What is school like?

School is very different. To start there are 3000 students here, grades 6 to 12. They have 8 buildings spread out throughout the block, and they aren’t in any order (I think that they built them in various places and numbered them as they built them never taking the time to put any order to it). When you enter the school through the main entrance to the right is a statue of the founder of the school and you must ‘wai’ (the bowing custom) to it and to the left is security which you also must ‘wai’ to. The first building to the left must be the administration, but I’m not sure. There are two places where every student must swipe their name tag in front and it has an electronic sensor that tells the school that they are there. If you do not swipe your card a message is sent to your parents that you are not at school, if I didn’t come to school mom would receive a message my host mom said!

At 8 o’clock every morning they have an assembly to raise the flag and to do some talking of some sort, I don’t understand what they tell the students so I go to the English Lab. As they raise the flag the national anthem is played by the band and one of the students leads the others in singing it, which is pretty cool. Sometimes the assembly last until 8:45 but most days it finishes at 8:30 which is when classes are supposed to start.

I love lunch here because it reminds me of a food court. There are 16 different shops to choose from and each one offers many different options so that if I only went to the same place every day, I wouldn’t have to repeat the exact same meal for at least a month if not more! I love that they have an ice cream place and a fruit place and a Thai dessert place too because I can always get something interesting to eat after my main course! The water is 5 baht and you can buy it all day. You can also get soda or some like juice like thing at a different place, but they fill the whole cup with ice before putting anything in it so by the time you take two sips it is all gone! Lunch can be purchased from 3rd period to 7th and after 7th you can buy the sweets and the fried things as well as water, but that’s it. The bakery is also open 3rd period to the end of the day, so sometimes I go and buy things from there.

My school has one of the top English programs in the nation. They have only native speaking English teachers in the English department (though for the students who English is not their main path they have Thai English teachers), they have one man from the Netherlands who speaks very good English so he is the only one is English is not his native language. The teachers are all really nice (well most). They are all very helpful to everyone and really try to make me feel comfortable. I enjoy talking to them because they understand where what I’m going through and they had the same culture shocks I did. They are all great and try to help me in whatever way they can.

My classes are very interesting, well most of them are. Thai cooking and Baking are challenging because no one speaks English, but I think that is kind of fun and that I will really enjoy that in the long run because I will learn a lot in those classes. This week is the last week of classes for the semester and next week all of the students have exams so I will be all alone in the English lab because no one has any free time (well the teachers will be in and out, but there will be no students). I plan on studying Thai everyday for at least an hour or two on my Rosetta Stone and maybe an hour or so in one of the books or packets. I really want to learn to speak because I have been here one month (Congrats to me I made it a month!!!) and I still don’t know any more than when I first came, so I am very disappointed in myself! When second semester arrives I will take some more classes and I think that I will take some of them in Thai so that I am forced to pay attention and to learn what is going on rather than sit in an English class where everything is so easy!

After school is fun because there are always food carts lined up along the school and we can go and get food and on Mondays there is always a market in the field across from the school which is filled with food and clothes and jewelry (and people) so it’s fun to go and explore. We can’t eat inside the English Lab (though I sometimes have snacks in here) so when we get food we sit out in front of English building at the picnic tables and eat and talk there. School gets out at 4 and I usually have to wait till around 5 for my host mom to pick us up, but sometimes she is earlier and once or twice she has been later.

The worst part about school here is the uniform. I don’t have anything again nice uniforms, but these are absolutely hideous and so unflattering. Mine shirt (which is a very light almost white blue with puffy pleated sleeves) is too bad but if I got a size smaller than I couldn’t move my arms because the sleeves would be too tight! The skirt is supposed to be worn above the belly button, but I got mine big enough that I could wear it just above my hips and if I lose any weight I can wear it around my hips like I like. The shoes are uncomfortable and give me blisters on my heels and the socks are the kind that you roll down not the ankle socks that we all wear. There is a belt that you must wear with the skirt, but there is no belt loops so you have to use butterfly clips, one on the right side and one in the back, in order to keep it in place (the one in the back is uncomfortable if you lean back). Then either we have to have our hair cut to right about the ear lobe or we have to pull it back into a pony and put a ribbon around it (they are nice to me and don’t make me pull my hair back). You can’t wear make-up or jewelry, though I wear my bracelets, watch, and necklace. The gym uniforms are terrible too and you have to wear them all day even if you have gym second period. The gym uniforms are navy blue sweat pants with two white stripes down each side and the school logo on your left hip and those elastic pieces you put around your feet to keep them in place. The shirt is a middle shade of blue and is very stiff (it is a pull over your head dress shirt type thing) and very uncomfortable to wear for any length of time. The shoes for that aren’t so bad, but I wear my running shoes because the gyms shoes have no arch support and are not good for my feet. So all in all the uniforms are horrible and I can’t wait for a three week break from them and for summer to come so that I can be done wearing it forever!

Well, now that I have written a two page (on Word) paper for you all to read with your busy lives, I think that will about do for this topic. I have a list of topics that have been mentioned to me that I will try to touch on at least two to three times a week. If there is anything you are interested in let me know and I will add it to my list and if you have any questions on something I write just let me know through comment, facebook, or email (buttonnose626@hotmail.com).