"If you run, you are a runner. It doesn’t matter how fast or how far. It doesn’t matter if today is your first day or if you’ve been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run."
This quote resonated with me today. I have run 1000's of miles, countless races/beaches/mountains, but then I just stopped one day. I used to think I couldn't be called a runner anymore however the past couple weeks I have started to pick it up again. Just a slow steady pace at first, but just as long as I was able to put my funny running shoes on every day I knew I was farther than most people get. Lately (past year or so) I have allowed my mind to take over my peaceful mind it once was. One of my friends here has had an incredible journey of finding running and yoga and healthy food and it has inspired me to go back to what I used to do. So today was the first day I decided to quiet my thoughts (my mind wanders when I jog) and to just give it my all. I was never a sprinter (marathon runner and my fastest mile in a 5/10km was 6min while most women my age easily break that). But today it wasn't about that voice that always reminds me of what I used to be - today I wanted to see who I have become and to shut my mind off. So the sprinting began. It initially started because this guy that runs on my track always says hi to me, but ALWAYS passes me (if anyone tells you that they don't secretly think it's a race they are lying to you) at an incredible pace and he is much older than me (I think, it's Thailand you can't tell age). Well I have already made a little reputation for running because well I run. I wear my shorts and a t-shirt and my funny looking shoes (my friend nicknames them my little monsters) and I am not just walking around the track on my cell phone. Though I have nothing against that, it's good to see people be active. However the kinds of workouts I like, I LOVE TO SWEAT. The weather isn't too hot in Thailand right now so it's been nice to run in the evening, However because I run 40 minutes, I just do a jog and sometimes some sweat happens, but once I stop it's nothing too much. So today when this guy passed me I decided to turn up my music and try to keep up with him. WOW it has been awhile since I have tried to actually do a solid run, but I was determined. He kept a pretty steady pace at first and I am stubborn so despite it being the first 30 seconds of running I wanted to keep him in at least eye sight. I had a pretty bad weekend and treated my body horribly and always felt a good sweat was a good detox of both toxins and bad energy. Well the first minute was brutal, especially when I checked my cell and saw the time hadn't changed I knew it was going to be a long 40 minutes of this. However my body started to respond. My heart rate increased, but never to the point of it exploding, sweat began to trickle down my face and neck. My legs started to remember what an actual run used to be like and started to switch back into running mode. My friends have always hated that I could go a couple months of no running and then run a half marathon, but this was a different kind of run. I wanted to turn my mind off, there was no finish line, I just wanted to hear my own breath (over my Rihanna because #realtalk she has great running music) and with each step my mind quieted, my breath became to remember how to handle the high intensity workout. I knew I couldn't actually sprint the entire time because that's nuts and I didn't want to hurt myself. I had kept up with him for majority of the run though. I slowed to a jog for 1-2 rounds, to allow my body to recover, but then would start to run hard again. It's especially fun because there is this group of guys that run and normally they run a little faster than me and they usually just laugh at me with my shoes (though it's Thailand, who knows what they are laughing at and I know I am funny looking), but not today! I kept my pace (at least I hope, I need to find my nike band) and cruised passed them and didn't look at their faces because I am sure I thought I looked confident, but I probably looked like death haha. Well my mind quieted and for the first time in months, I was able to focus on my breath and was in my state of meditation. Ironic that I need to force my body to exert so much energy only to listen to yourself. Proof that I have issues, but who doesn't. It felt great to feel back into it. I did a little cool down and relished in my sweat. I felt victorious. Torrential downpour of sweat - my own hard earned sweat. I set my mind to shut it up and my body's response was to just sweat it all out. And to top it off? As I walked (okay maybe limped a little) back to my room I caught the most beautiful sunset in my little town. The sun was bright orange and it was just about to set over the mountains. I thought maybe I had time to catch a bike ride to see it, but realized it was setting just then. I ran out the gate to the street and just stared at the sunset (might be blind later...didn't think about that until later). Made me just thankful to be in this beautiful town and that I conquered my day and the sun was setting, but the sky remained alive with colors. Although exhausted from lack of sleep this week (bad dreams and self hate can really beat you up) my run brought me back a little closer back to loving myself again.
happy happy happy
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Updates Updates Updates
Wow time is flying by! So sorry for the delayed blog entry...lots have happened over the past few weeks and I have about one week of teaching left and then it's the end of the term and vacation begins and travels ensue!
