and some more

some more pictures

OK so this week i can to take any questions my family and friends back in America may have. i can answer most of them by now. so everyone, here's how it will work. you ask a question and by the end of the week i will answer all the questions i get in one huge blog.

OK so its been a while since i have written a post. well that's because i have been extremely busy this past week. also to make things worse my camera has died and can not get batteries. the batteries that the camera takes are a special kind and i can not find them anywhere. but that's not what i want to talk about. so this past week alot has happened. first i went to a zoo with one of my teachers. and it was great. Thai zoo is different then American zoo. i got to feed a baby white tiger and hold an urangutang. both sat on my lap. holding a tiger was one of the coolest thing i have done here. sadly my camera was dead so i have to get the photos from my teachers camera. but i do have photos. just not with me. the next thing that happened is that i was on t.v. at the flower festival. i was in the parade holding my schools banner. and i got to say it was HOT!!!!! i had to where a Thai wedding suit which is cools to look at but not fun to wear in 90 degree weather. every one wanted to take a picture with the American wearing a Thai suit. it was like i was the biggest celebrity of the country. every 2 steps someone would come up and ask for a picture with me. kids, girls, boys, adults, elders, you name it and i have taken pictures with all of them.(i do have a picture of the parade but my teacher has the rest). i kind of make the other people behind our school mad though. i guess i would be mad to if i was walking for 4 and a half hours and the foreigner is stopping for people to take pictures with everyone. its really different here. people in America spend all there time trying to be tan. and in Thailand everyone wants to be white and have blue eyes. so they kind of look at me as a vary important person and everyone loves my eyes. so yeah everything here is fine. oh wait i did have a few problem adjusting to the culture. in America if you have a friend it is OK to hug or touch there arm and things like that. in Thailand it is NOT OK to touch a girl unless you are going to be her girlfriend or in some cases marry her. so i had a problem with the teachers. they told me that it is not OK. so i stopped. but the youth and the adults are going to change in the next few years. what i have noticed is that the teens here are OK with touching the opposite sex. while the adults are not OK with it. so i was talking to my sister and she said that the teens are the new generation and they have started to adopted the western culture. so when i would give hugs or touch a girl they were OK with it. but there are some students that still do not like it. so i still do not do it.

i have gotten alot of comments about why i do not have pictures of my school yet. well that's because i have never really thought about that. so when ever i can get a camera i will take pictures of my school and tell everyone about it. well that's all i have for now, so i will get the pictures from my teacher and post them some time this week.

Sorry it’s been so long since i last wrote on the blog. I have been real busy.
So this weekend we finished off the funeral that has been going on for about 2 weeks now. In a Thai funeral they burn the body and give to bones and ashes to the family. Then the family takes the bones and ashes and lays them in the ocean. How they do this is vary sacred. They go to a military navy base. Oh and before i go any further I got to say something. I am the first American to step on there military base. So I just made history. The only reason this was possible is because my dad over here is the head politician of Thailand (which I did not know). He is a vary important man in Thailand. It was kind of cool but mostly scary. The military thought I was an American spy so they all kept a close eye on me. But I made history. So I guess it is good. Anyway back to the funeral. so they take you on a boat way out in the ocean and have a special prayer and have this kind of hand made boat thing with incense and flowers on it and set it on the water. After that they put the ashes in the water wrapped in a cloth and it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Then the boat circles the area a few times and then heads back to land. The purpose of this is that they believe that if they do this the spirit of the person can now go where ever they want. They can now travel to heaven, to hell, or just travel the earth. I thought it was kind of cool to think of death that way. Anyway that’s pretty much what i have been doing this weekend. I do not have many pictures coming yet but this coming weekend there will be ALOT.

i forgot to tell everyone something important. over here I'm an English teacher. i teach an English class for about 20 to 30 minutes a day. the students like it more when i teach. they say i make it fun. its funny, I'm a 17 year old teacher and i also teach university students as well(they vary in age between 20 to 30) and I'm teaching them. also i was asked by one person if i see the same as them because my eyes are blue and there eyes are dark brown. i just had to laugh at that. but it makes me understand that these people do not see many foreigners. most Americans that come here only go to Bangkok and to tourist areas. I'm not in a tourist area so they rarely see Americans. lastly the teacher asked me why i would want to teach at this school. for every one back home to know the school i go to is vary poor and the kids that go there are from poor family's. i said i will teach here because the students and teachers are good people and that is more then enough for me to stay here and teach. also for a school to have a foreigner teach English cost alot of money. money that my school does not have. so I'm just telling people back home for the hundredth time that I'm going to be a full fledged teacher here.
my parents where right about me changing my mind about my career. they said that if i went to Thailand that my entire life would change. well mom and dad, you were right.

I bought Jerry his buddha. its nothing fancy but i think its the same one as his big buddha that he had. there were a lot more that i kind of liked. but i didn't know which one Jerry would like so i think i got him the same one he has. oh and its the same one they have at the temple i go to.

wow I'm going to have to change the title of this blog if I'm going to be moving here.

Family

OK over here family is everything. Here i have over a hundred family members that i see almost everyday. So far i have 4 mothers including my host mom, 3 dads, 10 sisters, and 5 brothers. this does not mean there are all related. they are from different family's and some are cousins of my host parents. so i travel with different family's alot. of course with the permission of my host parents. This is a good way to live. every family i visit or travel with teach me new things every day and I'm learning alot about the culture, life style, family relationships, living habits, language(i still cant speak alot yet but I'm learning a few words a day), and I'm making alot of new friends that I'm going to stay in contact with. like they have told me at the vary beginning. I am Thai now and have a family to come to if i need anything. this is going to make it really hard to leave the country when my time here is up. But this blog will not stop when i go back to America. i will continue to come to Thailand from now on and will share my experiences with my family and friends. Also i really think i will move here. i have a plan that needs to get finished in America first but in maybe 2 or 3 years i might just move here. My host mom already said that if i do i can stay with her because my host parents do not have any children. So she says its nice to have me around. so in the future i will be moving here in the next few years.

I LOVE THAILAND!!!!!!

Thailand is a great country and the people are nice where ever you go. i think it is safe to say that every bad thing i have heard in America is not true about this country. people do not ride elephants to school( that is the most asked question by foreign kids that come to Thailand), the weather is not that bad once you get used to it( i think America gets hotter then this anyway), they do not just eat bugs and things that America thinks(alot of people here have never eatin an insect and will not because they find it kind of disgusting). Also even though i have only been here for a week i feel like Ive lived here since i was born and it feels like America is a foreign country. I actually feel right at home here. They tell me that i have adjusted to Thai life style vary well and that when i also speak Thai they say i speak fluently and they can understand me vary well. so Ive been thinking. Maybe when i finish high school and collage i will move here. the teachers have already told me that if i do move here they would get me a job teaching English and studio production. so i got alot of thinking to do.

This was a vary special day. we have been at the temple for the passed three days and on the last day all the student participate in honoring there teachers for teaching and taking care of them. in Thailand the teachers are part of the family and it is not uncommon to hear about a teacher taking a student home, to lunch, or even to there house. over here the teacher is another parent for the students and all the student respect them.