I never thought I would say this, but there is a good chance I am going to miss the cold winter weather. I pretty much always feel like I have just finished running on a hot, humid summer day even if I am just sitting in my office. Minnesota had a cool summer this year and I am making up for it quickly! Today the high was about 98 degrees and when you don't have air conditioning (or air con as they say) a cold winter day doesn't sound so bad. I had to laugh today when one of my Matiom 1 (7th grade) students told me Thailand has three seasons: hot, rainy, cold. He has no clue what cold weather is.
Last weekend we took a much needed trip into Bangkok. Getting into the city was pretty funny considering we barely know Thai. We had Pee-Pen (the lady who often makes us dinner) call a taxi for us. Hopefully she doesn't mind doing thes because I can't imagine I will be able to make a phone call in Thai anytime soon. The taxi took us to Home Pro, similar to a Home Depot but for some reason it also has a grocery store. All we knew was to look for bus 132. It was Nathan, Ryan, and myself standing on the side of the street with our backpacks looking like complete farangs (foreigners). Nathan spotted the bus and ran to get on, we quickly learned that the buses don't really come to a complete stop - just rolling. Nathan and Ryan got on and for a split second I didn't think I was going to make it. After a teeny moment of panic I realized I had made it on the bus.
I am not even sure this vehicle should be called a bus, maybe instead a dumpy pollution infested trolley. On the bright side though it only cost 8 baht or 24 cents for about a 40 minute ride. We used our limited Thai vocab to ask where to get on the sky train. We knew our station was called Ah-noot and laughed when we saw the sign because it is spelled On Nut. I think we are all learning to find humor in the smallest things.
There were a bunch of people from our orientation group in Bangkok this weekend and it was a great way to talk to everyone and see how teaching is going. It was also a time for us to be totally American : ) Everyone we were with decided it was worth the extra baht to eat American food instead of Thai food. Great choice, I never thought I would be so excited to eat a club sandwich.
Oh man, I'm sitting at my desk and I just looked down to about 40 ants scampering about my computer. Where do they come from? I don't know. Why they are all over my desk where there isn't any food? I'm not really sure. I just can't think about the bugs and lizards that are in my room while I am sleeping. Multiple times a day I will have a spastic moment to fling off a bug or jump from a lizard when usually there isn't one there. The students probably think I'm slightly crazy. Rumor has it there is a monitor lizard around the corner from our dorm. When I first heard this I just pictured a little gecko, nope turns out its like 6 feet long. I haven't seen it yet and it can stay that way for a bit.
