Pai

Just in case I haven't mentioned it yet...Pai is gorgeous. Absolutely stunningly beautiful and gorgeous. It is a small village surrounded by mountains- warm, jungle mountains. Clouds mist and gently surround the peaks. It is just as beautiful as the clear ocean- but a very different beautiful.

Wednesday I went rafting. White water river rafting. First time ever. It involved a bit of driving...an hour to the drop site, and about three hours back to Pai. It was worth it though. It was a beautiful way to see the jungle. floating along the river. Of course the most fun places, the rapids, couldn't be taken pictures of because you had to be paddling. There was one waterfall on the way that we got to stop and take pictures of...and it wasn't just one waterfall. It was a whole series of small waterfalls cascading down to join the river. We had lunch on a quiet part of the river. Floating along and out of the water proof casket in the center of the raft and out comes fried rice neatly packaged in banana leaves for lunch. It was quite fun and really natural. We stopped at a natural hot springs along the river too...just little areas of hot water...and if you buried your feet in the sand they got quite hot. The most fun rapids came after the hot spring stop...got wet but didn't fall in! By the end of the day I had this weird half sunburn going on one arm from paddling. The drive home was a lot of fun...lots of curves. We also stopped at some gorgeous view points overlooking the mountains, shrouded in mist and golden sunlight. Just like you see in the movies. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died at the very end of the boat ride...and it refused to take any pictures for me.But it was so gorgeous that I didn't really mind.

Thursday was travel day. I got up and hit the road, me and the motorbike. I was pretty nervous at first...not sure I had the motorbike mastered, and some of the roads are rather iffy. I got more comfortable driving as the day went on though. In the morning I stopped at the Chinese village...which has certainly kept up a touristy feel, Chinese huts and part of a castle greeting you. Plenty of Chinese decorations and food for sale. After the Chinese village I continued on to a waterfall...over some definitely iffy sections of road. Still, I made it! The waterfall was pretty and multi-tiered...but I scraped my foot when I lost my sandal the other day. Too much walking was a pain so I didn't explore as much as I would've been tempted too otherwise. That went until about lunch when I finally gave in and sought out some band-aids. Then I hit the road again, stopping at the Coffee in Love sign. It is a coffee shop overlooking Pai that is very popular among Thais because of a movie. I drove on to the World War II memorial bridge and Pai canyon. Pai Canyon is very pretty but definitely doesn't make you feel safe...when you are standing on a narrow strip of red rock and sheer cliff on either side. Then I went to the natural hot springs...relaxing in hot springs outdoors. It is always amazing to see steam rising from natural pools, but climbing in and relaxing was amazing. One pool was at 80 degrees Celsius! Obviously, people didn't go in that one. My last stop of the day was Wat Mae Yen...a temple that made me nervous of driving because of the sheer drive up, but had a gorgeous view of Pai. It was a nice temple in and of itself, but the view was what made it really amazing. Instead of going back right away after Wat Mae Yen I decided to go on another cruise...a circuit of the area I'd already been to. Just a nice drive on the motorbike- it was wonderfully refreshing.I even stopped and had coffee and cake at Coffe in Love!

Pai was wonderful, overall, and there were some nice people staying at the guesthouse as well to make the evenings even more enjoyable. The owners and a fun crazy hippy old guy and a few other younger females travelling through. If you ever visit Thailand...go to Pai. You will love it! I promise!

Vacation Tiiiime

Well, it's officially over. My time teaching at Chomsurang is over and done...the end was a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. Ups in excitement for vacation and going home, downs in the ending of teaching, saying good bye to students and most of all the teachers and friends I have made during my time in Ayutthaya.

The weekend was full of trying to cram last sightseeing visits and time spent with friends into as much time as possible...including time to pack. It was fun and exhausting...my shoes broke, I bought presents for people, I packed, I hung out with friends. It ended in a dinner Sunday night and a massage to kill some time before my bus for Chiang Mai left. I left the massage parlor to find that my new shoes had been stolen...however the nice Thai people let me have a pair of their sandals.

It was a long, tiring day travelling from Ayutthaya to Pai. It started with an overnight bus that was very well air conditioned...too well air conditioned. It was freezing, and made sleeping very off and on. Then I arrived in Chiang Mai, and caught a minibus to Pai...another 3 hour or so ride. It was very windy through hills and such. It was very pretty and very hard to stay awake and very hard to stay asleep...so it was mid-day before I arrived in Pai.

Pai is absolutely gorgeous. It's in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains, a small quiet village. My hostel is gorgeous, overlooking the valley and sort of Thai style teak building. I just walked around a little on Monday before passing out, too tired after all the travel to do much.

Today, Tuesday, I got up and learned how to ride a motorbike! You need to in order to get around Pai and see all the sights in the hills. I am still a little bit shaky on turning and giving it power, but it's going okay. One of the co-owners of the hostel took me on the Pai zipline. It was in the jungle up in the canopy of the trees...it was a ton of fun and beautiful! At the end I got to see a nice waterfall. (After losing one of my sandals to red ants...which my guide found for me at the end!)  I ended the day by treating myself to a nice dinner and a little blog post to all of you.

Two more days left in Pai, and then a trip to the beach!

Sunday Adventures

Of course as soon as I write a post about how nothing much is really happening in my life, I actually do something on the weekend. Part of that is that I am running out of time- running out of time to be in Ayutthaya, running out of time to visit Bangkok. Before I know it, my time in Thailand will be over, done with, a thing of the past, only memories.

I woke up early on Sunday morning to make a trip into Bangkok with a couple of my friends. The plan- to go to a Krishna event and get free food and then go see the Grand Palace. Unfortunately, the Krishna event started later than planned...instead of getting there at the end for food, we got there at the beginning. It was interesting at first to see the service, to listen to them sing and chant/pray. Once they got to the bible study part though...I was bored. So, instead of listening to the study I took off for a walk. The Krishna event was in a pavilion in Lumphini Park in Bangkok. It was a very beautiful park.

Lumphini Park was like a large botanical gardens. At least that's what it felt and looked like. We were in the center, but it felt like I should look up and see a glass ceiling high above my head. That of course, didn't happen. There were pretty flowers of all colors and trees and ponds and rivers and fountains. And a playground. With swings. That I fully took advantage of. Crazy foreigners and their swings. :)

It was fun just enjoying the park and taking pictures, until it was food time and my friends called me back to the pavilion. It was nice vegetarian food, not quite sure what it was, but it was tasty. They even had some apple slices for dessert. I was with Natalie and Jesse, and Natalie and I left pretty soon after we ate to head for the Grand Palace.

