Sunday

Today I was rudely awoken at 7 am to the noise of the workers cutting down a vine that has grown into my bathroom, through the window screen. I showed this to my host mother last night and she assured me that she would have a worker cut it down. I didn't realize that this would mean at 7 am when I'm trying my hardest to sleep in. I just put a pillow over my head and tried to sleep for another half and hour before giving up. It's been three hours and they are still cutting the grass around the guest house, so I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyways.
This morning started out really sunny and hot and I actually am wearing a tank top, the first time since arriving. The culture is very conservative so before I knew my boundaries and I didn't want to push them. But know I can comfortably wear a tank top which is nice. However it was really sunny and now looks like it will rain within the hour which is nice because it cools things off.
To prevent being bored over break I am planning to take a bus to Chiang Mai about 4 hours to visit other exchange students in between trips. I hope this works out, it will give me a chance to explore Chiang Mai and hang with my closest friends here. Don't get me wrong the kids at school are so nice but with the language barrier its hard to get super close to any of them. These girls are all in the same boat as me and all speak English so we have become super close. They all get to go to the same school together while I'm up here by myself. But in a way I'm grateful for this, it means I will get more of a cultural experience and a chance to make long lasting Thai friends not just YE friends.
It was super nice that my host mother wasn't super busy yesterday. We actually got to talk about my life back home and I learned a little bit more about the family. She has been married for 17 years and has learned to let her husband do whatever he wants whenever he wants and not to worry. We had this long discussion because two of her workers are getting divorced and if they do they will not work for her anymore so she went and talked to them, as a counselor to get them to work things out. When she got done we went to dinner and had a long discussion about all of this. It was nice bonding time. I feel that despite her being super busy all the time we have bonded pretty well.
Yesterday I read my latest book, Eat,Pray,Love and watched the movie The Holiday and studied Thai with this free computer program which I have on my computer. I'm proud to announce that I'm up to 72 words in my vocabulary just on this program. I have the greeting down, places, animals, colors and days of the week. The language is finally starting to click a little better. I'm no where near conversation yet but I can understand bits and pieces of when other people are talking. I also lucky to receive my birthday card from my Grandparents last night and it made my day! It was so cute and super early which is always nice.

Until Later, Dacotah Smith