Gobble , Gobble, Gobble!

I’ve been a little reluctant about blogging this week. A mixture of being really homesick around Thanksgiving and not much really going on during the week played a factor in not updating in the past week and a half. But here is a little update.

 "Turkey dance, JJ?" "NOOO, Ben 10!"

Por-Por

Last week was Thanksgiving, my first Thanksgiving not home with my family. And the first time I have ever had to work on Thanksgiving, and not go Black Friday shopping. That Thursday was like any other day, except I got an hour in the afternoon to teach my kids about Thanksgiving. I made a power point and gave them a brief history lesson on pilgrims, Native Americans, and the first Thanksgiving dinner. Then I showed pictures of the traditional Thanksgiving foods (mashed potatoes, turkey, pumpkin pie, ect.) and explained the concept of being thankful. Another teacher had a copy of “Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” in Thai, so I’m hoping they understood more once we watched the show. After, I had the kids make handprint turkeys. They have turkeys in Thailand.. chickens and ducks but no turkeys. So the concept of a turkey is NOT a chicken was a little challenging.. and funny. Once I told the kids that turkeys "gobble", they got a kick out of gobbling with their handprint turkey. I’m not sure how much they really understood what Thanksgiving was and it honestly might have been more fun for me than them.

That night, Jess and I ventured out to this place called “Pizza and Bake”. We heard they had American food, and of course I was NOT having Thai food on Thanksgiving, a big American holiday! We both ordered macaroni and cheese.. it was no easy mac but it was better than Pad Thai for Thanksgiving. We picked up some cheese cake at the 5 star hotel on the walk home.. Again, not quite cheese cake from Cheese Cake Factory, but more like an attempt at success. We went home and watched “Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (in English) and were disappointed to find we didn’t even own a bottle opener to open up our sparkling wine. Feeling very homesick and defeated, we called it a night and gave up on an American Thanksgiving for the day.

On Saturday, the other foreign teachers at my school had a big dinner at one of the teachers house. It was a potluck and everyone brought something to contribute. I put in for the apple pie; one of the teachers took all the pie material to the bakery and told them how to make an apple pie.. it didn’t turn out anything like my mom’s pie (this crust was VERY thick and not all the way baked, but the apples were good) but it hit the spot for the day. We also had turkey (which can only be bought at one big bulk store, like a Costco, like an hour or two away), corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, pumpkin squash stuff, macaroni and cheese, and stuffing. After having a week of being very homesick, it was very nice to sit down with a group of other English speakers and have a home cooked meal. For a minute, I almost forgot I was in Thailand.

Like I mentioned, the week of Thanksgiving was the most homesick I think I’ve ever been, in my life. I was sick with some strange bug last Wednesday.. I woke up feeling VERY nauseous and dizzy but not with a stomachache. I went to school anyways and embarrassingly started crying when another teacher asked if I was okay when she saw I wasn’t doing too well. At that moment, I wanted to be home in my own comfy bed with my family and friends near by, I was feeling SO far from home. I think I scared the other Thai teachers with my tears and they encouraged me to call it a day and head home. I was at school for only 5 minutes, went straight home, and slept for the rest of the day. I sure needed it! The next day I woke up refreshed and feeling healthy. I am feeling A LOT better this week and not nearly as homesick. Today, I am in good spirits and feeling really happy. It’s a three day weekend for the Kings Birthday and Fathers Day, so Jess and I are meeting other girls from orientation at Ko Samet, and island near Bangkok. It’ll be fun to get out of Khon Kaen and explore a new place.

After extremely missing my friends, family, food, and everything about home, I decided I needed to make a list of things I like here. I’m trying to focus more on what I’m doing now and less on later.. (10 more months!)

Things about Thailand that make me smile

• When I go to the gym, I clean myself up there so I’m not going to dinner all sweaty and gross. Yesterday when I went to return my locker key in exchange for my gym card, my favorite instructor that teachers the gym ball and abominal class was at the front desk. Normally he gives a simple “Bye, Chelsea. See you tomorrow!” but yesterday he said something about tennis. At first I thought he was telling me that he teaches a tennis class on Tuesdays and thought I would be interested. I quickly told him I am awful at tennis and he responded with “I think Chelsea and Maria Sharapova same same”. The other instructors laughed and said “Chai! Chai!” (yes, yes!) I realized he was telling me I look like some tennis player, not asking if I want to play tennis. Having no idea who this “Maria” is, I googled her.. I’ll take that as a compliment. I’m flattered.
• Fresh fruit is easy to find.. ALL THE TIME! I eat fresh pineapple everyday for lunch (along with rice). The fruit is cheap (10 baht.. 30ish cents for a huge chunk), clean, and tasty
• So at the end of the school year, our school has a huge event called “Pride Day”. At this event, the kindergarteners graduate to elementary then all the classes do a dance performance and this years theme is Disney. My class is performing dances to different songs from Aladin. For some reason, the school asked me to be the “story teller” for the event.. meaning they would pre-record my voice of me reading a story then at Pride Day, I would sit on stage, “read” a story to a group of kids as they played the recording.. I’m not sure why I wouldn’t just read the story then, but this is how its always been done. When I found out they picked me, I was a bit hesitant at first, especially when they told me I needed to dress up as an angel, then a fairy godmother. But when I asked if I could dress up as a Disney Princess instead, they were all for it. Now, I’m really excited to be Cinderella for the day. Hey, if I can’t find a real job once I’m back in the US, maybe I can be a princess at Disneyland! Just kidding, kind of.
• WARM WEATHER! Its 70-80 degrees here everyday. I LOVE IT! Its going to be grueling in March and April, but I’m loving the weather now, especially when I hear that my friends are scraping ice off their windshield back home
• Last night, I found a new place to eat at the mall!! A smoothie place called “Squeeze”.. has all the flavors and tastes just like Jamba Juice!! It’s real smoothies and not “smoothies” like we find at the night market, where they throw in fruit, sugar water, sweetened condensed milk, ice, and mix it up. It’s the REAL Jamba like smoothies. I also found a waffle place! I think I can survive here now!
• The hotel down the street has huge signs for "Thailand's Got Talent".. For some reason, I get a huge kick outta it. 
• Most of the time, my kids make me smile.  Especially when they like to take pictures with me on my laptop in PhotoBooth

I’m leaving in an hour to catch an overnight bus to Bangkok to spend the long weekend on an island called Ko Samet! Jess and I are meeting Jenna and a few other girls. This is the longest I haven’t seen the ocean in my entire life, so I am SO excited!! Another reason why I like Thailand.. Easy to travel around! :)