I moved.  Friday we graduated.  It feels too fast.  Friday night we all went out for drinks.  Wow, partying with 23 year olds is kind of boring.  Who knew?  Part way through the evening, I just decided to wander the bar and find someone else to talk to.  I met Alan.  He was drunk, but funny.  Annalise, one of my housemates, Alan and I hung out and went to hear a live Thai band that played hard rock.  The singer could really belt it out.  Quite amazing.  Eventually we met up with the rest of the group.  A fight broke out in the bar (not people in my group) and someone got stabbed.  This was the point where some of us decided it was a good time to go home.

I got about 3 hours of sleep and then got up to get on a van at 5:30am heading to Bangkok.  Three other teachers were with me as all four of us have the same school agent.  In Bangkok we had to get on a bus.  The bus station was confusing and I had to drag my giant suitcases all over the place, but we managed to find the right bus.  Then an 8 hour bus ride to Sukohthai.  One of our agents picked us up at the bus station and took us back to their house.  Everyone that lives on their street is family.  The entire family bought all the land and built houses on this one street.  At the end are some apartments where the agent’s teachers live.  We met some of the other Western teachers.  The three girls I was traveling with will be living there and teaching in Sukohthai.

An hour or two after getting there, one of the teachers from my school and her husband came to pick me up.  Patty is an English teacher at my school and will be assisting me with everything until the end of the semester.  She and her husband, Adam are real nice.  They took me out for dinner and then drove me to my new home a few hours from Sukohthai.  We drove by the school and some students were waiting for us.  They followed us to my house and helped me take my bags in.  I think they were the same students that painted and cleaned up my house for me.

Most teachers have small efficiency apartments.  I have a traditional Thai house.  Although, they put mosquito screens on all the windows which doesn’t look completely traditional.  No glass windows, just big wooden shutters.  There are still lots of holes and cracks for bugs to come in so I’m just going to pretend it’s like camping.  There are two rooms downstairs and a bathroom.  I will use one room as a kitchen.  Have no idea what to do with the other room. I have a gas stove, but no gas.  I have one table not big enough to put everything on.  I have dishes which I think were Patty’s.  A refrigerator is supposedly coming next week.  The bathroom has a flush toilet – ish.  My shower doesn’t have hot water yet – next week.  Upstairs, there are two bedrooms.  One has a twin bed and a closet.  They gave me a bug net for the bed, but I’ve given up for now on trying to get it hung up.  Now the light in my room isn’t working – it should get fixed next week.  I could move the bed into the empty room next door, but decided that is too much effort right now and I have a headlamp…..

Today Patty and Alan took me to Tak, the next town, which is bigger to shop at Tesco (kinda like Walmart).  I got some stuff for the house.  Should have gotten a bigger table for the room we will call the future kitchen.  Then we went to lunch.  By the time I got back this afternoon, culture shock had set in.  Although Patty is an English teacher and speaks fairly good English, it’s still difficult to communicate.  Not very many other people speak English.  There are no other foreigners here and I was quite the topic of conversation (in Thai) everywhere we went.  I’m nervous about teaching.  I’m tired of eating rice and noodles.  And I just want my temperpedic bed.  I got depressed.  I know this is part of culture shock and it’s just going to happen from time to time.  I tried to nap the blues away, but that didn’t work.  I unpacked most of my stuff.  Then I went for a walk in town.  I felt a little better walking around, but still quite low energy.  Patty and Alan took me out for dinner and now I’m sitting in my dark bedroom writing this.

I start teaching tomorrow – eeeeeek!  Commence ridiculous amount of photos:

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore