Feb 19
okay. my relationship with thai is official over. Its the most simply structured language and it often makes so much sense but then they do things like have the verb to ride be the same as poop but with different tones. This past weekend in a tone workshop they had us say, Di-chan choop kii maa, dtee mai choop kii maa. I think I explained this before but the sentence is supposed to read I ilke to ride horses but I don't like dog poop. Most of us said something like I like horse poop but I don't like dog poop or I like to ride dogs but I don't like to ride dogs. Ya know something that doesn't make sense but is funny anyway. BUT back to today because srsly I think I have to give up. Today we were learning about directions. So we learned near(glai), next to(dtit), across from(dtrong-kaam), and in between(ra-waang) and as natural progression would have it we asked what do you say when there isn't anything near. So I was already having a tough time in todays lesson and this is where I almost walked outside and just started banging my head against a wall. So we are told far is glai. Okay now I just want you to go back a couple sentences and read that all again.
THIS IS INSANE. Why the hell would any sane person make two opposite words the same word. It's terribly mean for all the people in the future that will try their hardest to learn this stupid hard nonsensical language. ARGGGGGHHHH. so yeah near is glai and far is glai. and yes there is a difference because there has to be but then of course then we went through about 10 minutes of my teachers saying 'no, glai, not glai'. 'No, not glai, glai'. It was terrible. It turns out the tones are different the near glai is a falling tone and the far glai is a mid tone. Because I can TOTALLY tell the difference when a thai person is speaking to me at the speed of light and I will OBVIOUSLY remember which is which every time AND use it correctly in every instance.
So yeah, we're taking a break at the moment.
On a lighter note today I got my midterm language evaluation and in order to qualify for service I have to be at intermediate low by the end and I found out that today I have already achieved that so thats awesome. That said I totally have to keep practicing and I have to keep up motivation because I'm definitely hitting a wall in the language department. Between changing ahjaans and it getting more difficult (and the above insanity)it's been pretty rough this last week.
okay also sometimes geckos fall from the ceiling right next to you and it scares the shit out of you but then you realize that its eating an unidentifiable thing and you realize you've made a new friend and you love geckos. also by sometimes I mean that just happened.
Another random thought I had today. So everyone know that in thailand they eat rice with every meal right? Its rice and noodles. but mostly rice. Even if you do have noodles most of the time its noodles and rice. Anyway, so today as i was eating my mid afternoon ice cream treat that I get when I have class at the market I remembered that not everyone eats rice with their ice cream. Yeah. Not kidding. I thought it was super weird too and it's a little weird but you get over pretty fast. So usually you have two different options: ice cream sandwich or cup of ice cream. If you go with the ice cream sandwich it is on a roll about 2x2x4 that kinda tastes like challah. They peel it half open like a sub roll and put three mellon ball scoops of ice cream in it and then three mellon ball scoops of sticky rice and then three more scoops of ice cream and then some sweetened condensed milk and then a spoon full of peanuts. The cup is the same but end up being more layered because its easier to layer better. but yeah every meal has rice in it. even dessert. About half of the desserts that I eat are actually rice based.
Today I got so excited during an activity that I was clapping my hands on my legs and now I have a full hand print in broken blood vessels on my leg. Too excited!!!!
Also on Thursday we are running a life skills camp for 160 kids in Suphan Buri and I'm super excited. I also get to be MC with my friend Joel and so basically I get to spend the entire day just acting silly and trying to get 11 yr olds to get into playing games. I'm super stoked. Also we're dressing up as thai youth so we're trying to find thai school uniforms so that we look the part. It's a little rough because I only know 16 yr old girls and not many of them wear my size. We'll see though. I hope it all goes well but either way I think it's gonna be super fun. and I will get lots and lots of pictures.
Feb 20
Best birthday party ever! In thailand awkward is the name of the game and we win at that game. Its full of dancing and cowboy hats and music with speakers and microphones and lots of thai people wanting you to do karaoke but not having any of the things necessary for you to do it. Mostly meaning english songs. We also all got presents from the Pu-yai-baan. Also there were two tables full of food. like there was not any space on either table for anyone to put anything down because there was so much food.