It took a bit, including a ride on an over priced boat taxi. (Foreigner only price on the weekends.) We ended up there rather later in the day than we had planned, so instead of going to the Grand Palace we went to Wat Po. It is the temple with the largest reclining Buddha, right next to the Grand Palace. It was a good choice. The temple was gorgeous and the Buddha was huge. Outside the bricks were covered in tile with so many flowers. It was gorgeous and elaborate. We saw a kitten, stuck in a tree, and many other cats.

Basically the temple was gorgeous. I couldn't help but wonder if that was what Ayutthaya would like like if its temples hadn't been destroyed in the war...if the layers of brick once had many decorative tiles all over them. Or would I have been shocked if I had visited the temples in Bangkok before going to the ones in Ayutthaya? It's very different but no less beautiful.

That was the end of the day...after we left the temple it was time to head back to Ayutthaya for another fun filled week of class. It is so weird and sad to think that next week is the last week of class. The end has come so quickly! I'll be on vacation before I know it!

Time Flies

It's been awhile since I posted. Mostly because nothing of any real interest has happened. Life is going by like normal- lesson planning, teaching, sleeping, eating. You know. The stuff that seems so mundane and every day to each of us in our own lives but can be interesting to other people because they have no clue what is going on in your life.

Since my vacation, I have been sick. Recovered. Missed home. Recovered. Planned my end of the term vacation and my flight home. Wrote my final exams just this week. Let's see...there was a little science fair that was really cute. Some of my students were selling orchids and wanted me to buy one...but I wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. As individuals I will miss my students, but I think as a class of 50 I will not miss them. Big class sizes are definitely not my thing!

Next week is my last full week of classes. Then there is a sort of half week before finals start, and I finish the week by grading. September 21st is my last day of work. At least I will have more to write once I've gone on vacation!

Anyways, I'll leave you with this short post before I end up telling you the story of George the cockroach. It's really only amusing to me...but poor George, he died just when I was getting used to living with him. Ah well.

Koh Samui: The Long Weekend, Part 3

Part 3 has been rather delayed in coming. I blame being sick and then being lazy...I'm still not 100% but 90-95% is when I should stop making excuses and finish my weekend story.

So, Saturday I was already feeling quite toasted from Friday. Still, I had no intention of not going on my trip, opting for the intense slather of sunscreen multiple times throughout the day, and wearing a shirt to protect my back as much as possible. It was Saturday, and I was going to Angthong Marine Park.

Angthong is actually closer to Koh Samui than Koh Tao is, but the journey was about just as long, mostly because the boat was slower. The vessel I traveled in was much bigger, and had two stories and an upper deck. I went with the far less entertaining, but far more anti-sun option of spending most of the boat ride in the benches on the middle deck. There were also a lot of German tourists on the trip, the tour guide spoke both English and German and gave his directions and instructions in both languages.

Our first stop of the day was in a little cove, surrounded by rocky, uninhabited islands. The German tourists went kayaking first, so there was some time to jump off the boat into the water, swim around, and go snorkeling. I only jumped from the middle of the boat, but you could jump from the top too. It was a lot of fun. The snorkeling was really pretty too. I didn't see as many colorful and pretty fish, but I saw some nice coral and sea urchins. Having gone snorkeling once, the experience went much smoother a second time, less sea water in my mouth.

The sea kayaking was two people to a boat, and in the morning I went with another woman who was part of a third, or whose family didn't want to go. I'm not sure which. It was both a fun and not so fun experience. We didn't kayak together well at all...or communicate barely. It made the kayaking journey itself a rough one. However, it was really cool to kayak under rock and into a little cave in the island, or simply just kayak under the outcroppings. It's obviously something that can't be done when the sea water level is higher.

After the kayaking was a short lunch trip down to the other end of the Marine Park, where we let the kayaks out and made our way to the only island with anything really human on it. Restrooms and a little shop. Those were only their to support the real attraction...the green saltwater lake. It really wasn't very far, but it was a long climb. Up and up cement stairs that were practically like ladder rungs at some points. Still, it was beautiful to look out and see the lake, and from the highest point, look out over Angthong Marine Park itself.

The worst part of the climb, was climbing down to the edge of the lake, knowing that you would have to climb back up in order to go back to the beach. It was fascinating to see all the sea urchins in the bottom of the lake, and to look out over emerald green water. The sea urchins really amazed me with their shiny red and blue disc looking things amid the black spikes. Somehow I made it back to the beach...stair by stair.

I got a little rest and then it was time to go kayak out to the point the boat had dropped the other kayaks off. I went with the guide that time...it makes an amazing amount of difference when you have an awesome kayaker in the back. Plus it meant I could take pictures pretty much whenever I wanted. We went under a crack of limestone that went all the way to the sky above, and the beaches and shore of the island we could see as we passed looked lovely.

Once we got back to the boat there was a little time for swimming, which I basked in...the water feels great after a hot day. Once all the kayaks were on board one of the Thai guides started doing fancy jumps off the boat- spins and turns and twists and flips. It made me wonder if he had grown up on the island, by a beach, playing on boats all the time, and what kind of life that would have been like. I envied it a little- I do love the ocean.

After that, it was just a boat ride back to Koh Samui and a bus ride back to the hotel. I rested for a bit, before getting dinner and stubbornly trying to see a sunset on the beach. It didn't work out too well, since the beach was facing the wrong way. So, exhausted, I went to bed early and on Sunday I flew from Koh Samui back to Bangkok and journeyed to my home in Ayutthaya. Where I proceeded to spend the rest of the week sunburned, exhausted, and sick. It was a great long weekend though. :)

Koh Samui: The Long Weekend Part 2 (Or Friiiiidaaaaaaaaay, I did write too much)

Just to get this over with, I have to say the most annoying part about going on tours is that you constantly get asked the question, only 1? Only one person? Just you? Yeah, thanks for reminding me that I'm traveling alone. I don't normally have a problem with it, but if you want to hammer it in that I am indeed just one person alone...still, I was fine being alone. I just wanted the people to shut up about it.

Another observation, in Chomsurang Upatham school they offer English, French, Chinese and Japanese as foreign languages. Apparently if you are in Ko Samui, another big language you need to know is German. At least a fourth of the signs would be written in English and German, and you heard tourists spewing German everywhere. And especially in Chaweng Beach, there were tourists everywhere. A few times I found myself wondering where the local Thai people were, or hung out. Certainly they weren't all working at the shops, restaurants, and resorts.