Okay so time for some storytelling...
Baan Mae Chan's New Years Party: January 15th
My director held a NY party for the faculty and we had so much fun! It was held at Rimchan Hotel in our little town and we had catered (delicious) food and drinks provided for. Once the drinks started to flow the silliness began...shocking I know. So the first part of the party was the dance...us teachers got into groups and put together a dance number and performed in front of everyone. At this point, I don't even care about getting on stage and dancing anymore. Teaching has taught me to just live in the moment and have fun with it. Well there is this very popular song in Thailand right now that is called "I am fine thank you love you" because when you ask anyone in Thailand "How are you?" their automatic response is "I am fine thank you and you" and for the most part they don't really know what they are saying, but that you say that when asked the question. Every morning I greet my kids and they respond with this, they sound like tiny little robots and I think it's just adorable. So this song that came out is in a popular Thai comedy movie and it's EVERYWHERE. Think Gangnam Style. And yes, there is a dance that goes along with this lovely song. And since my friends and I like to be prepared, we have been rehearing this dance in the afternoons (youtube is my savior) so we wouldn't look too terrible. Just click I am fine thank you love you the song and enjoy the dance. It's hilarious and very fun to dance to, plus if you do any of those moves in Thailand and sing "I am fine thank you love you" you will be greeted with a huge smile and they will most likely start dancing too. I tease my kids in the morning and sometimes sing the song in the morning and do the dance and they just start giggling and they start dancing too. reason # 23472893 why I love this country.
Okay so back to the party...so we perform this dance and everyone (and I mean everyone) has their smartphones out and the photographers at our school (yup it's a full time position) went crazy so this entire hot mess has been documented on Facebook and can be seen on my profile. Not only do I get tagged in the video, my friend posted the video AGAIN on my page for everyone to see. It's rather entertaining, if you get a chance check it out! I don't know how to post the video on here so shoot me a message if you want to see it. So after we take a bow and accept our NY gifts from the school the karaoke begins...So I know I have done my share of karaoke in Santa Cruz (I Love Sushi birthdays every month prepared me for this) and well because I am the only native English speaker they wanted me to sing for most of the night. I compromised and sang only about 5-7 songs maybe? Such a great time, I honestly love singing in front of people. I am terrible and can't hit notes, but I have never laughed so hard in my life and it's just a great time. Learned some Thai dancing and bonded with my teachers all night. I have finally been somewhat accepted in my school! Most of the teachers ignored me because they can't speak English and can't communicate with me so avoidance is just easier (it's very thai, they avoid confrontation - it's their way of life and no I'm not insulting their ways, it's just thai style, I'll explain more on that later). Apparently one teacher thought I was a "serious" person so once he saw me pour a drink and sing karaoke he was my biggest fan haha. Honestly laughing with the teachers and talking to them (at least attempting to communicate b/c my thai is TERRIBLE) it was just a perfect New Years party.
Teacher's Day - January 16th
The next day we all had the day off (thankfully) so I stayed in my bed well into the late morning...Once I got my life together (for the most part) I hopped on a bus and headed to Mae Sai to celebrate a birthday. We all met at the tea plantation and had a beautiful lunch and treated ourselves to a 90000000 kcal dessert, but since it was split 4 ways I'm sure it was only 200kcal each...my math has gotten better since being in Thailand ;) So we had a nice afternoon eating (it's kind of our thing) and then headed to the Teacher's Day party that one of the schools was hosting. When we got there it hadn't even started and it was going to be a very long event...so my friends and I opted to stay for an hour then order pizza and have it delivered to our friend's apartment and get some booze and drink on the roof. A very relaxed night, home by midnight. Well I tend to wake up early and my friends loved it...and by that I mean they probably were plotting my death. I ended up skyping some family members and just wanted to start the day. We were all heading to Chiang Rai for another birthday dinner with other teacher friends. Once we all got packed up we hopped on a bus and headed to Chiang Rai...
