the HELL laughs when someone is crying. I was sitting in front of my computer looking at pictures of my friends and I thinking, "Oh, how I wished these friend would try to get in touch. I miss guard. I miss my friends." Of course, this is laughing material for my family.

On to another complaint, I am tired of being so restrained. I am constantly locked IN the house. I have no freedom to the outside world unless someone is home. I love my host family and all, but I feel so restricted. I can understand this concern for my safety, but being locked in the house is not securing me anymore. What if the house caught on fire? There is a gate seperating me from the outside world.

This land of the Thais has opened my eyes wide to both positives and negatives. Unfortunately, at this moment, I do believe there are more negatives than positives. I do not know, maybe I am over-thinking everything. We will see how things get.

I have the whole of the month of October off. I will update from there.
Right now, I guess I should highlight on August and September, eh?
August:
-started school
-made some Thai friends (?)
-met the other exchange students
-went down to Pattaya and Bangkok for three days
-went to the beach
-went to an aquarium
-was in a fashion show thing with a famous Thai singer
-feed some monkeys (from hell)
-went to a cute bakery in Korat
-sang karaoke
-night market!
September:
-ORIENTATION
-met some cool (and not-so-cool) exchange students from around the world
-went to The Mall in Korat
-ate Japanese
-hung out with the Magkang kids
-went on a temple tour
-learned about Buddhism
-went to Sakon Nakhon.
-bought wine (hahah)
-went to the movie theater
-night market
-stayed overnight in a hospital

I have done so much and I should really be happy about everything I have done so far, but...

Well anyway, until next entry. Hopefully I will start updating more. Maybe.

Yes, I am still quite alive.

2009-08-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

Why, hello there.

It has been a while.

Quite honestly, I have no clue where I should start.

I have been here nearly a month now. Sometimes it feels like I have been here so much longer, but at the same time, it feels like I just got here.

It is what I expected? Hell no. It goes above and beyond.

This is going to be a good year.

Will update very soon and will continue updating on a regular basis from now on.

Life, Luggage, and an Itinerary!

2009-07-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

To begin, my classes are finally over. My. Classes. Are. Finally. Over.
Well...except for gym, haha. Once I complete that gym class, I will be done with high school forever. Such a good feeling.

Haha. I stopped writing for a minute to see if my grades were updated on eLion. They were! ...Well, one was. I received an A in Bio 110. This will be put on my transcript as a 96%, I think, and will weight into my GPA as a 115.2%. Not bad for a 4 credit class.

Three years of Biology classes. Ho hum.

Oh, and I am still waiting on my English grade. I am not all too worried about that one, though.

Anyway, on to much more interesting things, I am nearly all packed. My luggage is really nice and spacious.

OK, done with that. Final topic for today, kids, is my ITINERARY!!

Haha. On the 27th of July, I will be flying from State College to Washington Dulles, and from there, I will be taking a 14 hr flight to Tokyo (Narita). I will have about three hours in Tokyo, and then it is off to Bangkok. I will arrive in Bangkok around 11:30 pm on the 28th and will probably end up staying there for the night...alone. My host father is going to be buying me a plane ticket to Udon Thani and I do doubt they run flights that late. Once I finally get to Udon? Hello jet lag. 'Sup?

Well, that is all that has been interesting so far. I should be getting my passport with my Visa and my tickets in the mall any day now.

I am going to stop counting down now because I put a ticker at the top of the page (cough 23 days cough).

I leave you with this picture of the Lake I took during a bike ride the other day as I have no where else to put it and there are no pictures in this blog. Sawatdee ka. (:

Click to enlarge. (:

Visa, Keyboard, and Books.

2009-06-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, that sure is an attention-getting topic, haha.

Anyway, to begin, I received an email telling my Visa was received and Bokoff Kaplan sent it to me, along with my FLIGHT ITINERARY!!! Haha. Maybe I am getting too excited? Nah. Back on the subject, I should be receiving it via e-mail within the next day.

In other exciting news, I can officially type in Thai! So far, I can type my name: แจ๊ส. I remember they by typing "c0Ul," haha.

Click to enlarge. :D

Uhm...and books! I recently ordered some language books from Amazon.com. Those should be here any day now. How exciting! While on the topic of language, my Thai is improving little by little. I know a few phrases and am currently on lesson eight of Pimsleur's Thai, so I pretty much know how to say "My Thai sucks," "I want (iced tea)/(water)/(rice)," "Not really quite well," and so on, you know, important phrases, haha. No seriously, Pimsleur is really helpful and I am learning much more from it than I did from Rosetta Stone.

In some more exciting news, my classes are almost over. How exciting! Haha. I cannot say how well I will do in them, but it will be nice to finally be done with school. I really need to get typing that draft about Isaan in APA format...

Well, that is about all that has been interesting in my exchange life at the moment. I will update as soon as I receive more information!

34 days until Udon. (:

Goodbye High School

2009-06-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

I am done with high school. Monday was the last day. It was odd; I am normally sad on the last day of school before summer vacation. That was not the case. It just did not feel like the last day of school. This picture described it well, haha.

Everyone was getting their boats ready and playing around while I was getting some Bio 110 quizzes completed. FUN FREAKING TIMES MAN. Haha.
Might as well put some photos here from the actual boat.

As always, click to enlarge.

ALL ABOARD THE FAIL BOAT!!1!11!!

It floated...kind of. No seriously, it was actually really fun. It was a good last day of physics.

So far, it has been a pretty boring summer. I have been waking up around 7:30-8:00 so I could get some classwork done.

Wow; I really do not feel like thinking or typing anymore. Ho hum.

Countdowns:
45 days until Thailand.

Bokoff Kaplan is really sucking when it comes to service.