Back to Friday morning. Luckily tours include hotel pick up, free transportation. Since it was a huge tour company, I was with a lot of other tourists, having a little snack for breakfast they provided, and grabbing the cheapest underwater camera available. I didn't have to wait long before it was time to wade out to the speedboats. This time I was lucky...being only one person I was able to find room to squeeze out onto the front of the boat, a seat in the sun and wind where I could thoroughly enjoy the trip. It was my first time taking a long trip on a boat in the ocean...I didn't count my adventure on Thursday, when I really saw nothing. We were in a speed boat for about an hour and a half, watching islands fly past. It was a little choppy, but a lot of fun. So some of my pictures I took aboard the boat came out a little crooked...

The first destination was Koh Tao. We came to a little bay where everyone got out and went snorkeling! It was my first time snorkeling, which involved a little fretting, a little salt water, and a little scratch by coral between trying to figure out how to breathe through the stupid thing and how to use the underwater camera I bought. When I finally got going it was a wonderful experience. It was like being inside a tank in an aquarium. It was very isolating too...to be underwater, breathing through a tube, so all you can hear is the sound of your own heartbeat and loud breathing as fish swim past you and coral lies beneath you. At one point it felt like some of the fish were swimming in my face! The coral was all darker color but it was very pretty and there were some bright color fish swimming around.

We were there for an hour, but it felt like no time at all. It was really pretty and fun, once I figured out the snorkeling thing. They had an included lunch which was yummy. (Only 1?) After which we went to the nearby private island Koh Nang Yuang. First I climbed the many stairs to a view point. It wasn't a very long hike put pretty steep. The view point of the island was quite gorgeous! I was very hot at this point, and climbing down I could feel my skin burning. I was getting tired, so I passed on snorkeling at this island, just relaxing in the ocean for the rest of the time, trying to stay cool while my skin fried. Of course, I had to sit out front on the way back too!

The rest of my day was fairly quiet. I had pizza for dinner. It was a weird pizza, which had cheese and tomatoes but not sauce. It was good. Afterwards, when it was dark, I walked to the beach and spent a little bit wading in the water before heading back to bed...Saturday would be another busy morning!!!!!

Koh Samui: The Looong Weekend: Part 1 (Because I write too much)

First four day weekend since I started working, and I set my sights on the beach. Specifically southern Thailand. I spent one morning of finals week simply crunching numbers in my notebook, just to make sure I had the money to spend to go there and do what I wanted to do. I determined that I did, so Wednesday afternoon, as soon as classes were over, I left to begin my journey to Ko Samui.

I went about it the most stress free way possible, though probably the more irritating way. I bought a overnight bus ticket from a tour group in Ayutthaya. It meant I didn't have to pay for anything other than any food or snacks on my trip, and that I got herded around. Of course I didn't meet the rest of the horde until Bangkok, where there were literally hundreds of foreigners getting the tour bus. It was like a swarm of ants and people being herded. Yuck. I got the last seat on my bus to Ko Samui...right next to a French woman. Of course she was sitting by the window while her husband sat in the row across from her. Which meant I was being talked over quite a bit. I don't like being talked over. But, I had a good book to read.There

The bus ride wasn't bad. We made one pit stop where I got severely ripped off for my cup of yogurt, but had no time to protest because of all the other foreigners milling around. I have this weird thing about traveling...when I'm living somewhere I don't enjoy seeing other foreigners everywhere. I prefer to see actual Thai people. You know, the ones who live in the country.

Anyways, when I finally got to the boat there was some pretty scenery and coastline. I was excited for my ferry across the ocean to the island, but since I was one of the first on there was either indoor seating on top or indoor seating on the bottom. With air conditioning, and crappy windows. Needless to say I was disappointed.  There were also a lot of people speaking German for me to eavesdrop on and test my German skills...it is always sort of interesting to listen when other people have no clue that you understand their language.

From the boat it was a nice pretty drive along rocky harbor beach to the area I was staying at, Chaweng Beach. I had quite a ways to walk from where I was dropped off to the hotel...and my energy was rapidly dwindling. Still, it was only noon by the time I arrived. I thought it was later! Anyways, I rested for a bit before setting off in search of the beach. I hadn't been to a beach yet in Thailand and the thoughts 'beach' and 'ocean' and 'swimming' had been driving me for a week or so. Choosing Chaweng Beach had been a calculated mistake on my part. It is a long beach, it is close to the airport, it is supposed to be beautiful. What could go wrong with that?

Resorts. It was a frustrating afternoon. I spent awhile wandering around before I realized that my inner-map was a little off...the beach was the opposite direction of where I thought it was. Even after I figured that it, it took awhile to find a way to get on the beach....because every single little entrance to the beach in my area is controlled by a resort or hotel of some kind. They don't really encourage entering through their resorts. I managed to get on the beach somehow, and I was briefly happy before I decided I wanted to leave the beach and go change into my swimsuit and play in the water. It was on the way back that I truly realized how controlled the beach was. Every place I could find to exit was controlled by a resort with signs saying "Guest use only" or even workers guarding the exits. At the point in time I was getting warm, tired, and frustrated. It made me doubly glad that I had booked a day tour for Friday on my way out to explore.

The exit I finally found to Chaweng Beach was right next to a restaurant but they didn't control it. And it turned out to be a 10-15 minute walk away from the hotel. Well, who knows how long it really was, I never kept track and I made the trek a couple of times after that. I always started out thinking "Oh it's not that far, it's not bad" and ended up thinking "Wow, I underestimated that...it's actually quite a bit.".

At the point I was warm, tired, frustrated and had had enough of the day. So I decided to go shopping. That is one thing the main road in Chaweng was great for, shopping. They had lots of pretty bracelets and bags and dresses and flower carvings. Shopping did bring my mood up a bit, and I spent more money than I needed too. It also started the ball rolling on buying souvenirs for others. Once I get started it's hard to stop. I think of how one person might like something, and then I think of half a dozen others who would like it too. I did practice some restraint though.

After that though, the day was rather bland and I just had dinner before relaxing, watching TV, and going to bed early. I had a tour early the next morning after all! I think I will stop here, however, to keep one post from being overly long. This was only the day I traveled! Of course, I went by myself so much of what I might've said never got to be said, so welcome to my complaining post! Up next the beautiful day at Koh Tao and Koh Nang Yuan. Maybe including Saturday as well, depending on how much ramble I can contain. 

