9 months.

9 months, already?

I feel as if so much has happened since the last time I have sent an update, well I guess an entire month has flown past, lets see what did I do…

Oh now I remember, I spent two weeks on a beautiful beach in southern Thailand, oh silly me, how could I forget? Thank goodness the school blesses us with two weeks off for the Thai holiday Songkran. Songkran is a huge water fight celebrating the Thai new year – when I mean water fight, I mean 3 days where you can’t move in the city because traffic doesn’t move with people emptying the moat onto everyone that drives past. I however knew that it would be super dangerous on my motorbike, so I opted to spend my time on Phi Phi Island.

I traveled down with my friend Kelsey who is a nanny here for her nephew. Because we look for the cheapest flights we had some late night fun at the Bangkok airport. We left Chiang Mai at 11:30 and arrived in BKK at 12:30 and chilled there until 7:00 when our next flight left for Phuket. My friend Raef and his Thai friend Bank came and hung out with us until our plane left, which made getting no sleep slightly more bearable. That airport never sleeps though. We headed down south to Phuket and then got a taxi to the other side of the island to catch a ferry, then took a 2 hour ferry ride to the beautiful islands.

We stayed in a bungalow way up a hill on the point of the island. Even though it was 89 stairs to the beach it was worth it for the view – and the price. It was less than $20 a night. We settled into a grand routine of breakfast, beach, snorkeling, swimming, reading, napping, drinking smoothies, playing speed scrabble, eating, movie watching, and then went to sleep and did it all over again for 10 days. Sadly it took about 3 days to get used to it, but it was nice after that! Amazingly enough we never missed having air conditioning in our little bungalows, and it was fun to watch the families of monkeys nibble on mangos outside our door -- however, it wasn't cool one night when Kelsey walked into our bathroom and saw a 2 foot snake crawling up our wall!! I stayed and kept an eye on it while she ran and got help -- which turned out to be a crew of 2 Thai ladies and 3 drunk Thai men with a flashlight and fanny pack... Don't worry we took pictures it was quite a spectacle watching them kill a snake with a little broom...

One day we went out on a long tail boat to go snorkeling. We went with a Swedish and Israeli couple who were so much fun. They became our friends up at our bungalow. The things we saw from that boat looked fake. The water looked as blue as a swimming pool with huge rock cliffs that made beautiful inlets and private little beaches. Our island overlooked where “The Beach” was filmed. We of course watched the movie while we were overlooking the island. We did some incredible snorkeling and then went to Bamboo island which was the most beautiful beach my eyes have ever seen. It looked fake…

I was completely amazed how the Lord could create something so beautiful, and it was a much needed break from the days of being a 4^th grade teacher.

It blows my mind that I only have 25 days left with these kiddos – it is going by so quickly. Some days I get overwhelmed by the task of my job – and other days I know without a doubt I am right where I need to be. Last week I was introducing them to the new concept of converting improper fractions to mixed numbers… and when I began they all tilted their heads to the side and were giving me the “huh?” Look. But after breaking it down a little more, slowly – one by one – they started to say, “Oh, I get it!” Those are the most precious moments of a teacher – the gift of teaching them something new for the first time in their lives. I have a pretty sweet job. Also, another reason why I love this school I work in, was that this morning I left my motorbike key in the office with a list of things wrong with my bike – oil change, dead battery, air in the tires and to fix the horn – and at the end of the day my bike was returned with a bill of 95 baht ($2.75) for everything… so not only did it magically happen while I was at work, it only cost me $2.75!

Oh also a new development in my life is that after being here for 9 months, without taking any Thai lessons, I have now had a few conversations in Thai. Okay, not real conversations -- you can judge for your self:

Me: “Rohn maak maak!” – It’s very, very hot!
Lunch Man: “Chop Mai?” – Do you like it?
Me: “Mi Chop!” – No, I don’t like it

Hey, that is a big step in my life… it’s fun to realize that you know a little bit here and there, if I lived surrounded by Thais I would definitely know more.

It has gotten pretty hot here – one weekend all Kelly I could so was say, “IT’S SO HOT!” at 107 degrees you make plans based on where there is free AC or a Pool. Let me just tell you that the Nelly song, “Hot in here” has a whole new meaning… It really does get that hot. Fortunately it rained and it got much cooler… 80 feels great! Never thought I would say that…

This past week I just felt completely blessed by my friends in town. You know when you just have to stop and you don’t want moments to end because your cup is so full? Well it was one of those weeks. Raef and Bank came to hang out with us in Chiang Mai and it was a blessing to see your city with new eyes again. At church on Sunday I just looked down the row and was like thank you Jesus for allowing me to have such great friends in this country who are all sitting with me in this row… Over and over he said that he would take care of me, and that he knows my details – wow, still I blown away, and never knew it could be this good.