Birthdays - Weekends of January 17th and 24th
My friends and I apparently like to go big for birthdays so we went to a really classy restaurant where there was not only silverware, but also real napkins. My friend wanted to steal it from the restaurant - I swear we haven't completely lost all sense of civilization. So my friends and I managed to clean ourselves up and get all fancy and headed to dinner. Probably the best tasting salmon I have had in a long time. We all splurged since we all got paid too. I'll post pictures of everything later, but wifi is rather slow and I have about a couple thousand photos to sift through and just haven't had time. The next weekend we also celebrated a birthday at a nice restaurant and got discounted drinks at a friend's bar and then we just all hung out on bar street in Chiang Rai.
January 30th Weekend
I was swamped with lesson planning this weekend because the head of academic affairs decided to let us teachers know that the Dept. of Education will be paying a visit and we needed to have all of our lesson plans FINISHED in a few days as well as put together 20 portfolios of my students and since my computer has basically decided to give up (going to get an iPad soon methinks) I decided to stay home for the weekend and have a lazy weekend of sleep, movies, and lesson planning. However I was about to start a movie and my friend Kate suggested a pool day to get tan so I caved and brought my books with me (haha!), packed up my watermelon (I have an unhealthy addiction to watermelon and pineapple...it's a daily thing and coconuts as well. Thailand has ruined me), walked to the bus station and was pool side within an hour. After some tanning we decided to have a girls night and ran into some of my English friends in my town so we just listened to some music and had a nice night out. Was home early the next day and was able to complete most of my lesson plans woohoo!
February 6th Weekend
Not too much to report on this weekend, however I did see an AMAZING movie - The Imitation Game. WOW SO GOOD! I hadn't been in a movie theater since I went to see The Hunger Games a few months ago so it was nice to get some popcorn and AC in the mall and just relax. Oh and how could I forget! My friend Alice's boyfriend came to surprise her in Thailand! We were all out to dinner in Chiang Rai that Friday and Kate kept insisting she wear something nice, but didn't understand why since it was just a typical place they eat at. Anyhow we are all sitting down and this guy walks up to our table as she is in mid sentence and ahhhh it was so beautiful to watch! Basically had all the girls crying and the other boyfriends rethinking how they're going to top this haha. It has been really fun to meet my friend's boyfriends, I spend so much time with them that it has been fun to finally meet their other half and not have them on skype or facetime haha. Okay well we just vegged out at the pool that Saturday then went to see a movie and had a mellow night out.
I am writing mostly about weekends since my week days consist of my weekly routine:
Monday: 8am breakfast, 8:50am-9:40am K1/1, 9:40-10:30am IEC 1/1, 10:30-11:20am IEC 1/2 then it's usually lunch, buying 20baht of watermelon (5baht/slice), correcting journals/paperwork, I now tutor a university student in my town - her dad owns a dental clinic in my town and she wants to learn English! She's awesome, so we meet every day at 4PM, I try to run 40 minutes on my track because I am terrified of snakes and don't want to risk running into one on the highway. I also tutor 2 boys at 6pm for one hour - they go to private school in Chiang Rai and are 8 years old, they have me laughing all the time. We have some good times! After that I am usually exhausted and try to do some yoga and either put a movie on and/or read and hope to be asleep by 10-11pm. Oh and dinner is somehow squished into there....
Tuesday: same schedule however I also teach a Primary 2/3 class at 1PM, but I don't tutor the boys that evening so I usually snack on more fruit (I have a problem)
Wednesday: same schedule as Tuesday
Thursday: Same exact schedule as Monday
Friday: Same as Monday minus the evening tutoring so I usually head to the walking street market to meet friends in my town or head to Chiang Rai.