Mid-Term Lull

Well, mid-terms are officially over. (Except for those who failed and have to retake the test...but I'm not worrying about them this week. Especially today. There is a 4-day weekend this week, starting tomorrow...and I'm leaving for vacation to Ko Samui in southern Thailand tonight. Eee! I am very ready for a   vacation after mid-terms...there wasn't a lot for us foreign teachers to do, but we still had to be here the entire mid-term week. Every day. Every morning. I did some lesson planning for the rest of the term early on and did some grade calculating...that got old very quickly though. A week of doing nothing has made me desperate to get away. Soon!

Last Saturday turned from a quiet, boring, relaxing day, into an adventure. Friday Pook took me and three of the other teachers to get our work permits and visa extensions. The work permit is a cool little bright blue book. And I am now legally here until the 10th of October. Still not sure when I am done with school though...oh well!

Anyways, Friday one of the teachers had a motorbike accident...he fell on the motorbike and scraped his hand and arm pretty good, along with being bruised all over, so Friday night it was decided that I would go to his Saturday morning teaching job for him. 6 am was very early. I don't like being awake at 6am. The teaching job was in Bangkok, so it was a bit of a travel. Luckily, since it was the first day, Pook picked us up once we got to Bangkok. I had plenty of coffee that morning. Coffee, yay!

It was the first week so there was an entire little opening ceremony where the program's leader gave a speech, and then there were a lot of photos. Photos with the teachers, photos with the students, click click click. It took up a good chunk of the morning though...less teaching time for me! The ironic part is that I am not actually teaching most of the course, and yet I will be in a lot of the pictures.

The students were a mix of boys and girls, which was kind of different from what I'm used to. All girl's school all day every day here at Chomsurang...it was nice for a change. Luckily, Jacob, who is doing one of the classes, had a lesson plan I could use, so I wasn't trying to think of everything on the spot, or stressing myself out the night before.

La dee da, teaching until 12:30, and then we got to go to lunch. Pook took the four of us teachers out to a restaurant that served a sort of pad-thai omelet. The noodles were inside an egg, it was quite interesting and quite good. Afterwards we went to a temple...where you could feed fish. Pook bought an entire bag of kibble and we fed fish...a lot of fish. The fish go crazy, hundreds of them all crowding around pushing at each other, swarming to get the food the instant it touches the water. When it gets too crowded, a frenzy of water splashing occurs as fish that have been forced out of the water desperately try to get back in. I saw a couple huge albino fish too. They got crowded out rather quickly though. If you threw the food farther out into the water, smaller, slimmer fish would dart around eating it, and sometimes you could get them to jump out of the water to catch it. It was quite entertaining. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought my camera that day.

After the fish feeding extravaganza, Pook dropped us off at the shuttle to JJ's, an outdoor market. After a bit of a ride, we arrived and it was huge. JJ's was an open air market with stalls for just about anything you could possibly imagine. You could spend an entire day getting lost in there, shopping. I didn't buy anything, saving for my upcoming trip, but it was still amazing. Getting back to Ayutthaya after that took a bit of running around...getting misdirected constantly around a bus station is no fun. Still, we managed to make it back in the evening, utterly exhausted from the day, but it was a good one. And I still had Sunday to laze around in.

Closing Time

Today was the closing ceremonies of Chomsurang Upatham's sports weeks. What it meant? Classes cancelled. All day. All day sports day stuff. It was both fun and boring at times. It was really cool to see the entire area around the track transformed for the day. Every color had its own section and its own wooden bleachers. They were all decorated in the color and theme of their section. Each section had its own drums and cheer leaders, and I mean quite literally people leading cheers, not prancing around with pom poms. They also had their own extravagantly dressed dancers to dance and help lead the cheers, but again, nothing like what Americans normally picture when you say the word cheerleader.

After walking around and taking in the sites, there wasn't a lot to do until the mid-afternoon. The morning featured track events, sprints and pass-the-baton and endurance runs. Hah, I know most of those do have proper names, but I'm assuming you know what I mean. Still, watching students run gets boring after awhile. Especially when it's not something you particularly care for. So I switched between wandering around and watching and fiddling on facebook to pass the time. The cafeteria was all closed up for the day, all the teachers and students got take out and ate at one time. I ended up making a 7-11 run for my food, since we weren't associated with any color. I came back to find the students having a dance party in the middle of the track field. It was fun to watch, but eventually they resumed with the running. Ugh.

At that point it was sunny and warm and I am not at all ashamed to admit, although maybe I should be, that I found a bench on the second floor looking out over the track, and sort of dozed while watching the runners and waiting for something interesting to happen. It wasn't really quiet, but I was so sleepy...zzz.

I woke up fully as more people began crowding the area. The running had finished and they were getting ready to start the performances. They really were performances, or dance shows at least. Each color had one, with their magnificently dressed students dancing to a montage of music, each with their own unique backdrops. Some had glitter and streamers and one group even loosed a pair of birds. It was a lot of fun to watch. Of course, the day ended with the presenting of trophies. I have no clue what any of them were for. The only thing I could tell was which color won, and that was based solely on the fact that they were wearing their color. I'm fairly certain that red won the most trophies, considering it seemed like they were screaming every third trophy or so, and it looked like they had the most but I didn't really count.

Anyways, if you have access to facebook you should check out my pictures cause they will be fun! I took some video, because it was the only way to truly capture the performances, but we'll see if I get that uploaded.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.666585255972.2098260.33103631&type=3&l=42f1a49f5b

I plan on taking it easy the rest of the weekend so I probably won't have anything exciting to report for awhile. Who knows though. Ta ta for now dearies!!!

When Getting Used to the Heat is a Bad Thing

Boo!

It's been awhile since my last post...and as usual that simply means my life has settled into a routine, and when it settles into a routine I often forget that my routine might actually be interesting to someone else...

A couple weeks ago or so we had the sports week opening ceremonies. The entire school is divided into teams, Pink, Yellow, Red, Green, Blue and Violet. Within these teams the students compete in many different sports. Sort of like the Olympics. Anyways the opening ceremonies were fancy. They started in the late afternoon with a parade. It was very elaborate, the students had made a ton of costumes, all different and all elaborate. Each team seemed to have some sort of theme, I'm not quite sure what they were. There was a parade, a speech, flag raising, and an actual torch that was lit. It was really a lot of fun to watch.

