I have been having such a great time and staying busy! On friday my school was hosting an event called Get Ready for ASEAN also known as english camp. Of course they insisted I participate! There were five schools including mine with about 30 students from each school and I found out about 20 minutes before the event began that I would be giving the opening speech since I knew the best english. So I quickly prepared a short speech with the help of my english teacher and got up in front of about 150 students to speak. After that we were split into teams with students from each school to compete in challenges. Since they were all english challenges my team did very well! I wasn't able to go to day 2 because of Rotary orientation so I don't know who won but at the end of day one my team was in the lead!
On Sunday we drove to Bangkok so I could go to inbound orientation and my sister Ice could go to rebound orientation (she just got back from Brazil). It was great to meet all the other students in my district though I didn't get to meet the boy who will be in the same city as me because the 2 Mexican students don't arrive until wednesday. All the students speak english so the meetings were all in english which made it very easy to understand. We learned about Thai culture, Rotary rules, and some Thai words. My host district only does exchanges with 6 countries so there are a lot of American students (12) and France has the second most number of students (4)! We all became fast friends and I am already planing a shopping trip with an American and French student!
I have been making lots of friends at school as well. My friend Lek stays at her grandparents house on the weekends which is across from mine so we play badminton almost every day she's here. And my friend Boss goes to his Aunt's house on Monday-Wednesday after school which is next to mine and we also play badminton. So I will be very good at badminton when I get home!Plus everyone at school wants to be friends with the American!
I am now taking private thai lessons every day after school. I just had my first one today and my teacher showed me all 44 of the consonants (which I knew most of) and the 16 main vowels. Tomorrow I will be tested on them so I have been studying like crazy! I hope these lessons will help me become fluent!
Wow, Jennifer, that's great! After all your communication about being well outside of Bangcok and all, I was wondering if you were going to be able to get together with other exchange students in the way they described at the Vacouver conference. Glad you will be.
ReplyDeleteI am loving your narratives of days and events. I am amazed, and delighted, how you are taking all the new challenges in your stride. Several friends, especially my teacher breakfast group plus some church people, are following your "adventures". Way to go. I think about you every day.
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