I'm in Mahasarakham Province, my host teacher P. Wan's hometown! And I love it here! It's feels like a nice college town and I feel very much at home. Last night we drove through the campus to pick up P. Wan's boyfriend and there were guys breakdancing on the street. P. Wan's boyfriend is the art professor there and he gave me a contemporary Thai art piece that he did which is so awesome. P. Wan, P. Huan, P. Jiap, and I went to this cool cafe owned by this friendly dude with a giant fro. He was playing funky music and all the college students were chilling there. He even came by to take a photograph of us to put on his website. We ate so much delicious Thai food!

Today I met up with P. Wan's good friends and ate at two western chain restaurants with a Thai flair which made everything extra delicious. By that I mean, Thai KFC is great. You get this delicious fried rice with edamame, bacon, and carrots! The chicken is spicy and you can eat it with chili sauce. And there are waiters. And real silverware. Svensons ice cream is sooo good!!

And then we went searching for big sized clothing. Even though I have proof that I am totally a size S/M back home, I am big in Thailand (more to love, baby). Well, I bought one of those Thai "I love the King" yellow polo shirts except mine says "Love the King, Love the World" which is sweet. I'm excited to wear it to school! I also bought nice conservative black dress-up pants because my big butt causes too much scandal at school amongst silly adolescent high school boys. Hmm~ I am all about scoping out good teacher outfits these days!

After shopping, I met P. Wan's grandmother, a small friendly old lady who gave us a huge bag of mushrooms and greens from her garden. And I went to P. Wan's house to eat a delicious Issan meal. I am pretty good at eating with stick rice/my hand now. P. Wan's younger brother (who is an artist in Bangkok) kept asking me to go dancing but I went to a Thai wedding instead which was really interesting! And then I went to a night market and got some really neat souvenirs for all of you I love back home! ;)

P.S. I love being a discreet foreigner/Korean-American. I can escape the foreigner price (which I realized is sometimes 10 times the local price..) if I keep quiet. And everyone is astonished to hear me speak English and excited to practice a few phrases with me. And when they realize I am Korean (Kaolee) most people excitedly share their love of Go Eun-Chan/Coffeeprince/Daejangguem. Also, I don't stick out as much in public places which makes me feel less like a weirdo farang.

Also, I am going to take Claire's idea and buy some fly swatters for a pronunciation game. My students have such a hard time distinguishing "food," "fruit," and "foot." I think it'll be good to work with the "th" sound, etc.

Living in rural Thailand is indescribable. There are these looming tropical trees all around, at least four cows live in front of my house, crazy roosters cry every morning around 6 am, about a thousand dragonflies swarm around at night, and little geckos sit on my ceiling. In the evening, we sit outside and eat spicy som tam with sticky rice. I am getting good at eating the Thai way--spoon in my right hand and fork in my left. I am also pretty good at taking showers with buckets of cold water but I can't seem to get used to the squatter toilets. I am learning to speak a bit of the Laotian language because Issan is so close to Laos. And Alice is planning our weekend trip to Laos right now!

My room is so quiet and peaceful. I don't remember having this kind of space and time to think and relax. Last year feels like a blur. I read my diary entries and realized how secretly turbulent last year was for me. I just wanted to escape. So I bought my plane ticket to Bangkok without leaving much time to finish up the semester properly or really prepare for my trip. And I arrived just like that. Over a month and three countries later, I am here in rural Thailand. Finally peaceful, tan, and resolute (resolute that I must continue to be peaceful and not overload myself again).

The funny thing is that I also scheduled my return flight so that there would be no time to kick back and relax after my trip, pack to move into a brand new house, or make it to the beginning of my summer classes (I would miss the first few days of classes). I am way too crazy sometimes! But I am trying to calm down for a change...I'm changing my flight so that I can be home a lot earlier so I actually have time to run errands and see all the people I miss. So watch out America! I'll be back so so soon (not THAT soon)!

Last night I talked to my family for the first time in over a month. It was so good to hear voices from home. Tomorrow I'm going to my host teacher's hometown! I can't wait!

Also, so many people take photos of me here (5-20 photographs everyday)! It leaves me bewildered. Someone explained that they take photos because I look like a celebrity! Which is very nice of them and flattering but to be quite honest, I think I look pretty bad these days. My hair is growing out all crazy and it desperately needs to be dyed again. I don't have a lot of nice clothes (backpacking 4lyfe) or jewelry. Plus, everyone thinks I am really fat! This is place is confusing for my self-esteem.

Well, I'm done with teaching for the day so I'm just hanging out at the school office using free wireless that is FINALLY working. Students stop by sometimes to say hello and practice English with me. Otherwise they wave and run away giggling. It's so cute.

Yesterday I went to the Dinosaur museum with the Tourism Club and it was a lot of fun to get to know some of the students more individually. There are these two ladyboys in the Tourism club who are very good at English and very enthusiastic about speaking English with me. They also have perfect eyebrows and love using words like "hot chick" to describe themselves! I have English Club this afternoon and I'm so excited to meet more students.

The challenge lately has been trying to convince the Thai teachers that I am not too tired to teach, etc. They keep canceling my classes if I seem exhausted. And give me a ton of medicine and honey tea. Even today they suggested that I go home today and skip English club because I seem tired. I don't need to sleep all the time! Blah!!

Today was my first official day of teaching with my own teaching schedule and I am so exhausted. I have 2 or 3 classes per day (with about 30-40 students in each class). I am realizing how unfortunate it is that I will only get to teach any given class twice total before I have to leave. But I don't think I could do as much as 4-5 classes per day..

Today was fun and kind of disastrous. I think I will try to do more constructive games from now on especially with the older students. The teachers didn't really communicate the English levels of their students or describe their needs. They just said, "It's up to you!"

Everyone thinks I am an expert here and trusts me to create complete lesson plans for all 21 classes! But the truth is that I've never actually taught real high school classes before. So I'm reading a lot a lot and I am pretty sure of what to do for tomorrow. I am trying to figure out activities for pair/group work. Thai students are drilled a lot on grammar, to be sure, and I don't need to really focus on that. My focus, I think, is to get them to SPEAK...which is sort of hard because Thai students are so shy! They are so good but they freeze up.

There's just a lot of pressure on me. I am the first foreigner this school has ever invited and they really want to see change in the English education at the school. I hope I at least leave a good impression but I don't quite know all the Thai customs and Thai people are too polite to point out my mistakes!

I kind of want to go shower and take a nap..