They started the sports off with a female teacher versus student council soccer match. That was not so much fun to watch, but eh. All an experience. After was a male teacher versus male teacher game. Both of my other English teachers participated, one on blue team and one on orange. I did try to cheer...though instead of cheering I just took some pictures. I mean really, this screaming and yelling thing what?

The closing ceremonies are coming up soon, the end of this week I believe. That is supposed to be a whole day affair with more costumes and performances and who knows what else...it will certainly be a fun day though!

Mid-terms are fast approaching here, even as the middle of summer is approaching on the other side of the world. I wrote my first 60 question multiple choice mid-terms last week. They start in the middle of the week, oddly enough. I'm not sure what the schedule is going to be like, but I'm just going with it. Thinking so much about them has made me forget that it's still only the first week of July...my mind is focused on the end of the month! Plus we're supposed to have a 4-day weekend coming up and oh the trials of figuring out where to go for that one...

My weekends have been pretty quiet, a lot of relaxing. So finally, this weekend, I decided to go somewhere. I researched train times, got up early and went to the train station. Of course, I either dawdled too much, or the train I planned on catching never came because I got a ticket for a later one. So I arrived at Lop Buri a few hours later than expected. No big deal. I started wandering and found a cool museum. I enjoyed the architecture and buildings more than the actual artifacts but that's not too surprising. And long story short, I got thirsty, drank a bottle of cold apple juice and not long after felt sick. It's like my body is telling me "screw you Emily, don't go adventuring".  I still explored and trekked on a while longer visiting a couple more temples and looking at some of Lop Buri's ruins. Ayutthaya's are better I think.

Finally, when I was about to give up, I found some monkeys! They were just casually climbing along the power lines. I followed them to their nesting spot, where the entire family was hanging out on top of some buildings across from a small bit of ruins. There were a couple baby monkeys small enough to be carried around by their parents. It was very cute! Although I didn't find the temples where you can feed the monkeys, it was fun. I will have to go again (and print a map or something) to go to the monkey temples themselves.

I am a little glad for the formal clothing required by school. None of your collarbone area can be showing...and that just means that none of my teachers or students will see the little bag strap sun burn I have going on. I guess I sort of forgot about the sun...I'm so used to being in the heat and teaching in the heat that I figured I could just keep trekking. No problem, right? Wrong! Being used to the heat and being used to the sun are two different things...and a couple hours versus twenty minutes makes a difference. Next time I will definitely remember, hopefully that will help avoid issues with heat and the sun...somehow I shall adventure!

Well...there went my organized thought process that I began with. Tschuess!

Tiger Babies

Of course, as soon as I make a blog post, that is when something out of the ordinary happens. I suppose most of you were trying to understand my ordinary days anyways, so it all works out in a way.

Thursday was our school's teacher appreciation day. It's a day in June where the students craft beautiful and creative flower pot things for the teachers. Unfortunately I didn't know, so I didn't bring my camera that day. Morning classes were gone, pretty much, eaten up by the assembly. They did three different ones, for M1/M4, M2/M5 and M3/M6. One of the teachers from the foreign language department was the adviser for 5/7, so I went with her to the M2/M5 assembly. My students. :)

We got there at the end of M1/M4 which was pretty boring...it is at the end that the director gives a speech in Thai. Blah blah blah, I can't understand. Anyways, I got to see the M1/M4 designs and they were very cool. One had taken a watermelon and carved roses out of it. It was very impressive! I was just going to sit at the side and watch the ceremony, but it turned out a couple classes were missing teachers, so one of the Japanese teachers and I went to sit with the teachers on stage. Before the flower presentation, the students spoke some, recited poetry, and sang. I was really impressed by the singing...it wasn't like choral singing, but more like chanting. It reminded me of priest chanting, and it was only one melody line. Still it was fascinating to listen to.

The students presented the flower arrangements they had made to the teachers in groups. One row of teachers sitting, one group of classes. The students carried the flowers and handed them to us, which were unexpectedly heavy! The arrangements are made in large ornate sort of golden goblets. I was thinking it's only flowers, how heavy can it be? Apparently, very. I couldn't tell from how they carried it. They handed the flowers to us from a kneeling position, after which they bowed, head to the floor. It was sort of an awkward feeling, but it is a sign of respect here. Anyways, that was about it. It was neat, and one of the M5 classes had used an Eiffel tower.

Enough about teachers, on to the tiger babies!!! Sunday, which is today, just fyi, a group of the other foreign teachers and myself took a little trip to the Ayutthaya floating market. It was very cool! The first thing we did was go see the tiger, which was sleeping. Then they brought out the tiger babies. Only one at first, who was adorable. We took turns, and then they brought out a second one, which was the baby I got to hold. The other one was being a little grouchy, but mine was still pretty happy. They were adorable! Their fur was coarse though, and short, I had sort of been expecting it to be softer and more like cat fur.

After the baby tigers, we wandered around the floating market. It is a good place to shop, and they had a lot of interesting stores and items, in addition to just being pretty. It was half on the river, so parts of it were actually floating, and it was right next to the water, so that vendors would be right next to the deck, selling food from their boats. In addition to shopping, we got to stop by a stage and see some historical reenactment sort of play. It was very violent, but they made it quite fun to watch.

Well, I feel like I run out of things to say before I hit a conclusion. Maybe it's just too much English training that makes me feel like I need a conclusion every time. Here's my conclusion: "Oh crap, I need to conclude this blog post!" Life is good in Thailand. I hope life is good in other parts of the world as well!

I don't like 6am

At this point I feel like I will never be a morning person. Being perky at 6:15 when I wake up, or even 7:20 when I arrive at school is not easy. Luckily, classes don't start until 8:30, and I only have one 8:30 every week. I'm making coffee in the morning part of my routine...it helps wake me up a little.

There haven't really been any exciting new developments in my life since the end of my first week. I've been keeping my weekends to quiet, going out for a meal at least once and hanging out with the other teachers a bit. It's nice to sleep in until 10ish and not rush off anywhere. I got paid half my pay check for this month in advance the other day, so maybe I will try and plan some day trips on future weekends. It's nice to make money. :)

Classes are starting to have a sort of routine. I have a couple trouble classes, that simply don't like to listen to me. Since it's work for them to understand me, they often choose to go into ignore the teacher mode rather than try. It gets frustrating, but luckily it's just one of my 5 classes, and at least last week, my Friday afternoon kids. They just want to be done and not in my classroom. It can be hard to switch modes sometimes, when I have a lot of either my M2 classes or M5 classes in a row and then something different. It always takes a conscious effort to remember what that class is doing.

