My First Rotary Meeting

Before I talk about my meeting I thought it would make sense for me to first mention what I did today. This morning I woke up and sent out a couple emails and then I went downstairs and watched a couple movies. I had Pomello [pretty much a giant orange] for lunch as well as cornflakes and then I had a shower and read some of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". I have read 4 books since I have been here, I am wondering what I am going to do once I run out of books. Then my mom took me out to dinner where I met two of her friends and fellow teachers and I had Suki Heh. It was delicious.

Then we had dessert which was also delicious... and now I'm here :)

My Thai name is official!!!!! I have been named Kulap which means Rose in English. Koon Paw Es named me because he said I was very beautiful and of course when he said this I started crying.. classic me. I now have school uniforms with "Kulap Sangprom" [my host family's last name] embroidered on them as well as "Emma" and the initials of my school. The Rotary meetings for Nakhon Phanom are held on Thursdays at 8:00 pm at a big hotel on the Mekong River. The hotel was gorgeous and my mom and dad took me outside on the patio in the back and I got to see the Mekong River at night time. It was breathtaking; there were hundreds of yellow tulips growing all along the shoreline as far as you could see. I noticed when I initially walked outside that there were black things moving on the white poles outside. Of course I thought there were bugs but when I looked closer they were lizards! Tons of little lizards crawling all along the poles outside, on the walls and on the ceiling. Then I remembered how I had seen one on the wall outside my bedroom door when I had first arrived in Nakhon Phanom. I guess they are everywhere here and they are SO CUTE! There are also just as many dogs and cats roaming the street as in Bang Pa-In. They kind of scare me when I randomly see them, it is still a shock to me that wild dogs are allowed to raom the streets wherever they please. Anyways, back to the meeting. After we looked around a bit we went upstairs where there was a room with only two people in it sitting at a long table. The one woman invited me to sit next to her and asked me a bit about myself. Then I met the other exchange student Suzanne who lives in Nakhon Phanom. She does not live in my district but she lives only about a 10 minute drive away. Suzanne [or "Sai" which means sand (we think it is because of her hair colour)] is amazing. She is so much fun to talk to and almost the whole meeting we chatted about our experiences in Thailand so far, our families and how we get along with them and about our schools. Of course we had no idea what they were saying in the Rotary meeting so we tried to be very quiet when we were talking becuase we didn't know when they were talking amongst themselves or when they were saying something important. We noticed that other people were talking so we just chatted quietly. Then we had to introduce ourselves. I said "Sa wad dee ka, Chan Cheun Emma, Mee Pee sow sam Quon" which means "Hello, My name is Emma, I have three sisters"... That's pretty much the only thing I could think of to say. Of course I know much more than that but it was all very sudden so I didn't know what to say haha. Sai has invited me to go shopping with her and some of her Thai friends tomorrow. We are going to meet at her school and bicycle to the place where we will go shopping. I'm excited to meet some more Thai people because until I met Sai I have had no friends. I haven't started school yet so I haven't met anyone except adults who are friends with my parents or other teachers at the school. My mom seems a little worried about letting me go, but she needs to let me go out with friends some time. I am really excited for school, apparently there is a guitar course that I think I will try to take with Kate who I know from MSN. Kate also told me I should join the school orchestra and play my flute, and she asked me to be the English vocalist for her rockband. 55555!! I didn't know what to say to that becuase I'm not a good singer at all, but I think that English is English and they probably wouldn't care either way. Haha. I am really excited for this weekend and then the weeks to follow; I am so sick of sitting at home all day watching TV. I'm not allowed to walk around the city alone even in the middle of the day so my past week has been filled with ironing, watching TV, eating and reading. It's not that exciting. I'm excited to start doing something! And to wear my uniform [as funny looking as it is]. "Everyone knows I'm in over my head" - The Fray

Until Next Time,
Kulap xox.