Last Day of School!

Today is my last day of school for a month. We have semester break until November. My host mother left today for Bangkok to take her dad to the hospital for a check up after his back surgery. She told me last night and left today...not much heads up. I am staying with her sister and instead of aerobics tonight we are going to a Chinese restaurant for a celebration. Which is nice after two days of aerobics I'm very sore.

One thing that I found very interesting is last night after school we were dropped off at Grandma's house and she yelled at my little sister to the point of making her cry and then called Chin to let her know that she was done. I found it kind of sad that she couldn't punish her child herself and made her mother do it. This way Ping is not made at her but her grandma. I don't know if this is cultural or just a family thing but it kind of upset me and I felt bad for Ping.

The students have been filling out applications for school and copying each others work, which they call studying so I have been bored at school. I finished a book in two days and they all thought that was amazing. The end of the semester is coming up so they have to finish all there work and one person has it done and the rest copy the whole book. Something that would never fly in the U.S. They are also watching music videos. Interesting way of lifestyle. When I asked what they were doing during break they all said they are going to Chiang Mai to study. I keep thinking if you studied in school you wouldn't have to spend every other hour of your life studying. I also asked what they do when there not studying and they said go on facebook, watch movies and play computer games. Interesting because whenever I have free time I want to hang with friends or go get some exercise. This concept is completely foreign to them. We spent a good hour comparing and contrasting different school systems. You'd be surprised how corrupted the system is here.

I have no idea what I'm going to do over break when I'm not on my trips. I asked my host mother if she could think of anything for me to do and she said she'd think about it. I hope I don't get to bored since everyone will be gone. I do have two trips and my birthday so hopefully it goes by fast. If anyone has any ideas let me know.


Until Later, Dacotah Smith