My M5's are presenting ordering food dialogues that they wrote this week. My gifted 5 class was a real treat today, they actually put effort into props. One group had a restaurant that served unicorn, termite, gecko or tick fries. It was quite amusing. Have I mentioned that I love my gifted classes? They are the most advanced and certainly most enthusiastic. Plus the class size is about half the regular.

The heat some days is intense. It's really draining teaching in it all day without a break. It saps my appetite a lot too, so I always end up having a tiny lunch. By my afternoon classes I'm dragging, yes, once I wake up I do have energy in the morning. Some food usually helps, unless the heat is just too intense. I'm done teaching by 2:20 everyday, but us teachers still have to be around until 4, when the last official period ends. It's a good time to do my paper work, but still by 4 I am probably more eager to get out of school than most of the students. They like to hang around, it seems like the school really serves as a hang out spot. There are plenty of food/drink vendors right outside the school gates at that time to cater to the students, and hanging out is something that it seems is encouraged.

Well, I hope that satisfied some curiosity. I can always answer questions if there are any...but...I'm not psychic! Also...procrastination. I'm going to return to being lazy now that I have written this. :P

First Week of Teaching

The first week of teaching was...rather hectic. It was a lot of adjusting, getting used to the way the school is run, getting used to the students and getting used to the teachers. Monday, the 21st, was really overwhelming. I got to school and then I was meeting teachers left and right, none of whom were my co-teachers, but half of them so conveniently happened to be Neil or Jacob's co-teachers. (Neil and Jacob are two Americans teaching at my school as well.) And half is a bit of an exaggeration, that was just the way it felt at the time.

So, the first day, we met teachers, got our schedules and taught. I had no co-teachers that day, mostly because they were busy doing other first day things, but it was still a bit of a harrowing experience to go in there, still unsure of how exactly the school worked and to be all alone. I ended up scrapping most of my lesson plan that day, when trying to let the students talk in English simply degraded into talking in Thai. Which they do anyways. I went with a super simple lesson plan, just self introductions and a game, it was a pretty boring idea, but it worked and was easy so I stuck with it for my first week.

Most of the classrooms don't have air conditioning. The ones that do are the gifted classes...basically the smartest kids. There are about 50 kids in each of my M5 classes, and in my M2 there are about 55. It's insane...I don't really know how they expect to learn with such large classes, but you've gotta try. I guess I'm not very good at discipline...I don't really try too hard to control them. As long as they pay attention when they need to, I'm not gonna yell at them for talking in class...

Umm, let's see. I think the worst part of my schedule so far is that I have 7am gate duty on Wednesday, where we have to come in early and stand at the front gates and be all like "Hi, Hello, Good Morning" to the students as they walk in. The worst part is that I don't have class until 10 on Wednesday...but I'd have to be there at 7:30 anyways...I have a pretty nice schedule. I have one day with 5 classes, two with 4 classes and two with 3 classes. 10 are M5 level and 9 are M2 level. I'm done with my classes by 2:20 every day, even if I don't get to leave then. I still end up feeling like students do though...eager to get out of there by the time 4pm rolls around.

They have a nice cheap cafeteria to eat lunch in with some yummy fruit and ice cream...the prices are probably about half of what you'd pay on the street. The school makes it cheaper basically. Let's see...it gets really warm during the day, even with fans and wind going everywhere. The worst part is when you get so warm you don't realize it until you step into air conditioning and you're like "omg this feels wonderful". Then you step back into the heat and you're like "omg this is terrible"! I don't know that I'll ever truly get used to the heat...it always feels better after it rains though!

It was a pretty quiet weekend. We had a half day on Friday because the King was coming to Ayutthaya. It was pretty nice. I didn't go, but I watched it on TV. Everyone here gets super excited over their King. Friday night just hung out with the other teachers. We went to a club, where the bass was so loud it felt like it was literally thrumming through you. I thought it was pretty cool in that aspect. There's something neat about feeling music like that. Saturday was some shopping and an attempt to see the Avenger's...which didn't work out so well since it was only showing in Thai language that day...and because Men in Black 3 had just come out. We went to see Men in Black 3 which was pretty amusing. Sunday was more chore shopping.

Today, the start of week 2. I am pleased to report that I am at least feeling more confident about teaching. I think it can only get better. The rain pouring outside my room right now sounds really awesome and is bound to cool down the temperature for the evening. Anyways...I think that's my report for the week! All nice and typed up. Until there is more to say....

Dun Dun Dun

I start teaching tomorrow. I will be at school at 7:30 in the morning. Will I be teaching then? Who knows! Will I be desperately wishing I was still passed out? The answer is definitely yes.

In the meantime I suppose I should fill you in on the past couple of days which have been rather interesting. Thursday Jacob, Neil and I went to our school, accompanied by Pook and her assistant Bump. We met one of the other English teachers, and Neil's co-teacher, who explained some about how things needed to be graded, and how our lesson plans should look. All in all it was so-so on the knowledge front of what will happen tomorrow, but it was still a nice time.

We went out for lunch as a large group, and it was a huge meal. When you go out to eat with Pook the meals always end up being a huge. There were shrimp cakes, chicken with cashew, a soup, a roasted fish that stared at you, shrimp with vegetables, laub- some sort of spicy pork meat I believe, and...well that may have been it for the actual dishes. Anyways, there were 6 of us and it was still quite a lot of food. Of course it isn't a meal without desert, and we each had our own little cup of ice cream. I had coffee flavored, while the others either had Dorian or Passionfruit. It was pretty good, but of course after we finished, Pook caught sight of another desert...this one was small fruits covered in syrup and ice. We shared those, which were good as well...but everyone was stuffed.

After that, Pook was going to Bang Pa In, so we decided to tag along and go visit the Bang Pa In palace. We didn't have quite as much time there as I might have liked, because we got there later in the afternoon. Still it was quite nice to walk around in, the buildings were gorgeous, and we got to see a huge lizard chilling down by the canal. I'd seen one before in the road but I hadn't gotten a chance to take a picture before. Thailand is crawling with lizards, by the way. Walk around the apartment at night and you will see plenty of tiny ones on the walls.