Rinse and repeat and that is the daily life of Teacher Dao in Mae Chan (I am so sorry if you are still reading this, I type way too much and know it's really only for my mother to read to know that I am alive and well)
February 13th Weekend-
So per usual I head to Chiang Rai to see my friends - the term is ending and most of my friends are leaving since they only signed on for six months and we all start traveling soon. So this weekend was a pretty fun one! Went to listen to some live music (my friend knows a guy who sings/plays here) and ended up meeting a pretty cool guy! And yup - he's from Holland haha (inside joke to those who know me). After we decided to find some food, we settled at Hungry Wolf's and ate a ridiculous amount of food and then decided it was best to go for a walk and try to recover from the pizza. After finding our friend's cafe e spent most of the day sitting outside and had one friend play guitar and sing, we drank delicious smoothies, and just enjoyed a Saturday afternoon in Chiang Rai. My friend Bethel and I agreed we have done something right to end up spending our afternoon listening to the sounds of Thailand. Well after some singing and playing the walking street was starting to get busy so we decided to do some shopping! Found some goodies (dress, shirt, sunglasses) and of course some watermelon. Oh and introduced my friend to the goodness of a coconut drink. And then the reward of eating the coconut after. I sometimes can't believe this is my life. Well we stayed out until around 9 or so then went to find some dinner and just had a fun night out. Sunday we all met for some much deserved breakfast/lunch and Tim (Holland) needed to get going so we parted ways and I headed back to Mae Chan. Fun fact about Tim: he is ALSO adopted and actually MET his biological mother before he decided to travel SE Asia. Thought that was pretty crazy so we exchanged adoption stories. So after heading home I wanted to see if he wanted to come visit Mae Chan and he said that sounded perfect and headed over in the morning. After finding him in the ONE roundabout my town has I brought him to my school where he got to meet some of my teachers and my students. Hilarious! My kids were in awe - Farang! (white foreigner) and because I look Thai they still don't understand that I am not Thai. So I had my students greet him and they were still all amazed. There aren't any white people in my town. Still makes me chuckle. So introduced him to my IEC classes and wanted him to meet one of my Thai mom's, but there was a meeting going on in the library and there's no way I was going to interrupt that. So after we left my school we grabbed some lunch at my favorite place where he played foreigner and took photos of the place. We then head back to Chiang Rai to head to The White Temple. After a bad attempt of haggling (they overcharge white people so bad) we went on our way to the crazy temple. It is quite a sight to see - it's beautiful! But not your typical temple. I have photos of it on my previous blog - still awaiting photos from the weekend so I'll post them at some point...Well after sightseeing a bit we grab a drink and meet up with some friends to go listen to some jazz music. Turns out the bar was closed so early night since I had school the next day. He was my funny valentine - very sweet guy. Felt it was worth mentioning.
Week of February 15th -
Well after he left it's been crazy with paperwork and printing and grading papers galore. We give our exams a week before they take their Thai exams so we have to get everything ready for it. Oh and just found out we need to get stuff ready for open house! I need a few clones and more days to sleep haha. I know it's self-inflicted, but shhhh
Week of February 23rd-
After an exhausting weekend, settled back in town and back to my routine. Looks like I am giving my exams on March 5th/6th and then I correct exams and finish typing up lesson plans for next term and I am free!!! Ran today and about to do some yoga. Just finished typing up Kindergarten exams for my students and trying not to be so sad about not seeing my students every day. I love them so much :(
Travel Plans 03/2015-05/2015
Depending on when I leave Mae Chan this is my rough outline...
09-10/03-29/03 - South Thailand - islands. Yoga, yoga yoga, swim, swim swim, tan, tan, tan
My awesome friend Sierra Wood is coming to visit me with some of her friends and we are meeting in the islands around the 28th :)
29/03-01/04 - Chiang Mai
02/04-04/04 - Chiang Rai
04/04-13/04 - Laos! Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, caves? lakes?
14/04- 19/04 - Cambodia! Sierra leaves me here to go back to the states :'(
19/04-30/04 - Bali :)
30/04-04/05 - Chiang Mai - Helping with a teacher orientation and all expenses paid sooooo YUP that's happening
Back in my little town on May 5th and school begins on the 14th and my birthday is the 15th! Going to be such a crazy busy two months!!!! :)
Okay now I can take a breath..
