Advertisement
Rainbow!
My new favorite shot of my neighborhood. I took this right after a quick and thorough rainstorm. I thought it would be a nice little change of pace to write about how I'm doing, rather than writing about situation here in Bangkok and Thailand. For those of you looking for info on that, don't worry, I'll write more soon. Things have remained pretty steady overall this last week in that regard.
It's hard to believe I've been here 11 months already. I can't decide if it seems like only yesterday or a lifetime ago that I was running around the university in China, preparing for the end of the term, saying my good byes, and packing like crazy. Time really is relative.
It's summer now, and has been since April. Usually April is the hottest month (the hottest day of the year is supposed to be April 27 because it's the day the sun is closest to Bangkok) but as predicted by experts, May is proving to be hotter. How hot? The sun is well over the horizon by 6am and by 8 am it's already pushing 35 degrees (95 F). Heat indexes are over 40 each day (104 F). Unlike some warm places in the desert, it's not a dry heat; it's humid! My electric
Team Quesadilla's last time together
I have a new team now. And will have another new team soon. But nothing is quite like the original. bill has been unsurprisingly higher these past few months and I'm not even home during the hottest part of the day! I'm fortunate in that I've adjusted to the heat pretty well; it's hard to believe I come from the land of ice and snow.
Otherwise, most things here are about the same, so not a lot new to report. I'm still going to pub quiz nearly every week, but the curfew has slowed it down a bit. In order to make it home on the last bus, I need to leave straight away when it ends, and that makes it a bit stressful. I'm hoping that will change soon, but who knows.
I'm still going to Toastmasters and I'm still convinced this was one of the better decisions I made here. I'm loving the group as a whole and really enjoying the experience. I've done a couple of the projects and try to get up and speak each week. I've been getting great feedback which is always motivating.
My Thai lessons are also coming along, though I should probably study a bit more. I just finished level one and will start 2 and 3 next week!
Mango season!
I love mango season. 100 Baht a kilo is a great price, too!
Sadly, it's over now and seems to have been replaced by durian season. Talk about a slap in the face. 2 and 3 you ask? 2 is continuing the conversation, vocabulary, etc, whereas 3 is the start of reading and writing. After 18 years I'm finally studying a language with only one phonetic alphabet and I am so excited! My teacher says it's pretty hard, but after studying Chinese writing, perhaps I'll do better than average.
I've had to say good bye to a few friends these past months. One moved back to the US, another to Greece, and a family I'm quite close to is moving to Qatar quite soon. I hate the good byes but I know they're a big part of life as an expat. A big difference between living here and living in China is that in China, good byes usually only happened twice a year, at the end of the terms. Here, they can happen at any time; it's like living with a big revolving door.
There's been lots of other little joys, too, but I'll let the photos speak for themselves, as they always do.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0574s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb