More Shenanigans

Michael here again.

We have successfully navigated our first week of teaching. Let me tell you, it was highly experimental. We spent the week trying to figure out what and how to teach the kids here. As we begin our second week, things are a little bit more relaxed (at least they should be). Last week the school was being evaluated by the Thai government, which happens once every 5 years. So, that was a high stress time for everybody. In general, I found my stress levels to be fairly low (all things in consideration). If last week was a high stress week for everybody, and my stress levels were lower than I expected them to be, I'm anxious to see how this week goes.

The week was filled with lots of exciting discoveries and experiences. I had my first meal which was too hot for me to eat. Well, I ate it, and my stomach felt like it was host to a small fire for quite some time afterward. I have really enjoyed the food otherwise, though. Speaking of food, on Thursday, we went to the market again. There are so many fruits and vegetables... and then there are the other things as well, many of which are not identifiable. The smell is a bit overwhelming at times. We haven't really learned how to cook much Thai food yet. We are still trying figure out what all we have in the kitchen and what foods and groceries we need to buy. If rice and noodles are not in your good-tasting food vocabulary, you probably should not come to Thailand. We eat rice every meal, and noodles just about every meal. They also cook a lot of soups here with different vegetables and spices with varying levels of spicyness. If you come visit, I hope you like spicy food.

On Friday, we went into Chiang Mai with David Bell and about 15 students. There was a grand opening of the Hill Tribe Handicraft Center right next to the Adventist Church that the students sang for. After that was over, we ventured off on our own to explore the city. We made our way to Central Superstore, which is in a 5-story mall and explored around there for a bit. The mall is very western. Almost like any mall you'd find in the states. Many of the things to buy were just as expensive too. We found ourselves at a booth that was selling movies for 100 Baht apiece. That's about $3. Awesome! Then, of course after we got home we found out that the the movies are encoded in PAL, and most of the DVD players in the states only play NTSC movies. It's kinda funny how the U.S. is so different than the rest of the world. For example. U.S.: 110 Volt electrical sockets. Everywhere (almost) else: 220 Volt. U.S.: NTSC DVD players. Everywhere else: PAL and NTSC DVD players (dual). U.S. "Standard" measuring system (only to find out it's not so standard). Everywhere else: Metric measuring system. But I digress. After we bought some cheap movies that we won't be able to watch at home, we walked into the "old city" which is inside the moat. It was fun to just walk around and look. We ended up at a wat (Buddhist Temple) that was pretty large. It was nice to walk around it, look inside, and just see what the culture is centered around so much. There's even a place for "monk talk." When the monks are there, people can go in and talk to them about whatever. Maybe we'll do that sometime when they are there. To end the little adventure, we took a song tao (truck with covered bench seats in the bed) to another superstore, where we met Annabelle and went home. It was a good day!

Well, I'll let Summer tell the adventures of yesterday (Sunday). They were a blast! Pictures are coming soon. They are being difficult.