Hopefully I am better at keeping up with my blog. Here are a couple of photos, more to come :)
Okay so time for some storytelling...
Baan Mae Chan's New Years Party: January 15th
My director held a NY party for the faculty and we had so much fun! It was held at Rimchan Hotel in our little town and we had catered (delicious) food and drinks provided for. Once the drinks started to flow the silliness began...shocking I know. So the first part of the party was the dance...us teachers got into groups and put together a dance number and performed in front of everyone. At this point, I don't even care about getting on stage and dancing anymore. Teaching has taught me to just live in the moment and have fun with it. Well there is this very popular song in Thailand right now that is called "I am fine thank you love you" because when you ask anyone in Thailand "How are you?" their automatic response is "I am fine thank you and you" and for the most part they don't really know what they are saying, but that you say that when asked the question. Every morning I greet my kids and they respond with this, they sound like tiny little robots and I think it's just adorable. So this song that came out is in a popular Thai comedy movie and it's EVERYWHERE. Think Gangnam Style. And yes, there is a dance that goes along with this lovely song. And since my friends and I like to be prepared, we have been rehearing this dance in the afternoons (youtube is my savior) so we wouldn't look too terrible. Just click I am fine thank you love you the song and enjoy the dance. It's hilarious and very fun to dance to, plus if you do any of those moves in Thailand and sing "I am fine thank you love you" you will be greeted with a huge smile and they will most likely start dancing too. I tease my kids in the morning and sometimes sing the song in the morning and do the dance and they just start giggling and they start dancing too. reason # 23472893 why I love this country.
Okay so back to the party...so we perform this dance and everyone (and I mean everyone) has their smartphones out and the photographers at our school (yup it's a full time position) went crazy so this entire hot mess has been documented on Facebook and can be seen on my profile. Not only do I get tagged in the video, my friend posted the video AGAIN on my page for everyone to see. It's rather entertaining, if you get a chance check it out! I don't know how to post the video on here so shoot me a message if you want to see it. So after we take a bow and accept our NY gifts from the school the karaoke begins...So I know I have done my share of karaoke in Santa Cruz (I Love Sushi birthdays every month prepared me for this) and well because I am the only native English speaker they wanted me to sing for most of the night. I compromised and sang only about 5-7 songs maybe? Such a great time, I honestly love singing in front of people. I am terrible and can't hit notes, but I have never laughed so hard in my life and it's just a great time. Learned some Thai dancing and bonded with my teachers all night. I have finally been somewhat accepted in my school! Most of the teachers ignored me because they can't speak English and can't communicate with me so avoidance is just easier (it's very thai, they avoid confrontation - it's their way of life and no I'm not insulting their ways, it's just thai style, I'll explain more on that later). Apparently one teacher thought I was a "serious" person so once he saw me pour a drink and sing karaoke he was my biggest fan haha. Honestly laughing with the teachers and talking to them (at least attempting to communicate b/c my thai is TERRIBLE) it was just a perfect New Years party.
Teacher's Day - January 16th
The next day we all had the day off (thankfully) so I stayed in my bed well into the late morning...Once I got my life together (for the most part) I hopped on a bus and headed to Mae Sai to celebrate a birthday. We all met at the tea plantation and had a beautiful lunch and treated ourselves to a 90000000 kcal dessert, but since it was split 4 ways I'm sure it was only 200kcal each...my math has gotten better since being in Thailand ;) So we had a nice afternoon eating (it's kind of our thing) and then headed to the Teacher's Day party that one of the schools was hosting. When we got there it hadn't even started and it was going to be a very long event...so my friends and I opted to stay for an hour then order pizza and have it delivered to our friend's apartment and get some booze and drink on the roof. A very relaxed night, home by midnight. Well I tend to wake up early and my friends loved it...and by that I mean they probably were plotting my death. I ended up skyping some family members and just wanted to start the day. We were all heading to Chiang Rai for another birthday dinner with other teacher friends. Once we all got packed up we hopped on a bus and headed to Chiang Rai...