Also, side note, I don't know why any of you are friends with me if you've seen me dance. I saw myself dance tonight and it was a terrible terrible experience and I feel as thought I should reevaluate my friend choices if you've seen that and think it's okay.
Yeah. that was amazing. I wish I could explain it better because it was hilarious and super fun and I think the best part about it was the fact that there were all these really conservative people hanging out and being super silly and letting loose with us crazy americans. Anyway, I've gotta get some rest because tomorrow is the english camp that we're putting on and I've gotta be there at 6:45 because I am MC and so that means I'm part of the logistic team. Hopefully I won't be too beat to give you a recap tomorrow.
Feb 21
Things I learned:
- Too many to count/I cant remember
- I'm getting really bad about my things I learned lists
Today I Mcd an english camp. I was fantastic and amazing and crazy difficult and it was all planned with the amazingly helpful staff of PC and 50 amazingly awesome PCTs. I know that we've all had an intense couple weeks and we are getting to know each other very well very fast and in a certain way. Today was a good indicator of how well we can work with each other and despite the minor frustrations and mishaps we all came together and we pulled it off. Considering we did this all in two days I think that's quite an achievement. Okay that said I'm super tired and I'm gonna go pass out. Oh yeah and it was super cute Joel(my co-mc) and I wore Thai school uniforms so we were also students and it went over super well with everyone and its was awesome. Pictures to come(I will try to remember that when I post).
Feb 22
Today I realized I'm too comfortable here and I'm pushing the limits. I've got to shape up because I only have two weeks left and I want the last two weeks to be really good with my family and recently I've been spending a lot of time with other PCTs as opposed to my family but I will have the next to years with them(at least kinda) but I really only have the next two weeks with my family so I want to hang out with them as much as possible.
Feb 23
It's 5:30 in the morning on a saturday. I don't understand why I'm up.
Okay I do know why I'm up but I don't really understand why I should be up. Thanks PC for taking me on a fun trip on saturday that entails me waking up at stupid o'clock.
Okay so now its 6 and I just finished breakfast and I was given octopus soup for breakfast(and a bunch of other things) but really octopus soup. It's 6 in the goddamn morning who the eff wants to the smell, let alone eat, of fishy octopussy soup.
Feb 24
So this was a crazy week and I've taken to updating less during the week and more on Sunday. Mostly because I don't have time but also because it's a good way to debrief the week and remember moments.
So this week was a doozy.
I can't remember Monday, but it probably wasn't important and it was basically a year ago so whatever.
Tuesday I had a rough day in part because language is difficult(that whole glai glai thing and still irking me mostly because I feel like the thai language is just conspiring against me personally) and my new ahjaan is pretty frustrating in her teaching style. In addition I don't particularly like her as a person which is hard because if I could want to like her it would be easier to make excuses for her but she's not a very good teacher and I don't think she's very smart and she interrupts all the time(in english and in thai) and she doesn't teach us what we are supposed to know and when she does we don't understand it. And anyway. yea I don't like her. So that is a thread that ran throughout the week but it started really irking me on tuesday.
Then Wednesday was molly's birthday and it was hilarious and awesome and I took lots of pictures and decided that Andy kinda looks like the cowboy from toy story. I also learned that thai people are adorable when they try to do a runway walk. I don't know how it started but that was "dancing" for a bit and everyone tried to get their host parent to do it with them. It was super adorable/the worst combination of runway walks ever(and I'm talking about PCVs also). Also, its hilarious the things I do here that I would never ever do at home. There were literally 40 people that I didn't know at that party and Molly and I started dancing. Also even the village chief was dancing with us. He/his wife actually gave us each a little change purse thing. It was super cute when I thanked him he was adorably awkward about it. I'm pretty sure he was worried I was going to touch him. Oh well, I'm pretty sure I handled myself appropriately and my mom was there and didn't say anything to me so I'm pretty sure I was okay. So yeah that was kinda a late night…I stayed up til about midnight…weeeoooow. Thats said I had a big day on Thursday.