On our way back to Ayutthaya from Bang Pa In, Pook decided to stop by the Japanese village because she felt like showing us some of the things around Ayutthaya. Pook is a very sweet lady, she is quite an awesome person to have as a coordinator. The village itself didn't appear to be there, but there were museums to it. The Japanese village is fairly famous because Japanese were allowed to move in there and govern themselves. This was probably in the 1940s, and as Pook said, it was a very progressive idea for its time. There is also a Portuguese village somewhere in the area of Ayutthaya, but I have no clue where it is.

Despite being stuffed on the way back we stopped at Pook's favorite stand to get rodis sai mai from. It is a desert that is made by taking sugar and stretching it until it breaks into hair like strands. It's then wrapped in a sort of pancake dough and eaten. It is quite good, light, fluffy, sugary...definitely not filling, but very awesome. Our last stop was to see the large outdoor reclining Buddha in Ayutthaya. It was quite impressive, but at that time we were all quite tired and not hungry at all...ready to just rest some.

Friday I decided to take a day trip to Bangkok. I took the bus near Ayutthaya that goes to Bangkok, having no clear idea where it ended...it worked out okay. I had to take a motorbike taxi from the bus station to the metro station. It was my first time on a motorbike, and I must say it was pretty awesome. Especially when it is warm and beautiful out...I would love to ride one all the time!

My first stop was the Jim Thompson house in Bangkok. It is famous for being a nicely preserved Thai home with beautiful gardens. It's actually 6 Thai houses in one. Jim Thompson himself is famous for bringing Thai silk to the west, making it famous, and reviving the art that might have otherwise died out. It really was a nice house to see. From there I walked to a Hindu shrine. It was just a small area, but it was heavily trafficked. Lots of people were stopping by to look and to offer incense and flowers. The area was quite smokey. There were also some dancers who would do a brief dance every so often. I'm not sure what it was for.

The last place I went was Sua Pakkard Palace...it was another Thai house turned into a museum. They had some old Thai pottery, masks. It was nice, although not as nice as Jim Thompson's house. At this point I was warm, exhausted, and not feeling well. I took the train home, which was nice and cheap, although not air conditioned.

My weekend since then has pretty much been just trying to rest and relax, to get over this annoying cold....because school starts tomorrow!

Exploration

It's been unusually hot here. Apparently, being close to 100 degrees everyday is not quite how hot it tends to get. It seems as though the normal is much more around 90, but it's been close to 100 almost everyday I've noticed so far. (Which probably started sometime over the weekend?) Anyways, it has in the most part deterred me from doing much during the day. Usually I get a bit restless during the day, and will go to the 7/11 which proves to me that it is far too hot to wander about until later in the day.

I'm losing track of my days a bit, so forgive me if I don't give dates. I have explored quite a few ruins since I last posted. Ayuthaya is full of them, some as part of a park, and some simply left as is, standing next to or among new buildings and temples. By now I have explored most of the larger ones within easy walking distance. They are all quite nice. There is a park nearby as well, which I think I will spend more time in perhaps once I have a phone. I would very much like to just go there and read or draw sometime.

Oh! Stray animals...stray cats and dogs seem to be everywhere in Ayuthaya, well all over. There are more stray dogs here, though I saw more cats as well in Bangkok. You can't walk down the street without seeing at least one more dogs, some may be pets but most appear to be stray. They leave you alone for the most part, though I have had a few bark viciously. :( Also when I was resting at some ruins, a dog with a collar came and licked my toes. It amused me.

The most exciting thing I have done recently, is take a boat trip. Yesterday, a couple other foreign teachers and I paid for a boat tour. We chose to stop at two temples and to see elephants bathing. The boat trip was a lot of fun, it went in a circle around Ayuthaya, which is in a way, an island surrounded by rivers. It was a nice boat ride, we got to see many houses and restaurants by the river. The first temple we stopped at was a currently active one, with quite a large Buddha inside. It was a larger complex, including housing for the monks, and an outdoor shrine to Ganesha, the elephant headed Hindi god.

Our second stop was another temple, but this time ruins. It was mostly roped off, saying there was flood damage, even though there was no water that high. Since we came in through the river, and part of the tape was raised up, we chose to ignore it and ducked under. It was worth it. The ruins were probably the best I have seen so far, beautiful. There were still in-tact towers with stone Buddhas carved inside them that you could walk through. The temple was on higher ground, so we tried to avoid going around where the main entrance could see us. We had a good 10-15 minutes before an official caught wind of us and we stole away out the back entrance to our boat. It was quite thrilling, even though we weren't in real danger of getting caught.

The last stop was to see the elephants playing in the water. It was actually quite fun, but unfortunately my camera batteries died right as we got there, and it turned out the spare ones I had weren't actually charged. (Or if they had been, they lost their charge by then...) :( It was still quite fun though! The elephants swam in the river with riders, or keepers on top of them. They sprayed water at us through their trunks as we came near, and I got a bit wet from it. They came right up next to the boat and we got to touch them...it felt so weird, very leathery and tough. The elephants also used their trunks to spray water into their mouths. We got out on land to take pictures of them, and with them. (Of course stupid camera...). They were trained well as money makers...their trunk would reach out towards you and if you gave them baht (money), they would take it and hand it up to their riders.

That was the end of the boat trip, save for the return boat ride. I ended up getting a bit wet after playing in water and accidentally getting the person behind me wet...his revenge was to splash quite vigorously. The water was warm, and made me really want to go swimming! It didn't help that along the way there were native kids playing in the water.

Well, that is really all the fun exploration that has happened recently. Next week I start teaching! Hopefully I will have made a day trip to Bangkok before then. For those of you who don't have facebook, here is a link to my photo album of Thailand pictures so far:

 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.659424111962.2096932.33103631&type=1&aft=660006464922&l=446fefb496

I hope it works for you!
 

Settling

One of these days I am going to learn my way around google when I can't read a single thing because it's all in Thai. I really wish there was a language toggle, but I wouldn't be able to find it anyways! It's one thing that will probably always annoy me about google, even though it is a nice and international feature.

So, there has been a bit going on in my life since my first "woohoo I'm in Thailand" post but I just keep procrastinating.

The short, two day orientation is over, and I have moved out of the hotel in Bangkok into an apartment in Ayutthaya. It's about an hour north of Bangkok, depending on the transportation you take, and it is an old capital. There are ruins all over the city. It's quite interesting.