Birthdays - Weekends of January 17th and 24th
My friends and I apparently like to go big for birthdays so we went to a really classy restaurant where there was not only silverware, but also real napkins. My friend wanted to steal it from the restaurant - I swear we haven't completely lost all sense of civilization. So my friends and I managed to clean ourselves up and get all fancy and headed to dinner. Probably the best tasting salmon I have had in a long time. We all splurged since we all got paid too. I'll post pictures of everything later, but wifi is rather slow and I have about a couple thousand photos to sift through and just haven't had time. The next weekend we also celebrated a birthday at a nice restaurant and got discounted drinks at a friend's bar and then we just all hung out on bar street in Chiang Rai.
January 30th Weekend
I was swamped with lesson planning this weekend because the head of academic affairs decided to let us teachers know that the Dept. of Education will be paying a visit and we needed to have all of our lesson plans FINISHED in a few days as well as put together 20 portfolios of my students and since my computer has basically decided to give up (going to get an iPad soon methinks) I decided to stay home for the weekend and have a lazy weekend of sleep, movies, and lesson planning. However I was about to start a movie and my friend Kate suggested a pool day to get tan so I caved and brought my books with me (haha!), packed up my watermelon (I have an unhealthy addiction to watermelon and pineapple...it's a daily thing and coconuts as well. Thailand has ruined me), walked to the bus station and was pool side within an hour. After some tanning we decided to have a girls night and ran into some of my English friends in my town so we just listened to some music and had a nice night out. Was home early the next day and was able to complete most of my lesson plans woohoo!
February 6th Weekend
Not too much to report on this weekend, however I did see an AMAZING movie - The Imitation Game. WOW SO GOOD! I hadn't been in a movie theater since I went to see The Hunger Games a few months ago so it was nice to get some popcorn and AC in the mall and just relax. Oh and how could I forget! My friend Alice's boyfriend came to surprise her in Thailand! We were all out to dinner in Chiang Rai that Friday and Kate kept insisting she wear something nice, but didn't understand why since it was just a typical place they eat at. Anyhow we are all sitting down and this guy walks up to our table as she is in mid sentence and ahhhh it was so beautiful to watch! Basically had all the girls crying and the other boyfriends rethinking how they're going to top this haha. It has been really fun to meet my friend's boyfriends, I spend so much time with them that it has been fun to finally meet their other half and not have them on skype or facetime haha. Okay well we just vegged out at the pool that Saturday then went to see a movie and had a mellow night out.
I am writing mostly about weekends since my week days consist of my weekly routine:
Monday: 8am breakfast, 8:50am-9:40am K1/1, 9:40-10:30am IEC 1/1, 10:30-11:20am IEC 1/2 then it's usually lunch, buying 20baht of watermelon (5baht/slice), correcting journals/paperwork, I now tutor a university student in my town - her dad owns a dental clinic in my town and she wants to learn English! She's awesome, so we meet every day at 4PM, I try to run 40 minutes on my track because I am terrified of snakes and don't want to risk running into one on the highway. I also tutor 2 boys at 6pm for one hour - they go to private school in Chiang Rai and are 8 years old, they have me laughing all the time. We have some good times! After that I am usually exhausted and try to do some yoga and either put a movie on and/or read and hope to be asleep by 10-11pm. Oh and dinner is somehow squished into there....
Tuesday: same schedule however I also teach a Primary 2/3 class at 1PM, but I don't tutor the boys that evening so I usually snack on more fruit (I have a problem)
Wednesday: same schedule as Tuesday
Thursday: Same exact schedule as Monday
Friday: Same as Monday minus the evening tutoring so I usually head to the walking street market to meet friends in my town or head to Chiang Rai.
