Preparations

Well...This Wednesday(only 3 more days!), I'll be leaving for LA then Thailand!! In the midst of packing i realized i still haven't started a blog... so here we go!!

I've always wanted to go abroad. My mother went to Argentina when she was in high school and I have heard many stories. When I was eight, a girl from Austria stayed with us for a year. Last year, a girl from Greenland lived with us. Its hard to say why I want to go but it sounds like a great experience.

I'm so excited to spend this summer in Thailand! I picked Thailand because I'm looking for an experience that is totally different(which I would get in most countries). Thailand also has a couple things that drew me to it-it accepts vegetarians, I get to go to school, and I've heard it has a wonderful program. When I tell people I'm going to Thailand, i get several similar reactions, but everyone thinks its really cool. some people want to know if I speak "Taiwanese", while others are concerned about the recent riots in Bangkok, everyone asks the questions"why Thailand?".

About a week and a half ago I got my host family assignment. All the email said was the family members names, their ages, phone numbers, and address and my schools name. I will be staying near Mueang Surin in the Surin province(Mueang means city). My school is Weerawatyothin School and can be easily found on google maps. The family's address was a little confusing because thai address are diffrent then ours. My mom and decoded it and found that my family's house is in Nok Muang, just south of the city center. My family includes a mom, a dad, and two daughters(one is 26 and the other 29).

Because my family didn't give and email and I didn't time to write a letter, we had to call my family. I was really nervous, mostly because I don't speak thai and I didn't know if they spoke any english. My mom's solution was finding someone who spoke thai to translate for us. Through AFS, we contacted a boy named Benz, who was spending a year here in the US from thailand. He came over and we called the number i was given. My host mom answered and she had a good half hour conversation with Benz. I spent a couple confusing minutes talking with her, and our conversation was mostly about how excited we both were. Here is what I learned from the conversation...
my host sisters both live in Bangkok and my host father works in another province and only comes home on weekends. My host mom(who it sounds like I will be spending a lot of time with) is a "Buddhist teacher" at my school(I don't have any idea what that means). The house is on six acres of land 3km south of my school. My mom said she had plenty of clothes for me...that makes me kind of nervous.

Now I'm getting ready for leaving. Working on packing, learning thai, and buying things. We got Wisconsin t-shirts for my parents little box things for my sisters. I'm taking pictures of my life to show them and we bought a Wisconsin book. I'm not packing many clothes, partly because my host mom said not to and partly because I will be wearing a uniform half the time.

I'm a little worried about my flights. Flying from Madison to LA will be my first time flying alone and my flight to Hong Kong is insanely long. I guess I'm worrying about them because I don't want to think about other things, like the heat, language and food in Thailand.

When in thailand I have a few goals...
learn some thai (as much as possible)
make new friends
learn as much about thai culture as possible
learn more about myself(culture, strengths and weaknesses...)
expand my comfort zone
have fun!

I hope I can keep up this blog in Thailand- I'm going to try and have this be my only communication home