At the moment I have plenty of time to explore, although there is an unfortunate side effect called extreme heat in the middle of the day. I will be teaching in a prestigious all girl's school. I will be teaching M2 and M5 classes, which means 13 and 17 year olds. I'm doing mostly English conversation, as I understand, and will be teaching classes with about 50 students. Ugh. Not looking forward to that part. But I'm supposed to have another Thai teacher in the room, mostly to help with crowd control. Most Thai schools start around the 14th-16th of May, but mine doesn't start until the 21st, hence having plenty of free time.

 Wednesday was when the big move happened. One other person from my session is living in the same complex as I am, and so are two other teachers at my school and two others at his school, who came earlier. Most of them aren't around yet, off traveling with their free time. I plan on spending most of mine in Ayutthaya, with maybe a few day trips to surrounding areas.

Anyways, Wednesday. The company that hired me is sort of a middle man, placing foreign teachers in schools, so I am working for the school, but they are helping to arrange paperwork and everything. It has been very nice. Anyways, the manager came and picked us up, her name is Pook. She was very nice, picking us up mostly because she was afraid I would get lost if we tried to meet somewhere other than at the hotel. Which is probably true. We drove, stopping at Bang-Pa In, a nearby city where the other person from my session, Colin, will be teaching. We drove by his school, which was a very nice campus, and then viewed an apartment, which was rather bleak compared to where we are staying now.

We had lunch at a restaurant on a boat...it was anchored so we didn't go anywhere, but it was quite nice. Pook recommended the fish very highly, and it was a type of communal lunch, where everyone shares the main dishes. So we had some fried fish, fish cakes, some squid type dish, greens with crab legs, papaya salad and some chicken. I actually did try eating the fried fish and fish cakes. It was okay, but certainly not enough to make me like fish. The papaya salad was really good and spicy though. After that we drove by my school, and came and settled at the Grandparent's House, as it is called. Colin ended up deciding to stay here since the pros here outweigh the pros of being able to walk to school.

Thursday I went out for about 2 hours at 10. There are two sets of ruins pretty close to the apartment, probably about 5-15 minute walk depending on which one you're going to. I went and explored there, but of course by about noon the heat was killing me. When I got back I ran into the local helper for us, named Bum, who needed my papers to make some copies. She recommended against going out early in the day, and I tend to agree, saying that going out later is better. I will be trying that from now, the heat was rather intense. Colin had to go to the tailor later that afternoon with Pook and I tagged along for the heck of it. I got to see a sort of cloth shop, where they had lots of fun silk cloth. After we had dinner again at another nice restaurant. All in all, the later in the day it is out, the nicer it tends to be.

As for the next bit, I just plan to do more exploring. There are plenty of ruins to see and some temples too. They rent bikes at the apartments, so I will probably do that one of these times. But that about sums up my life these past couple days...enjoy the wall of text!

Surprise! I'm in Thailand!

The hotel I'm staying at in Bangkok doesn't appear to be near any touristy areas, however it is full of shopping. Between my brief strolls yesterday and today, most of what I have seen consists of open-air market stalls and food. The stalls sell anything from clothes to jewelery to music, and there are usually plenty of people milling about.

Last night I had some Thai noodles from the small shop across from the hotel. Food is pretty cheap, considering dinner cost me about 1 US dollar. The noodles were really yummy. There are a lot of small sit down places, that are run by families. They cook the food in a little open air kitchen, and they are really nice.

Today was spent in orientation type stuff...we spent the morning learning some Thai language, which is nice and always helpful. We have just learned some spoken language, nothing about reading or writing the script, which is a little unnerving. Thai has a very unique script, at least compared to the ones I've seen before, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. I half expected it to be more similar than it is. Anyways, in addition to learning a little Thai language we also learned about some customs, and how to bow politely. There are only 6 of us, so we're quite a small group.

I'll be teaching at a school in the area around Bangkok...that is about all I have learned so far. I will learn more tomorrow, and I am hoping that I am not too close to the center of the city. Big cities are nice to visit, but to live in, I prefer my smaller towns. Not too small, but a good size.

Well, I am still plenty tired from traveling and my day, so I will leave you with just this short post before I simply start rambling. Enjoy my 12 hour time difference posts from the future. :)

...and I shall enjoy the 30 minutes it takes to figure out how to post this when google is being a jerk and making all the buttons read in Thai so I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing...

The End

I've been home for almost two weeks now, so I figured it was time to sit down and write my closing blog post for Georgia or it would never happen. (I'm a terrible procrastinator like that.)

My last week was bitter sweet. The nearer the day of my departure grew, the more I knew I wasn't ready. Not ready to leave my students, not ready to leave my co-teacher, who I had finally begun to work better with, and not ready to leave my host family, who I came to love dearly. I had brought some school supplies with me, pens, mechanical pencils, and some chalk, that I gave to my co-teachers as a good bye gift, along with some sweets. I also received some good bye gifts. A candy dish and some nail polish from my co-teacher, and from the rest of the teachers, a set of wine glasses, to drink from at my wedding they said, knowing that I have no such plans, and a chocolate bar. It was sweet of them.

There wasn't really anything special that we did as a host family for my leaving. We spent time together, and it was enough. The only good thing about not making concrete plans was that I could procrastinate leaving until the last possible day...

I managed not to cry until after I was on the marshut'ka heading towards Tbilisi, until Samtredia, my city, my school, and my home in Georgia were fading away behind me. Luckily, there were only a few other passengers at this point. It was about a 3-3 1/2 hour drive from Samtredia to Tbilisi. It felt weird as we neared to Tbilisi, when the road changed from one lane both directions, to become a divided highway with multiple lanes. And stoplights...those were weird. Everything about being in such a huge, obviously more modern city, felt weird. I got to the hostel later than planned, ate too much while walking around because I was starving, couldn't find a Liberty bank, and ended the day crankily, and early, since I had to get up at 2am for my flight home.

The first part of my trip was the easiest...it was only a three hour flight from Tbilisi to Warsaw, where I would catch the plane home. The airport was an 8-10 hour layover, and the first half went really fast since all I did was sit and read my book. Then I was bored, followed by a crappy airplane ride, without personal entertainment (which I had been looking forward to), really bad food, broken headphone jack, and an ipod with almost no battery power.

Being home took some adjusting to. I missed my kitties a lot, and now being home feels natural. For now, I need to earn money, and spend time with my family, my friends, and my cats. Hopefully, in a few months, I can find another short-term teaching job overseas. If and when that happens, I will start this blog again. Thank you all for reading, and following me along this new journey! Maybe someday I will go to Georgia again. :)