Rinse and repeat and that is the daily life of Teacher Dao in Mae Chan (I am so sorry if you are still reading this, I type way too much and know it's really only for my mother to read to know that I am alive and well)
February 13th Weekend-
So per usual I head to Chiang Rai to see my friends - the term is ending and most of my friends are leaving since they only signed on for six months and we all start traveling soon. So this weekend was a pretty fun one! Went to listen to some live music (my friend knows a guy who sings/plays here) and ended up meeting a pretty cool guy! And yup - he's from Holland haha (inside joke to those who know me). After we decided to find some food, we settled at Hungry Wolf's and ate a ridiculous amount of food and then decided it was best to go for a walk and try to recover from the pizza. After finding our friend's cafe e spent most of the day sitting outside and had one friend play guitar and sing, we drank delicious smoothies, and just enjoyed a Saturday afternoon in Chiang Rai. My friend Bethel and I agreed we have done something right to end up spending our afternoon listening to the sounds of Thailand. Well after some singing and playing the walking street was starting to get busy so we decided to do some shopping! Found some goodies (dress, shirt, sunglasses) and of course some watermelon. Oh and introduced my friend to the goodness of a coconut drink. And then the reward of eating the coconut after. I sometimes can't believe this is my life. Well we stayed out until around 9 or so then went to find some dinner and just had a fun night out. Sunday we all met for some much deserved breakfast/lunch and Tim (Holland) needed to get going so we parted ways and I headed back to Mae Chan. Fun fact about Tim: he is ALSO adopted and actually MET his biological mother before he decided to travel SE Asia. Thought that was pretty crazy so we exchanged adoption stories. So after heading home I wanted to see if he wanted to come visit Mae Chan and he said that sounded perfect and headed over in the morning. After finding him in the ONE roundabout my town has I brought him to my school where he got to meet some of my teachers and my students. Hilarious! My kids were in awe - Farang! (white foreigner) and because I look Thai they still don't understand that I am not Thai. So I had my students greet him and they were still all amazed. There aren't any white people in my town. Still makes me chuckle. So introduced him to my IEC classes and wanted him to meet one of my Thai mom's, but there was a meeting going on in the library and there's no way I was going to interrupt that. So after we left my school we grabbed some lunch at my favorite place where he played foreigner and took photos of the place. We then head back to Chiang Rai to head to The White Temple. After a bad attempt of haggling (they overcharge white people so bad) we went on our way to the crazy temple. It is quite a sight to see - it's beautiful! But not your typical temple. I have photos of it on my previous blog - still awaiting photos from the weekend so I'll post them at some point...Well after sightseeing a bit we grab a drink and meet up with some friends to go listen to some jazz music. Turns out the bar was closed so early night since I had school the next day. He was my funny valentine - very sweet guy. Felt it was worth mentioning.
Week of February 15th -
Well after he left it's been crazy with paperwork and printing and grading papers galore. We give our exams a week before they take their Thai exams so we have to get everything ready for it. Oh and just found out we need to get stuff ready for open house! I need a few clones and more days to sleep haha. I know it's self-inflicted, but shhhh
Week of February 23rd-
After an exhausting weekend, settled back in town and back to my routine. Looks like I am giving my exams on March 5th/6th and then I correct exams and finish typing up lesson plans for next term and I am free!!! Ran today and about to do some yoga. Just finished typing up Kindergarten exams for my students and trying not to be so sad about not seeing my students every day. I love them so much :(
Travel Plans 03/2015-05/2015
Depending on when I leave Mae Chan this is my rough outline...
09-10/03-29/03 - South Thailand - islands. Yoga, yoga yoga, swim, swim swim, tan, tan, tan
My awesome friend Sierra Wood is coming to visit me with some of her friends and we are meeting in the islands around the 28th :)
29/03-01/04 - Chiang Mai
02/04-04/04 - Chiang Rai
04/04-13/04 - Laos! Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, caves? lakes?
14/04- 19/04 - Cambodia! Sierra leaves me here to go back to the states :'(
19/04-30/04 - Bali :)
30/04-04/05 - Chiang Mai - Helping with a teacher orientation and all expenses paid sooooo YUP that's happening
Back in my little town on May 5th and school begins on the 14th and my birthday is the 15th! Going to be such a crazy busy two months!!!! :)
Okay now I can take a breath..
Hopefully I am better at keeping up with my blog. Here are a couple of photos, more to come :)
My K1 students
My IEC 1 students
She loves selfies
My friend Kate and I
Flower festival with Tim's girlfriend
My funny Valentine
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