Dear Charles, #5

howdy-doo non thailandians! ....because after being here two weeks i am almost 100% thai. my life long dream of being an asian is panning out nicely. the fact that i eat rice at least twice a day and i 'wai' everyone i meet are good signs of 'asian turning'. haha...oh im so getting struck by lightning this weekend.
oh! speaking of this weekend! after school today me and my friend amber, who is another volunteer here (she's teaching kindergarten) are hopping a VIP (ooooo) bus down to chaing mai! chiang mai is like a bigger version if chaing rai but a smaller version of bangkok. its somewhere in the middle of a hill-tribe and big city. so ive heard about tons of cool things to do there but i wont tell you guys any of them until i come back so i dont say..."they have this tiger grooming class where you get to groom real tigers" and have you guys think im doing something really cool when im not. or wont get to depending on how much it costs. ahhh money is so dumb. although everything is super cheap here. i eat for about 30 baht every night....and our exchange is about 35 baht to an american dollar so...i'm eating for less then a dollar, and i get lunches free at the school (one of the perks of being a full time volunteer.....you know, not getting paid and paying my own rent, but hey free lunch! im not bitter.)
its so funny how im getting used to the pricing already so much here. like the other night amber asked me if i wanted to go get some dinner with her and we went to this really nice place near our house called 'barongs' i opened the menu and i was like..."95 baht?! are you kidding!?" haha you guys thought i was cheap and froogle before i left the states, after living here for six months im not gonna want to spend any money on anything over there. so you all better like your souvenirs cause its all youre getting from me for the next 10 years until i can get a real job.

my escapades with 3rd esther, the girl i tutor on mondays/wednesday/friday are getting more interesting. on wednesday i was sitting in my classroom waiting for her to come in..she walked in and looked at me for like 30 seconds then said "um...actually i usually sit in that chair" (she sat in it on monday..the first and only time i had met with her thus far" so i calmly responded "well do you think it'd be cool if i sat here today?" so she thought for a minute...and VERY reluctantly said "yeah...i guess thats fine"
so she started to work on her worksheet and about 15 min in she asked for my help. SOOO, i got up, looked at her problem and told her what it was that she needed to fix and how to get the correct answer...after we figured it out and the answer we got was different then her original one she was like..."no but i think this is wrong, this is not what i got..." (inner thoughts: "AAAHHHH BE QUIET LITTLE GIRL!") so i have to like hype up my patience before i meet with her. i wish i could video tape a class with her so you could see her and hear her...its all in the looks and the tones. so we had a whole other side of the worksheet that wasnt done yet and class was like 10 min from being over and it was taking her a really really long time to subtract 15 from 17, so i asked her if i could show her an easy way that i use to subtract things and she says " no i dont have time for that, i dont have much time and if you show me how to do that we're wasting time" so i said" so you dont want me to help you find an easier way?" and she says " no and now we're talking and wasting time..look we've been talking and i just wasted time i could be working" so....ha ha....theres esther. ooohhh shes a jem. pray for me to have patience with her.

on a lighter note im getting along swimmingly with my housemate kyndra. shes actually from washington (reppin' it up for WA!). shes working at another ministry here called Banam Jai (thats not how you spell it but its initially 'home of the open heart'). its a ministry that works with kids that have HIV. She's really funny...much like me...*cough cough*. shes been really good about showing me around our town and writing down good things to order at our favorite food place, 'grumpies'. (its not actually called grumpies but thats what we call it because the lady that works there has zero patience and when you walk up shes just like...'what do you want" ,"well whats good?" "just tell me what you want i dont want to tell you whats good, just order" [in thai of course] hahaha, shes really actually great, the other day i went to her place to get some fried rice and she looked me up and down and was like 'oh you actually look cute today'.... really a sweet sweet lady)
so kyndra is great, we watch friends together and go get fresh squeezed orange juice. its orange season here right now so the oranges are exceptional and the juice is like...oh so good. me and kyndra are on like sarcastic love/hate terms which is the best kind. i had to go get more money on my cell phone and i was like..."kyndra! i just put like 200 baht on here last week! stop texting me stupid!" and she just responds..."stop..calling me. stop being dumb" etc. etc. so its going really great.

yesterday at school was very exciting because once a month here the school serves farang food (foreign food...american food) and everyone is so stoked. as for me i havent been here long enough to really miss american food, im still in 'excited about everything thai' mode..which im really hoping doesnt ware off or my last few months here are going to be misery. so we had this pasta meat thing. it was pretty good, and it got served with bread and butter which i have to admit...simple enough -but it tasted so so good. but im good without eating american food for awhile.
this last weekend a couple that lives in my neighborhood took me and amber out for lunch to "barry's" (you can tell by the name that this was a american- golf themed restaurant, and barry was middle aged). i refused to get a hamburger like everyone else and stuck with curry and rice. plus farang food is really expensive here. you know like...200 baht a plate. whoa, kinda steep for me.
alright so im tutoring steven this next period so im gonna go get ready for that. wish me safe travels this weekend in chiang mai! ill tell you about all the cool stuff i actually did when i get home. sawadee-ka, anna