TraveLLs

It has been a while since I have written an entry.  So long, in fact, that blogspot has actually changed their format!  But that will be perfect.  A new format to document a new adventure.  Before I go into detail about my next big step, I want to share some of my summer highlights.  When I arrived home from Thailand at the end of April, I spent the majority of my summer in Grand Junction.  I was not looking forward to living with my parents in the small town I grew up in.  Furthermore, it was the strangest thing to come home to a town I felt I knew so well and find that in six years, almost everything has change and almost everyone has left.  I was determined to not let the unfamiliarity of my hometown get me down.  I filled my summer with hikes, road trips, dancing, and yoga.  I started my summer with a trip to Salt Lake City to visit some friends.  That weekend there was a bachelorette party for a college friend of...

This weekend Preaw suggested we go to Chiang Mai.  The bus to Chiang Mai takes anywhere from 10-14 hours, so to go for the weekend seems pretty insane.  Preaw seemed to think it was  not only doable but a wise decision, so I opted to go.  A week before departure we asked Ari and Amanda to come along!  On Friday the four of us said goodbye to Khon Kaen for the weekend on an over night bus to Chiang Mai.  We arrived at 6:00 AM on Saturday and headed straight to the Chiang Mai Flora to check into our hotel.  We were too early so we dropped our bags off and headed to a nearby street stand for some coffee and breakfast.  After we got our room and washed up we headed out to the Chiang Mai Zoo. The Chiang Mai Zoo is the home to one of the few panda bear families in the world.  We took the tram in the zoo to the panda house to see Chuang Chuang, Lin Hui, and their baby Lin Ping.  We were lucky enough to come by at feeding time so the...

For the next month I am required to go into work, sign in, sit around, and then head home around 1 or 2 pm.  The rest of the teachers at Anuban Khon Kaen School will be writing lesson plans and getting ready for the up and coming school year.  However, since I will not be returning next year I have a lot of free time on my hands.  I have decided to make a scrap book of my time spent at Anuban Khon Kaen School complete with pictures, notes, and of course a few digits I picked up on my last day of teaching.  In a panic, a lot of my students gave me a piece of paper with their phone number on it.  They weren't ready to get rid of me just yet.  I also have job searching and life planning to take up my time, but that is all too much to handle at the moment so I'll get to that later. Bananoffee Monday was the first day spent at school with nothing to do.  Preaw told me about a coffee shop that one of my [former] student's parents own.  After ab...

Now that everyone is done teaching, the atmosphere surrounding Anuban Khon Kaen is a lot more relaxed.   However, the work is never finished.  This weekend I was required to come into school both days to start getting ready for the next year.  On Saturday I was needed to help make an English exam for the incoming first graders.  There are over 100 applicants for the English program at Anuban Khon Kaen School and unfortunately we can only take 80 (60 if we followed the rules, but unfortunately in Thailand that is not how it is done).  On Sunday we came in early in the morning to interview the kindergarteners.  The whole process was very inefficient but that is how it works in Thailand.  Even though the steps are unnecessarily complicated and in an entirely roundabout way, the job eventually gets done. When we finished the interviews in the early afternoon on Sunday we had the majority of the day left.  Air, my friend from Khon Kaen, has ...

In Khon Kaen I have met some amazing people.  Among these people is my friend Jay.  Jay used to work at Anuban Khon Kaen School and decided teaching was not for him, so he opened up a bar near the lake named Chocolate Bar.  Chocolate Bar has become one of my friends and my favorite weekend hang out spots.  This weekend, however, was special.  Chocolate Bar put on its first of  many art shows.  The show was titled Where Paint and featured local artists from Khon Kaen University.   A few weeks ago I wrote about my adventures I had as a result of my search for a fish.  Among these adventures was one involving a beautiful painting down a random alley in Khon Kaen.  It turns out these guys paint all over Khon Kaen in various alleys and what is more, these guys were the artists that Jay was featuring in his art show.   What was once a big, unfamiliar, scary city has now become a place full of connections ...

This is my venting session.  Shoes are a big deal to my boss and basically, I have just had it.  

I decided about eight months too late to get a class pet.  I thought a fish would be the easiest to care for and I could use it as a form of behavior management!!  That's right, kids.  No more stickers.  If you're good you get to feed the fish!  I had seen some fish at the Saturday night market so I decided to start my search there.  Unfortunately, there were no fish to be found!  I asked my friend Chelsea if she had seen any pet stores.  She said she had!  She pointed me in the direction of the shop and I ventured out to find a fish! I walked down the street for three or four blocks and hadn't come across any places selling pet fish.  I had bought some chai yen (Thai iced tea) earlier on in my search from a women who spoke English.  I went back to her and asked if she knew where I could find any fish.  This was our conversation, more or less: "Fish shop?" "You want to eat fish?" "No, no.  Pet fish.  ...