So I woke up at 5 on thursday because on my nong saao Shy gave me a lecture on how 'All the thais shower twice a day. once in the morning and once at night' and proceeded to tell me that all my friends did as well(which I enjoyed throughly because I know that they don't so I suddenly put the conversation in perspective and simply listens and joked with her). So I told her I would wake up early and do it. So here I am at 5 in the morning and I go take a five to ten minute shower and it's amazing. Not because it's actually amazing but because I'm actually cold. like legit cold. I'm pretty sure I had goosebumps. It was a terrible shower but I was so excited by the fact that I was cold that I didn't really care I just relished being cold. Yeah so then I got out and its all of 5:15 and I don't have to leave my house until 6:45. This is a personal problem of mine. I can't figure out how to wake up early. I like the idea of waking up and taking my time to get ready and all but thats not how I work in the morning. If I am not hitting the ground running I can't really hit the ground at all. Hence my 15 alarms, I set them so that I know when a normal person would get up and then when a normal person who's late would get up and then when rosie should get up to take a shower and then when rosie should get up if she's not taking a shower and then holy shit rosie get the eff outta bed you have to be at work in 7 minutes and 36 seconds. But that works for me, and if I get up two hours before I have to leave I do things the only way I know how so I'm ready to leave 15 minutes later and then I just have to waste time for 2 hours but then I have the issue of what the hell you can do at 5 in the morning for two hours. The answer is nothing. So I wait around until about 6 staring at my computer and pretending I'm interested in the new york times and whats happening with the pope until about 6 and then I decide to go to the camp early because I have nothing else to do.
So the English camp was a very long awesome frustrating tiring day. It was super fun there were a couple mishaps but nothing too big and nothing that wasn't fixed within 15 minutes which was awesome. Joel and I, as the MCs wore student uniforms which everyone loved and I'm pretty sure half of Suphan Buri now has a picture of me in some girls Thai uniform. The camp was super successful, we had ten stations half english teaching classrooms and half youth leadership activities and the kids seemed to really enjoy all of them. By the end of the day I was pretty beat and it was one of those moments where if somebody asked me how I was I was pretty sure I was gonna burst into tears and not be able to control myself. Thankfully that didn't happen because I had good people to vent with after. Okay thats kinda a lie but I didn't bust out crying but when I went to thank Supaporn with Joel she started tearing up because 1) she always does and 2) she said she really was so proud of us because this was the best camp she had seen and she was so excited to see our progress and everything. It was too cute and basically at this point I feel like when she starts saying anything about us I'm on the verge of tears because she's on the verge of tears
The next day I don't remember. We're on Friday, I think. I can't really remember super exciting things happening friday but I'm sure something did. I don't know what day this happened but I'm gonna pretend it was friday because I wanna talk about it. I had my placement interview(now that I remember I think it was monday) which is i think mostly to assuage volunteers and pretend that they actually take into consideration what you want to do or where you feel you could live. I was pretty sure it was pointless but during I started to talk to chaturon and the head of YinD program (can't remember name right now) and it was cool. They asked me what I would be interested in focusing on within Youth in Development and Chaturon said he knew I was kinda interested in working with people with disabilities so would I want a project working with disabled youth. Now this might be a pipe dream but that would be a dream come true and I can't think of why he would say that unless there is one of those available. Now, I'm not getting my hopes up because I have no idea and I wholeheartedly trust them with their jobs but it just got me super excited again. I also once again asked for more of a hardship position if that was available. AHHHH now I'm just thinking about it and 24 hours from now I will know where I'm going to live for the next 2 years!!!!! Its crazy. I don't even know what I'm going to do. I feel like there's a good chance that I'm gonna hear where I'm going and not register anything because at this point I don't really know anything about anywhere anyway. I know where a couple of current pcvs are but thats about it.
Okay I have to stop talking about it because I'm gonna get myself all worked up and not be able to go to sleep.
