Monday was Ying's (one of the girls I work with) wedding. The faculty was invited to the reception ceremony which was fun. Wedding's here are a lot different from at home. The actual ceremony only has a few people involved (the families) and takes most of the day. Then a bunch of people show up to the reception afterward. Then people get on stage and give a bunch of speeches (which everyone ignored) while everyone eats a six course meal. They have adopted the wedding cake from western culture but they only have a very small cake and cut off pieces for their parents. After all the speeches the bride and groom walk around the room and accept envelopes of money from the guests. The food at the wedding was delicious and the group I was with were fun. Ying was also asked to speak in English where she also asked Collin and I to stand up and wave to the room (She had to show off her foreign 'pets' I mean friends...lol).

The wedding reception was interesting and the food was great.

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The rest stop!

cementing the pigs bottom

Everyone should eat sticky
rice during a group photo!

After too long in the car

Aom thought my book made a better hat

Noodle time!

Pressing the noodles (this takes FOREVER!!!!)

Cutting the noodles

(thank goodness this thing had a
motor my arms felt like spaghetti)

Aom all ready for bed

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Last weekend was Chinese New Year! I was invited to Chumpon with P-Noy (the woman I tutor for) to celebrate with her family. We left on Friday afternoon and piled into her husbands truck for the 3 hour ride. On the way to Chumpon we stopped at a rest area that according to Noy is a tourist attraction because it has clean toilets. I found that not only does it have clean toilets but it is actually a park type thing dedicated to toilets. They had a couple cement toilets that you could climb through, they were building a sky toilet, and working on a sculpture of a pigs bottom. The kids had a blast running around and playing on the playground.

After we played for a while we finished our trek to Chumpon where we had dinner in the unfinished apartment complex her family is building. Then we spent the rest of the night making Chinese noodles for the next day. I got to be the motor for the hand crank noodle press :P The children also helped me with the crank. We made noodles till about midnight and then it was time to get some sleep before the fireworks woke everyone up at 3am and kept being set off every half hour for the rest of the night.

On Saturday we went back to the apartment complex to cook. During the day Aear asked me to show her how to hula hoop because I could do it for a really long time and her's kept dropping after 3 spins. Then I got kidnapped by a family friend to go talk with her 15 year-old niece who's going to study in Seattle next month. After talking to her and watching a movie they took me back for crab and noodle dinner.

On Sunday we went to the sea to play in the water. When we got there the children only wanted to play in the pool because they were scared of the ocean since they can't swim. After a little bit I convinced Aear to play in the ocean. We went out to where the water hit her knees and played jump the waves. After my arms got tired from lifting her we went back to the rest of the group. Then Aom wanted to play with me so we went back to the ocean. Aom was even more scared so we played tag with the waves. We would run away when they were coming in and then chase them when they went back out. After playing we went to collect seashells. Aom likes to grab every shell she finds and then dumb her cup out. Then Aear joined us until she got distracted by finding and catching crabs.

Chumpon was a blast and I had a great time. I'll put up some pics tomorrow after I download them off my camera!

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Well it's starting to look like October here...All the rubber trees are dropping their leaves for the hot season. While it looks like October it definitely feels like the middle of summer. The weather has been getting hotter and dryer...no more torrential downpours :( I miss the rainy season and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the hot and hotter weather that we're heading towards. I'm kinda wishing I was at home to play in all the awesome snow there. After 5 years in Wyoming you'd think I'd have had enough snow but now I miss it :p Oh well! I'm going to enjoy this topsy-turvy fall atmosphere in March!

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Ugggh! Last weekend I caught a horrendous cold! I was in bed all day Saturday...it took all of my energy to walk downstairs to do laundry :( I also found out that the guy who I was borrowing internet from switched his internet to a password so I didn't have internet all weekend!

Yesterday I was feeling better and I went out to get a wireless adapter thing for my computer. Well what I bought does not produce the High Speed Internet that it advertised...every web page timed out before it could load and Magic Jack does not work at all with it! I bout what the store called an AirCard which I plug SIM Card, from my phone, into and then it is suppose to give my wireless internet. Unfortunately my phone is about 100 times faster than the device. I can load a page in under a minute on my phone and the AirCard took over 20minutes to get no web page. So I'm taking it back tonight I'm going to buy a solo wireless internet thing this time so hopefully I'll have real internet by this weekend.

I'm feeling better and wrapping up my classes...quizes this week and finals for the rest of the month! Yay!! Then I get to go on a bunch of school trips for paid vacation...I'm excited I'll be going to Phuket, Chang Rai, Hat Yai, Trang, and Koh Samui for free this summer!

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Ok so this week has been crazy with writing finals and having no power on Tuesday (Yay! No classes) so I haven't had time to write anything.

Last week, on January 28th, we had a cultural exchange program here on the campus. We had students from a school in China visiting and they gave some cultural performances along with our students. There was a ton of dancing of both traditional dances and contemporary dances. The students all seemed to have a blast and got to wear some fun costumes. At the end of the event there was a big traditional Thai circle dance thing where everyone dances and some of the students tried to teach me how to move my hands...it's a lot harder than it looks. I still can't get my thumb in the proper location half the time!

Then on Sunday the 31st I was invited to the birthday party of one of my students. She turned 20 (drinking age in Thailand) and wanted to go to the pub. There were about 15 students that went and they all had a blast drinking (I drank mostly coke) and dancing. The pub also gave her a big cake to share with everyone. We stayed out till 2am and then went to 7/11 to get them some food and lots of water.

Last week was a lot of fun! This week I've been working like crazy but the school finally gave me my fridge, TV, and microwave! Now I have a fridge that doesn't randomly decide to defrost on me!

Cultural exchange pics!
Traditional Thai dancing


Contemporary Thai dancing


One of the traditional Chinese dancers
(they did a lot more singing than dancing)


Jojo trying to teach me how to dance...I look scared :P

The car ride home! You can't see one of them
but there are 6 girls shoved back there!
Good thing it was a short ride!

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