The Week In Review and OMG STOP DYING ALREADY

My First Pad-Thai Sighting (Only 15 baht. Muahahahaha)

Can you say, "This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen?"Because I can.

My M5.1 Classmate's recycle dress.

Well. One week of school down, a hell of a lot more to go. Sigh. This should fun (insert sarcasm here).

Monday started off with a bang, as I had a meeting with the principle (who frequently picked his nose, which I found quite amusing), my host dad, my rotary club president, my counselor and two English teachers (whose English, is sadly, lacking. I think I have a better chance of understand aliens). They told me that I was going to have to cut off my hair to my chin. New school regulations, and whatnot. So I cried. And they all looked horrified. They then proceeded to talk amongst themselves, while sending nervous glances my way, until my counselor finally turned to me and said, “Don’t worry! You can keep it for a month, and then tell us!” Ha. You think I’m going to befriend students 2 YEARS younger than me, decide that I want to be JUST LIKE THEM, and willingly CUT MY HAIR TO MY CHIN???? Ha, ha. But I tearfully nodded my head anyways. (In retrospect however, either it’s ‘go to school with a face lift, a flat, flat, head, and a dead-looking bushy tail at the back of it’ every day, or ‘cut my hair to my chin and look semi-human’. The latter is sounding rather appealing at the moment…). The rest of the school day, I can honestly say that I have no idea what went on.

I blindly followed my class of juniors (also called the ‘M 5.1’ class) all day wandering into building after building, and feeling disgustingly hot and sweaty. I think the largest difference here is that the teachers show up after class has ‘started’. Or they don’t. I didn’t have Math on Monday, because the teacher was gone. We just did whatever we wanted for an hour. (On Tuesday in English, the teacher left after 20 minutes or so.) There also aren’t any textbooks. Or whiteboards. Or computers/electronics of any kind, and the floor is so dirty that no one puts their backpacks on the ground. There is a large chalkboard in the front of the classroom that looks like it needs the chalk erased from it to read anything, except that it has been erased. There were computers in our 2 hour computer class on Monday, but we weren’t allowed to bring our backpacks or shoes into the room, and the door only opens from the inside. Oh, and it’s loud. Like, ‘My head will explode from this migraine if you don’t shut up now’ loud. The teachers don’t really care about the noise level, and they seem to joke around with the students a lot more than my American teachers did.

On Tuesday, The Annoying One (this one girl who won’t leave me alone. She seriously follows me everywhere and tells me about how she hates boys and wants to be a lawyer. She actually made me go to the library with her during the hour-long lunch and proceeded to read a book about law) asked me about what I had for breakfast. I told her I had some crackers and coffee. She gave an ‘Oh, my…’ look at the other girls sitting next to her, before saying, “Thai children don’t drink coffee. It makes us tired. You should drink something else in the mornings… Maybe milk? Yes, you should really drink milk.” I almost snorted and said, ‘over my dead decaying body will I believe that malarkey’. Instead, I told her that I was allergic to milk and all other forms of drink just weren’t around my house. Then during another class she told me that my future host bro, Kitti, was ‘…A bad boy. A bad bad boy.’ I personally think he’s pretty hilarious and fun to talk to so I just shrugged and said, ‘I think he’s funny’ to which she just repeated, ‘he bad boy.’ Grrrr. Hmm… what else… I fell asleep during a 2 hour class at the end of the day, which I thought was about gardening but apparently was like a career class or something. The teacher woke me up and gave me a piece of gum.

On Wednesday, the same thing happened. I had no idea what I was going on. But I did, however, have a four hour Thai lesson with the Chinese Teacher. Who I couldn’t understand. I learned 8 consonants out of 44. In four hours. Sigh.

On Thursday, well… Nothing went on. This week, however, I think I have introduced myself to more classrooms than people who tour professionally. And the sad thing is most of the students don’t understand half of what I say, even though I’m speaking at a rate that even sloths would fall asleep to.

Side note: Oh yeah, one more thing. I’m hot and popular. How could I forget? Most students are too shy to even talk to me; they just look at me, make eye contact and then giggle, look at each other and then rush past me, like I’m going to bite them. But those that aren’t shy, come up to me and say things like, “Where you from? What your name? You very beautiful! What color are your eye? You eyes is so beautiful!” Uh… What do I even say to the last one? “Thanks. When I walked into the eye color department of the uterus, they were all out of brown, so I picked these….” It’s such a weird compliment…. And at lunch, it’s essentially me, walking to buy food and being stared at. Me, walking back over to my table, being stared at. Me, tripping on the step up to my table. And being stared at… This girl actually came up to me and said, “Your nose… Big… You very beautiful.” Uh… Thanks? I think? Even the teachers chatter Thai at me, and then end with “My name is, [insert very long complicated name that sounds like a disease]… You very beautiful!” Shoot, I could probably put a paper bag over my head with holes so I could breathe, and people would come up to me and say, “You bag… Very beautiful… What color you bag?” Hahaha.

On Friday, I skivved off all my classes, which was probably a good thing as I fell asleep during Heath and Math on Thursday. (I woke up with a line on my face from the book I was sleeping on in Math. In my defense, everyone sounds like the Sims on my PC game and after 7 hours of it… well… I kind of want to die.) Anyhoo, I found a copy of ‘The Bangkok Post’ in English in the English Department and a choir of angels descended from above and sang the Hallelujah chorus. It was glorious. I read it for 3 hours, sporadically introducing myself to more classes, and then I went to the Science Fair. It was the peppiest Science Fair I have ever been to. There was a rock band. The school has a rock band. That won awards. They were incredible and it was SO awesome. The girls were screaming as they sang (uh… hello? Yeah, I kind of want to have my hearing when I’m in the old folk’s home…), and they screamed even more when I walked to the front and sat down. The lead singer told me he loved me. (Oh man, I so belong here.) Next, there was a fashion show of dresses made from recycled materials, such as plastic bags, bottles, and bottle lids. These dresses were incredibly ornate. In some instances, I wouldn’t have ever known they were made out of trash if I had seen them on the street. I couldn’t believe my eyes for the whole fashion show. During the show, there would be breaks here and there, where students and a few teachers would go up and sing karaoke and the audience would roar with laughter/song/screams and give them money. All in all, it was a surprising day.

And finally, maybe it’s the season for the Grim Reaper, or maybe he just likes warm weather, because I was about to go crash in my room Tuesday night, when Gift told me that actually, I needed to go change into something black, because we were going to… surprise, surprise… a funeral. I didn’t even question her. I just put on my black sweat gear (soo routine by now, you know…). Seriously though, these people are dropping like flies. Actually scratch that; faster than flies. We passed a funeral, on the way to the funeral. And, well, since it was another funeral, need I say more? At this one there were plenty of tiny, squishable old ladies, some monks, lots of food, a box with the body (this time slightly more regular sized), and lots of incense, per usual. Yawn. Time for a wedding, don’t you think? I mean, the movie title is ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ not ‘100 Funerals and a chanting Monk’. I have all this white that I’m never going to wear because it seems I will always be changing from my school uniform into my Funereal Outfit and back again. Oh, woe is me.

Counting down the days until someone else kicks the bucket,

Anchelee