So yesterday we went to a couple wats and the national museum and Samchuk, the 100 yr market or dalat nung roi bpii. They were pretty fun. The market was awesome and I got some awesome presents for people at home and then realized that I'm not sure how to send a package here so I'm gonna have to figure that one out but in time I will figure it out. Also, I'm still working on gathering ally he supplies to make postcards from thai magazines so look forward to those in the future. So far my favorite purchase for myself was a tshirt that is plain white vneck that has ALONE written across the front in black text. I LOVE it. I want to wear it all the time. And don't worry there are other ones that you will see over the course of the next couple years.
Okay then today I helped my mom make these mango kanoms. I'm pretty sure they are gonna turn out like mango fruit leathers and its super easy to make them. Well by super easy I mean it took us all day but nothing was extremely difficult for my meh. Okay so most things were difficult for me and my mom and my aunt were like 50 feet up a tree picking mangoes for a really long time but every things relative and it was super fun and I think I could maybe sometime in the future do it on my own too. We set one batch out to dry early this morning and mixed the other batch today so tomorrow morning I get to try them and maybe help meh set out the next batch.
oh right and some things I learned this week:
- if you look up grapefruit in a thai-english dictionary the translation is foreigner's orange because they don't have grapefruits here
- there are lots of different kinds of mangoes in thailand. today alone I had 5 and most of those were the ones you 'don't eat' according to my meh
- teaching is super fun. you're basically getting paid to be an idiot and I already do that for free
***Also really happy I dont have rodents. I only have big bugs but when I'm in the shower and a bug flys at my head and I can tell its kinda a big one(horsefly size) I can just not look at it at pretend its not something that will hurt me because chances are it cant. But I dont care what kinda of rodent you are I pretty much hate you and I'm pretty sure you are always trying to climb all over me and make my skin crawl(also that includes the dead ones, I don't get it either but I'm pretty sure when I touch them they will regain their life force and come at me with all they have)
Feb 25
Today was a crazy day. First I've gotta talk about a really awkward interaction I just had with my friend molly's family. So her little cousin Om(who's the best little kid ever) was sick today and when we got to her house we were worried about him because he looked terrible and molly felt his head and he was burning. WE asked what was wrong and they said he was not good(as in sick). I asked if they had medicine because he seemed very hot and they showed me that they had given him some fever reducers and I asked when they gave them to him and I'm not sure they ever gave me an answer. WE took his temperature and it was 104. At this point he was tearing up and it was getting to the point that I was legit worried. His family kept saying that he couldn't have medicine because he 1) already had some and 2) needed to eat before he had more. At this point, I had to distance myself from the situation because I wasn't sure I could do anything and the family dynamic was weird and molly was pretty adamant about it so I figured if they would listen to anyone it would be her as opposed to me. So she kept explaining that if he were in america we would take him to the hospital and that we were very worried about him. They insisted that he had to eat first so she served him a bowl of food and he could barely eat it and was crying while trying. I'm not sure if he was crying because he didn't want to eat it or because he could or because he didn't want to or really any of the above but after about half his bowl molly was still pushing to be able to give him the medicine and so molly's brother gave him and just gave him the medicine.
This is the kind of situation where I'm not sure what I am supposed to do. I have the moral side of me thinking that I can't sit and watch a child suffer when there is something I can do about it. Then there's the accepting and openminded version of me that says maybe (just maybe) they know what they are doing, I mean they have survived this long and they've probably had a fever or two in their day. And then finally I realize that if anything ever happened to that wonderful little boy because of my lack of action due to some saving face or polite bullshit I wouldn't be able to live with myself and so I'm glad today that Molly did what I wasn't sure I could do. Anyway, I'm not sure how Om is now but I will check in on him in the morning and I'll give an update.
Okay in lighter news…..Today I found out where I'm gonna live for the next to years and its…….
Trat!!!!!!
I'm sure you're already googling it but just in case here's a bit about it:
One of the many things I'm excited about and the reason I got this post was because there are a lot of developmentally disabled kids here and there are two different schools devoted to developmentally disabled kids so I will be able to work with them. I'm not sure how yet or really even how old they are but I will keep you posted and I will learn more this weekend when I got to site visit. Also, in case you weren't planning on visiting I'm super close to Ko Chang Island now so you probably should.
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