My bedroom (or part of the porch) at my homestay w the mosquito net down.

my students escorting me home from school

helping with dinner prep at home

sister at my homestay flying a kite in the yard

amherst

pretty cool:

FOR ALL YOU CROSSWORD FANS -- From the Sunday, Feb. 27, New York Times crossword puzzle: 71 across, "College with the mascot Lord Jeff." The correct answer has seven letters. Online for a fee at http://www.nytimes.com/pages/crosswords/index.html

Omlettes and rice

I am having a nice relaxing Sunday. Last night was a fun party night with the other PC trainees. We all live spread out bc of our homestays, so a bunch of us slept over at a friends. Another friends family had an event that was either a funeral or a donation of a buddah to a temple, or both! Lots of Monks, lots of food, lots of drinking. I saw a buddah smoking a cigarette for the first time, and he was sitting on the back of a motorcycle when it happened. I didn't have time to snap a shot unfortunately. Then we all gotlost biking back to my other friends house. Sometimes I feel like I'm in 7th grade. Especially bc some of my friends had to lie to their "parents" about where they were spending the night. Anyway, it was lots of fun. And I was able to have my favorite Sunday meal: an omlette. Only I had it with rice. I actually think I prefer my eggs that way now. I am getting more and more Thai by the minute. No homefries and toast unfortunately.

The past two days we were all leading a teacher workshop to help local teachers improve their English classes. I was in a group teaching about pronunciation. Basically we gave them ideas to get students hearing and speaking English in more. We did the same 45 minute presentation 7 times and if I got a lifetime full of Hokey Pokey. But how can I complain when I have a job where I get to do the hokey pokey.

This week will be pretty routine. Thai language lessons in the morning and practice teaching in the afternoon. My Thai is going well. I'm psyched about it!!!

Site visit

Last week I went to visit the site I will be at for ... well who knows exactly how long. The providence is Uthai Thani and I will be in the city of the providence. It is about 3 hours north of Bangkok. It seems to be a nice place. It is not really that big, about 4,000 people. It has one 7-11. But it actually has some restraunts and a nice night market. Some of my fellow volunteers are out in the sticks compared to my site. While I actually had an option for banks, some friends have to go an hour to get to a bank or post office. I am happy that I will have internet!!!

My house is great. It is very swanky by PC standards. I will have hot water!!!

And I met the co-teachers I will be working with at the two schools I am assigned to. That are both extremely nice and speak a fair amount of English.

I told them I'm interested in community work and they set up a meeting for me with the mayor.... Good start!

After the site visit all the other trainees and I met uo in Bangkok for a SANOOK (fun) weekend. Lots of celebrating. Lots of shopping. Lots of yummy food!!