When the exciting becomes routine, the routine changes!

Hello again! So, as a review... in a typical Monday through Thursday day, I get up around 6:45, shower and eat breakfast (usually a pre-packaged pastry/croissant), and head off for school around 7:45, socialize for a while at University, and then classes are from 8:30-10 and 10:30-12 (either Thai language, Thai Culture, Thai Writing, or occasionally Art lecture). Then we have lunch on campus at the canteen... usually a yummy rice dish and a fruit smoothie. Then, around 1 pm we gather into our rotdengs (literally translated "red cars," red trucks with 2 benches in the back that we squeeze about 10 or so people into) to head to our internships. So, at my internship, the Buddhist University which I've told you a lot about, I usually sit in a 2 hour class of 3rd or 4th year students while they give presentations, that we grade, in either Contrastive Studies of English and Thai or a social science topic. Then, from 3-5, we sit on a nice shady patio at the wat where we hold "Farang Chat" (foreigner) with the monks who want to come and talk to us. At the beginning we would see maybe 1 or 2 monks and they wouldn't show up before 4, but by last week, they were there waiting for us at 3! Then, I walk to campus and take a tram to the other side of campus and walk home. Dinner at home is usually between 6:30 and 8 and then I chill, read, blog, and go to bed fairly early... Thailand's enchantment gets exhausting!

Unfortunately, last week was the last week of normal classes for the Buddhist University and they are taking finals this week. So, some from our group will continue to go to the university since some monks will still be there for chat. I have the opportunity to go to one of the other internships for the rest of the time. There is an acting project that some of our students are a part of in which they will put on a huge production with thai actors with down syndrome or other disabilities--don't worry I won't be helping with that! Only one from our group has been working consistently with the project, but three others are going to join to help sing.... so they need substitutes at their internships since some of them are team teaching English at a temple school. So, I will be trying my hand at teaching (more like just playing with adorable kiddos) these coming weeks!! I visited Monday and Tuesday, and the schools are definitely more low-key than our schools, but the kids are kids and I had a blast starting to get to know them =) Today, (Wednesday) I helped out at another organization with one of the people working there who needs computer help (I'm no expert, but I figured I'd offer what little knowledge I have!). It's exciting doing something different everyday.... routines get boring ;)

The really crazy thing is, we only have about 3 more weeks (including this one that's now half gone!) of normal classes!! The time has flown by... this daily schedule that's just starting to feel 'normal' and 'routine' is soon to change... makes embracing the Buddhist principle of impermanence (everything changes) very important to my survival! As we start to wrap up, we are preparing for our Thai Language final next Monday. It has 2 parts (both oral!) The first is an individual part in which we have to talk (about basically anything, but in Thai, obviously) for about 4-5 minutes. For the second part, we are performing skits with a group for our professors. After that, we only have the rest of that week and one more week of wrapping up our other classes (including writing fun papers). We will have a farewell dinner for our families and internship supervisors sometime during the second week of March and then on March 13th we move out of our homes and head out on a week long field trip! It's hard to believe that things are ending already when I feel both like I just got here and like I've been here forever.

I also have been thoroughly enjoying my Fridays which usually consist of internship seminar from 8:30-10 and then art from 10:30-12 and 1:30-4... We have done watercolor paintings, pencil sketches, made and used stencils, painted pottery and carved pottery! I'm not great at it, but I welcome the opportunity to learn more about Thai culture in a completely different way! So far, I only have pictures of some of my watercolor paintings, so enjoy: =)

That's all for now... I should have a few more interesting posts this week if the potential planned events come to fruition!! Also, I just posted my first photo album of pictures from Thailand on Facebook, here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=291467&id=563504756&l=48d74466c8

Thanks for reading, have a lovely day!