8-22 to 8-30

8-22

Tomorrow morning I have Thai Instrument (“Thai dance” and “Thai instrument” alternate every other Sat. morning and starting in September—we have group Thai language lessons Sat. afternoon). I’ll try to send you the pictures this weekend—because me n Bow (my sister) will actually have time to download the software for our new cameras ‘n such. It has 3.2 megapixels. It does 5 times zoom after you take the picture… and I don’t know how many times zoom while you’re taking the picture. I’m sure you guys will have an absolute blast with the Indonesian girl… me and my family have basically nothing in common (except for the fact that they all like to sing) and we get along really well. I would love for you to send more sermon tapes in the next box… but I didn’t get any sermon tapes in the first box… Talk to Rotary and see if our club will host a Thai student next year and tell them you guys want to be the first host family. That way, I can keep up with my Thai and help them with their English

Well, school was ridiculously boring. I HATE FRIDAYS!!! My first class is Thai dance so I’m hot and sweaty to start things off, and it’s impossible to get cooled up once you’re hot, so I feel super gross the rest of the day. My second half of the day is Chemistry (double blocked for TWO HOURS) and Social Studies. Of course it’s in Thai (like everything else) so I have no idea what’s going on, and secondly, I don’t know the kids in those classes very well… Seriously, if I would’ve had a gun, I would’ve shot myself in the foot just to see something interesting happen!!! Well, I’ll let you go!

Love and miss you soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!

Love always,

Kati

8/24

Well, today we mostly chilled. Thisie, Mike, and Gwen came over. We played hearts and some DVDs. Mama, Bow, Thisie, and I went out to lunch before Mike n Gwen came over and got some really GROSS chocolate cake that was SALTY—hello?! Cake is supposed to by SWEET!!! What is wrong with these people?! We were all craving pizza like crazy so we all went out to eat at the Pizza Company. It was really good. We ate ham n pineapple pizza with stuffed crust, pepperoni pizza with pan crust, garlic bread, and cheesy garlic bread—plus we all got drinks and it cost us 800 baht ($20.00)—expensive for Thailand, and REALLY cheap for America. This week I’ll go to my first Tuesday and Wednesday schedules of school (because the last 3 weeks of school, for one reason or another, I’ve missed Tues and Wed—we don’t have school on Mon). Well, I’ll let you go because that was honestly as exciting as today got…

Love and miss you FOREVER AND EVER!!!!!!!

Love always,

Kati

8/26

Random thought #1: In Thai, the word for salty also means stingy. Random thought #2: In Thailand, females aren’t aloud to whistle.

I don’t have school on Mondays, but I didn’t do much today because I didn’t feel too hot, so I mostly chilled. Today I went and saw Sinbad (in Thai) but it was really good. I went with Thisie, Mike, and some of Thisie’s friends from school. Then (I feel like Eeyore telling you this)we were waiting for a bus to take us home… and it started POURING—and you couldn’t take shelter from the rain because it was really windy too. I’m soooooo sick of the rain! (sorry this email is a couple days old!)

Love and miss you FOREVER N EVER N EVER N EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love always,

Kati

8/27

Yes, my school is co-ed…. Expect there’s only like 2 good-looking guys in the whole school… the rest are gay, “two in ones”, or so feminine that they might as well be gay. Lesbians are unheard of in Thailand, but I’d say there’s more gay guys than straight guys here—it’s really kind of weird.

Yeah, well, you know that they say, life sucks and then you die. Actually, other than Jarred and the heat and rain in Thailand, things are going well. I’m making tons of friends and adjusting rather well. Oh yeah, today—for the entire second half of my day (I have 3 classes before, and 3 classes after lunch)—none of my teachers showed up. So after getting completely frustrated with these three seniors that I nearly hit in the face… I played volleyball and had a really good time. Thai volleyball is “futball” with a net and you can use your hands. Seriously, they do all kinds of crazy kicking and headbutting—not to mention they’re psycho “slamming”…

Love and miss you always,

Kati

8/28

Seriously, you don’t know heat. I nearly passed out SEVERAL times today. I was LITERALLY dripping with sweat—and I’ve actually become somewhat acclimated to the heat and humidity here, but today and yesterday were absolutely unbearable (even the Thais were complaining—that’s when you know it’s really hot). Today at school I decided to try a different drink (I usually trink a can of orange soda) so I asked my friend Oun (who I absolutely love to death… but of course, he’s gay) “arroi array?” which literally means “delicious what”—but it’s actually correct grammar in Thailand. In any case, he pointed, and trusting him (which was brave) I bought it. It was the BEST drink I have ever tasted—no clue what on earth it was, but it was absolutely amazing. I can’t even describe the taste—except for the fact that it totally rocked my face off. Dude, you just can’t eat when it’s this hot and when the mere thought of food (especially hot and spicy food) makes you sick, ya know?

In any case today, 5 Buddhist monks (prra) came to our school and prayed for two and a half hours. That means we had to sit on the concrete Thai style for 2 and a half hours with our hands in the wai position. I honestly thought I was gonna die. It was sooooooo ridiculously painful. My friend Thisie got out of her school early so she came to my school for my last 3 classes after lunch. We had a really good time together. My Thai dance teacher was about 20 minutes late to class so we taught my Thai friends some hip-hop… it was about the funniest thing ever. Well, I’m gonna actually let ya go now! Talk to ya latas!

I love and miss you so much!

Love always,

Kati

8/29
 
Thanks for the pictures. Well, today was another scorcher but I went running in the park for the first time anyways. After I RAN 3 or 4 kilos we all played Frisbee (me, alwyne, thisie, gwen, and mike). After that, me and thisie got these DELISCIOUS slushies. Hers was made out of fresh oranges and mine was made out of fresh pineapple
 (YUM!). Well, that’s about the extent of excitement that happened today. So I’ll talk to ya lata!!
 
I love and miss you like mad crazy!
 
Love always,
Kati

8/30/03

Here's the dl on what happened today (dl means down low which means "the scoop"... sort of...) . Well, this morning we had Thai dance from 10:00am-12:00pm. We had new teachers so we basically just reviewed what we already knew and learned one new step. We’re starting to look pretty good. It’s weird, because the Thai dance that I learn in school is totally different from the Thai dance that I learn at the university on Saturdays. After dance we all went out to the Pizza Company to celebrate Thisie’s b-day (which was Aug 6—but we never got to celebrate it because things were really crazy then because that was our first day of school). We got four kinds of pizza (all with stuffed crust): veggie, pepperoni, Hawaiian, and aloha. They were all really good. Aloha has Thousand Island dressing, really good sausage (usually I hate the sausage they put on pizza), ham, pepperoni, cheese, and pineapple. It was alloi mak (very delicious)!! It was a lot of fun.

After lunch, we headed back to my house for Thai language lessons. The teacher and her friend came to our house and teach in my air conditioned computer room. We worked on the alphabet and I actually understand how to read Thai. My next task is to memorize the 66 letter alphabet and all the sounds each letter makes. That way, I’ll be able to “read” anything—maybe not UNDERSTAND it, but most def read it… They have several letters that make the exact same sound (kind of like our “c” and “k”) and it’s very frustrating to learn how to spell things because you never know which one to use. But hey, I have a year, eh?

It was hot today (of course) but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it has been for the last three days. I think it’ll probably rain tomorrow, dark clouds are most definitely settling in. After Thai language, we all just hung out and then went out and bought orange slushies—but they weren’t as good as the ones we bought in Ubon last night, but whatever. I think I’ll just chill for the rest of today, I’m feelin kinda yucky. Yep—well, that’s about it so… Talk to ya later!

Love and miss you guys always, Kate