As August 4th came and went the other day, time seemed to speed up. It marked 10 month's to the day of my time here in Thailand. On one hand, I view it as an acheivement, but on the other, it's a reminder that there's not much time left to experience everything I want to here in Thailand. For some reason, at the 2 month mark, I feel like I've got to get ready to go and I"m not quite there yet. It seems like just yesterday I was talking to the other volunteers and we were commenting on how we 'still had 6 months left' and didn't that seem like such a long time. Even at three months, you say to yourself, 'that's an entire summer' or 'that's almost an entire fall semester at school'. But at 2 months, you're saying 'that's only 8 more weekends' or 'how in the world will I get all of my things home?'.
While I can imagine being back in the USA, I can't even fathom leaving this place. I admit that I can imagine eating a sandwich with actual deli meat and sitting in a real coffee shop with real drip coffee. I can imagine seeing friends and family that I haven't seen for over a year. I can imagine actually cooking and baking again. I can imagine going shopping! But what I can hardly bear to think about is not walking to the office every morning and being greeted by hundreds of smiling faces saying 'hello, teacher!'. I can't imagine not having conversations in broken English with the Thai English teachers every afternoon when we are finished with classes. I can't imagine not going to the night market every night to buy food and running into all of my students.
With this new overwhelming feeling of running out of time, I'm trying to take it day by day. I'm spending more time on the campus grounds than inside the office these days and I try to have more conversations with the students. Today we had several activities on campus and I spent most of my time taking pictures. That's not to say I didn't get to experience the activities, but I want to take as many pictures as possible. My camera is on me at all times these days.
It was both Pasa Thai (Thai language) day and Suntonpoo day. Suntonpoo is a famous poet in Thailand and until today, I was unaware that the statue we have on campus is actually of this poet. He wrote famous poems and so the activities today were different classes acting out the poems. It was mostly different versions of Thai dance, though there was some more modern dancing. There were also a couple fashion shows - one showcasing outfits made from recycled material...there were some amazing costumes. The other one was a fashion show/ beauty pageant of the lady boys. They were decked out in full evening wear and 5 inch heels and wigs. It's amazing how different they view things like that here in Thailand. In any case, it was an awesome day. We also have about 8 different volleyball teams staying here on campus (in classrooms) for a volleyball tournament we are hosting. Apparently there are 16 provinces involved, and I've been told that most students will probably skip classes tomorrow to go watch it.
This weekend brings some fun festivities - tomorrow night we are having a party with the English department at my English directors house complete with a menu we created and karaoke. Afterwards, it's Kate's birthday celebration here in the city of NKP. I've also picked up a couple of students for tutoring and while I'm not always that happy to plan for these extra lessons or lose time on the weekends, I find that I really enjoy them once I'm there. One session is a couple here in NKP and they are judges at our provincial hall. They've got three dogs and are expecting a baby in December. The other are two girls, one of whom is the daughter of the copy woman at our school. Next week we've got a three day week and then Thursday is Mothers day, or the Queen's birthday. Originally I was headed to Bangkok, but I'm leaning more towards staying and hanging out in Nakhon Phanom. So we'll see.
Pictures on the way. Until next time!
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