This was so crappily written. Sorry.

So Here is the Deal

2009-05-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

I decided to make a blog right now. I should probably hurry as I need to get to bed. I am vair tired and need to wake up early tomorrow.

Anyway, I was going to put all of this off until Sunday, but I think covering outbound orientation and prom is enough for one post.

But, yes. My outbound orienation is this weekend and I am very excited! It is from 5:30pm Friday to 2:00pm Saturday. My prom is right afterward, so it should be fun.

Now, I want to cover WILDWOOD. So, we got eighth place, 82.8 points. How cool is that? Way to end my last year with a BANG! Woohoo!

I am going to upload some pictures of Wildwood, just for fun.

Click to enlarge these images. (:

In news more relevent to my exchange, I now have all my host family information. They are very nice and I cannot wait to stay with them.

These beautiful people are my host family. Nong Eye (14), Nong Eve (12), Army (16), plus my host mother and father.

Well, I am going to wrap this up. Will write again on Sunday. Sawatdee ka.

Oh, plus I made a new blog layout. I like this one sooooo sooo soo much better, hah.

Countdown Time!

Days until...

Outbound orientation: 3
Prom: 4
School is over (exc. wkends): 19
SATS (inc. wkends): 25
Thailand: 79

Love countdowns.

More updates: A host family, school, and life!

2009-04-26T08:35:00.000-07:00

As of two days ago, I know both my host family and school. I am not going to namedrop my family just yet, but as for my school, I will be attending Udonpittayanukoon School. It seems like a nice school. It is HUGE, though. It is bigger than the college campus in my city (which is not all too huge...I need a better comparision, haha).

But anyway, here are some pictures of my school.

Here is a map of the school (click to enlarge...and I finally have the thumbnails deal figured out, by the way.) Udonpittayanukoon is a big school with about 5 000 kids attending. This is five times that of my school, and I thought that was big compared the school I attended before moving, with a size of about 500. Attending school alone is going to be quite an adventure. There is almost no doubt I will get lost.

I do have more pictures of the school and I will put them at the end of this post. Anyway, on to life itself, things are going decently. School is overwhelming as it can be, though, with the whole doubling-up-on-ALL-of-my-classes thing going on. (Editing this out, just in case. (: )

In more positive news, in five days at this time, we will be pulling into the convention center in WILDWOOD. Yesterday, we had chapter championships. We got first; 80.something. Being my last "real" competition, I teared up. Sam Brown and I held hands as they were calling Intermediate A scores. It is insane how heavy my chest is as they call those scores. Guard is one thing I really had to think about before chosing to go on an exchange. Guard along almost kept me from deciding to go. I guess I need to have two seasons worth of fun in Wildwood this time.

Anyway, I guess I will wrap this blog up. I think I am going to start on a new layout (I am already getting tired of this one), clean my room, work on Anthro, and do some mechanisms today. I sometimes wish I had a weekend. ):

One last thing before I forget!
Days until...:
Wildwood: 5
Finals: 8
Orientation: 20
Prom: 21
Summer vacation: 44
Udon: 91...ish

Click to enlarge these images. (:

A Host City Among Other Things.

2009-03-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

So, I got my host city today (well, technically yesterday) and I am happy with my placement. I was suprised by who told me my host city, though. I was expecting to go to my orientation and my district chairman telling me host city information, but I got it the morning of orientation by a seventeen year old girl named Moei, an inbound in PA from Thailand. Haha. It was still nice.

Anyway, I am going to talk about my orientation and competition tomorrow (!!!), and for now, just fun facts about my host city in Thailand-Udonthani.

Udonthani is a pretty large city in northeasten Thailand. It has a population of about 143 000(the seventh largest city in Thailand), which is really large for me considering my city has a population of 8 000, haha. Udonthani is pretty far from both Bangkok and Chiang Mai, but I am sure I will make it to both within my year. Something that really bothers me is the lack of information on Udonthani. There is virtually nothing out there, haha. Anyway, I am really excited to be going to Udonthani. They do seem to have some pretty cool shopping areas and a night market. It is also just 1.5 hours from the capital of Laos; Vientiane. It would be pretty cool to see a bit of Laos while abroad.

Anyway, to the right is a climate map of Udonthani (click to enlarge, obv). I am happy it is northern as it will be slightly cooler, haha.

Well, there is not much else to say about Udonthani, so I guess I could just give general information about Thailand.

Thailand

Capital: Bangkok

Bordering Countries: Myanmar, Laos, Camboidia, Malaysia

Currency: Baht

Official Language: Thai

Major Religions: Buddhism (94%), Muslim (5%)

Well, I should really get off to bed. It is 2:25 in the morning as I type this sentence. I leave you with one last picture of Udonthani.

Until later. (: Good night. Sawatdee.

Not quite an update, but...

2009-03-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hey.

I just wanted to do test out image posting as that was a topic on my blog which confused me.

Still not totally getting it, haha.

Sorry. In more relevent news, my outbound orientation is this Saturday. My home competition is that day, too, so needless to say, I am super anxious for this weekend. Now, I just need to get through school. This week, aside from everything I need to make up from my absences, should be easy thanks to standardized test taking.

Boring post, but my life is pretty boring and non-exchange related right now, so it makes sense. I hope to make a very relevent post as soon as I get home from my competetion this weekend. Bye for now.

ps: I do not get how some users have thumbnail pictures linked in their blog. Is there a way to do this? I know how to make thumbnails HTML-wise, but Blogger's look different. Any help?

edit: I edited this single post nine times now. Seriously.

Hi!

2009-03-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

Hi. I really have nothing to say about anything right now. This is pretty much just a test post. I will hopefully start writing more stuff soon, though.

Bye for now!