One month Party

scout camp

sorry its taken so long

hey everyone.
i thought i would take this time to explain a bit better the situation here in thailand, and tell you all everythingi know. First of all, Pantameet is the main protest the has been going on for over 100 days (when i first got here it had been going on for 71 days). It is peaceful and televised around the clock. Pantameet was also the site of the Queen's birthday celebration which i attended. People are constantly driving to bangkok to join the protest.

The "riot" in bangkok was an isolated incident and didnt happen at pantameet. one person died and 43 were injured however no one is concerned. The State Of Emergency that was declared was set in place to try and disperse the crowd of protestors squatting on the property of the prime minister, as the SOE bans groups of more than 5 people from gathering for any politcal reasons. The protestors arent complying however, so the PM is considering lifting the SOE.It may have already been lifted, im not entirely sure.

There are smaller rallys every once in a while held at the universtiy in Korat. I dont know if other cities are having them as well but i would assume so. These are entirely peaceful as well. we had to drive through it on the way home from rotary one night, and basically is exactly like pantameet, where one person is talking and everyone is listeningand cheering.
Speaking of rotary, all the exchangers had a meeting with Peter, who is the old inbound coordinator for my district. This was basically a meeting to pay for the trips, but we also got t shirts and found out that rotary is going to payfor all of the exchangers to take a trip to chantaburi (about 6 hours from korat) from october 13-17. chantaburi is on the ocean so we'll be going to the beach and staying at a hotel together.

A while ago my friend anna and i went to Sa Kaeo. we thought we were going for a "trip" but it turns out that when my parents say trip what they actually mean is that they have to work in a different city so my sister stays home and i go with them to meetings all day. we spent about an hour at the market that is on the border of cambodia and the rest of the time at meetings.
School is going really well. Our thai food teacher is crazy, and he always takes us to the market to buy the ingredients for whatever dish were cooking that day. which i think ispretty awesome because in canada there is no way we would ever be allowed to go off school property at the drop of a hat like that. I also just found out that hes 17. which i guess means that you dont actually need a degree to be a teacher? because hes not even a teachers helper, or if he is then he runs the whole show becuase there is never another teacher in the room so i dont know haha.

our thai classes have zero structure which really annoys me. plus the teacher who is supposed to be teaching us how to speak doesnt understand enough english so we spend half our time trying to explain to him what were asking, writing the words in english for him and trying to get him to translate it into thai. the teacher who is teaching us how to write got us halfway through the alphabet and then switched to teaching us how to say words in thai. which is great, except that our teachers obviously dont communicate either because we ended up learning words that the speaking teacherhad already taught us.

The past three weeks our classes have been having random exams, so sometimes we will go to school and they will justtell us to go home because we dont have class. it actually gets really frusterating after a while.

We've been on break for about two weeks now, which hasnt been so bad considering that we've spent nearly every day at the pool. were also continuing our thai classes and weve started thai dance lessons as well.

if anyone wants to send care packages i am in desperate need of CHEESE! or any normal dairy product. everything dairy tastes different. people here really like things to be sweet, so they add sugar to everything, even milk. Also, movies. if someone wants to send a few local newspapers along too that would be pretty sweet. the only time i get news is when im at a computer, but i dont have internet at my house and the internet at school has been downfor the last week or so now. other than that im doing pretty good.

i can eat mildly spicey things now. theres this sauce that you use for cow mung gai thats sweet and spicey and it is SO DELICIOUS. i could eat it with everything.

anyways this is another ridiculously long post. im posting pictures as well!! and ill try and find a way to let everyone see my photobucket so you can see the ones that i dont upload to here.
anyways i have to go now but ill try and update again soon!!
xoxox jube jube!

sorry!

i know i hvent posted in a long time, but the internet over here is ridiculously stupid. i promise to do my best to try and post this weekend.

today is my last day of school until october 20th. this monday i am leaving to go to sara buri for a scout camp with my school for three days.

i am hopefully starting dance class soon and guitar lessons as well.

i know everyone is really curious about the protests and the government issues, but you should know that everyone here is safe and no one is overly concerned about the 'riot' or the state of emergency that was declared (and possibly lifted already, im not sure)

anyways i hope everyone is well, please email me with any of your news!!

xoxox
Ashley

roy et province

I miss you like CLAZY!!

I started school this week. i really only had two days of classes, which means that i should have had 3 classes, because you only get one or two classes a day, plus thai three times a week. but instead there was only 2 classes. thai massage and cooking on monday, and then thai on tuesday. we should have had dancing as well but they cancelled that class so we didnt have that class. the wednesday we didnt have to go because they were setting up for the fair, thursday was the fair which we only stayed at until noon because we cant speak enough thai to figure out whats going on at all the little booths so it was really pointless. and tomorrow is the fair again so we dont have to go.

The first part of the fair was a talent show. So these boys come out on stage and the girls behind us go ABSOLUTELY NUTS. these boys aren't even CUTE and these girls are screaming at them, up on their chairs, going wild for them! it was crazy. anyways they start singing that song by the moffats "i miss you like crazy", but instead of singing it "I miss you like crazy" it comes out "i miss you like clazy" so for like half of the song you couldnt tell what exactly they were "missing you like". really funny. and so the girls calm down, but then ANOTHER set of boys come out, but this time they come out individually, so every minute and a half or so theres an entire auditorium of girls losing their heads for the very average-looking boys up on stage. enough for a few laughs and a splitting head ache lol.

i saw my first elephant on sunday. and then last night my friends and i were talking home from the market and there were a couple of guys walking an elephant. you could buy food for it for 20 baht ( less than a dollar) and so of course i did, its a complete tourist scam but it was still really cool to have it grab food out of your hands.

i still adore the market. everything is ridiculously cheap. we ate dinner for about a dollar, but you can do that anywhere (in thailand).

people are still amazed at the falangs. honestly. the most random people want to take pictures with you. and its deffinitely NOT like they havent seen white people before, their school has been THE school for foreign exchangers for at least the last 7 years.

people are amazed if you can eat even slightly spicey foods. they HATE if you dont smile. my friend anna's counsellor at school is constantly asking her if shes "feeling okay" or having "any problems" and then continues to tell anna the SAME story about thai people and smiling every 20 minutes. its really annoying.

the other really annoying thing is that i KNOW numbers, but when you ask someone at the market how much something costs, they will always respond to you in english. its so much easier to try and listen to their thai than to try and decipher their english. if i ask you something in thai, i will be able to understand the response! promise!

the boys here are really gross. they yell foul things (or so im told.. i dont quite catch what theyre saying) at you wheny ou walk down the street. people dont really notice that your wearing a school uniform and will ask you what your doing in thailand. the bus system is interesting, there are two number sixs that take almost identical routes,until you get to right before our houses, but there is literally no way to distinguish between the two buses. so about half the time we end up getting on the wrong one and having to walk. no big deal though.

anyways this post is getting long like the other ones. again, sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes but i dont have time to spell check this baby. PICTURES TO COME SOON!!! promise! ive found highspeed wireless!!!

love you and miss you all!
xoxo