Mai Pen Rai: Jen's Adventures in Thailand

"EVERY TIME YOU HAVE MADE A THOUGHT, LAUGH AT IT." ~LAO TZU

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Back to School Special

So summer was a bit too long. I know that's not something that most people would ever say, but here in Lampang it was quite a boring 3 months. Since I had to save for our trip home in October, I wasn't able to travel. I also had to pop into work for about 1-2 hours a day so it restricted my leaving town to visit Otto in Chiang Mai. Most of my friends were out of town and it was too hot to do anything outside. I holed up in the living room with the air con blasting and watched tons of movies, scrapbooked and read a lot.

Otto and I celebrated our 2-year anniversary on May 26th. We stayed in this amazing new art hotel in Chiang Mai called Mo Rooms. check out the website at morooms.com. They have 12 rooms, each one based on an animal from the Chinese zodiac. Each room was designed by a different artist and is full of functional art and every room has its own aromatherapy scent. We stayed in the monkey room which had the most amazing bed I've ever seen. It was like a bamboo globe that surrounded the bed and apparently it cost 200,000 baht to build. The whole room looked like a cave with dark walls and lots of rocks and found driftwood. There were also tree branches coming out the walls and windows. I will definitely post pictures. Needless to say we had a wonderful night and it was an experience that can never be replicated. We would never be able to afford to stay in this kind of hotel in the states, so we were lucky to have that experience.

I am so happy to be back in school. I'm coming into my third week and it feels great to be back. I'm the kind of person that enjoys having a schedule and when I'm busy, I actually seem to get more accomplished. I'm teaching ENG 102 with a mix of Thai, Chinese and Korean students. I'm also teaching ENG 201 with the juniors and seniors who are quite rowdy. It's taken me a while to figure out how to manage them but I've finally got them under control. I'm also teaching Speaking and Listening which is a class for Business English, Tourism and BBA major students. My favorite class by far is my Writing II class with the English majors. It's a class focused on writing essays but I've taken liberties and am doing more creative writing assigments. I'm already quite impressed by what my students have accomplished and I can't wait to read their first essays tomorrow.

We're finally in rainy season and I love chilling at home on rainy evenings with a cup of tea. I'm still looking for a roommate but I met a nice girl this past weekend and she's coming over to check out the house this week. Otto has all of his documents ready to apply for his visa to visit America with me in October. He will interview at the end of this month so please send all your positive thoughts towards him! That's all for now. Enjoy your summer days!