And so it begins...

Sawatdee kha!

First of all, please read this without worry – I know CNN has been bombarding you with images of the floods currently ravaging Thailand. Thankfully, I am in a safe area of the province of Suphanburi, unthreatened by the floods.

In the future, I will attempt to keep these posts short & sweet. I worry that my thoughts will become a narrative of what I intend to post, losing the rawness and honesty allowed only the privacy of my own mind. So I’ll keep them simple. However these first two weeks have been so jam-packed with newness. I’d like to do them justice.

Fifteen days ago, I left the good ol’ City of Brotherly Love, embarking on a six month adventure centered on teaching English to secondary students in Thailand.  I am living my dream of living abroad. Thank you to everyone who dared to dream this dream with me. The letters of encouragement meant to world to me as I literally flew across the world.

The lengthy flight from Chicago to Hong Kong gave me a glimpse of just how desperately I was yearning for this change of pace and change of scenery. The thought of 15 hours of pure down time was outrageously indulgent. I watched four full-length movies, an episode of Modern Family, took a glorious nap, and read about half of Eat, Pray, Love. After devouring six months’ worth of American delights (Wawa hoagies and sparkle donuts galore) in the weeks before I left and then enjoying shrimp salad and a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar with my airplane meal (step your game up, US Air...), I was certainly ready to Pray & Love in Thailand.

That didn’t last long though. The food is incredible. Ninety percent of the time I have no idea what I’m eating – some combination of noodles, rice, beef, chicken, pork, seafood, chili, basil, cilantro, curry, eggs (yes, EGGS!), fish sauce, sugar, and probably some ingredients that are better left a mystery. But it’s all been delicious, or “aroi” in Thai.  I bought two packs of fresh-cut pineapple and a pack each of two unidentified fruits (case in point) for 40 baht at the market this morning. That’s like a dollar and thirty cents at home. I think I’m going to like it here.

I spent the first week of my time in Thailand split between Bangkok and Chonburi, participating in orientation activities organized by Overseas Educational Group, the program that acts as the middle man between us eager Americans and the schools here in Thailand. My roommate for the week was a girl named Vi - a UT grad (shout-out to the Turtletaubs!), photog-extraordinaire, and an absolute blast. People kept asking us how long we’d known each other because we got along so well. “Uhhh...like 38 hours now I guess?” was our typical response. Suffice it to say, we hit it off. The rest of my orientation group, the outstanding Group B, was equally incredible. I met people from all over the US & the world – from Manchester, England to Johannesburg, South Africa. People interested in everything from geology to engineering, and even stop motion animation.  It was a glorious mix of totally different people, all here for different reasons, but all taking the plunge into an enormous life change.

So all of our life paths collided in Bangkok, and after a whirlwind of a week we were off to our individual placements all over the country. I arrived in Suphanburi, my province, a little nervous, a little anxious, and fairly overwhelmed. I slept well though, despite these nerves, and the sauna-like atmosphere and cloud of mosquitoes feasting on my legs. The next morning, I stepped out of my apartment to a rugged front yard, sweltering heat and a mangy stray cat. I have never felt so much affection toward a cat, but it was living and it was familiar and that was enough. Since then, I have started to settle in and find my stride. Stray animals don’t provide the same kind of comfort that they did that desperate first morning, but I find almost everything else to be exotic and fascinating. My curiosity is nurtured here. I’m sort of basking in this constant state of wonder. We passed a local fair – complete with colored lights and throngs of teenagers – and a genuine, knee-jerk “whoa!” escaped my lips. I realized that to those Thai teenagers, this fair was as common as a summer evening on the boardwalk down the shore is to me, but I saw the festivities as unfamiliar and full of cultural intricacies. And I plan on holding on to this newfound naivety as long as possible.

My apartment is beautifully simple. Two small rooms, a bathroom, bed, dresser, refrigerator, microwave, rice cooker, fan, drying rack, bare walls, open space, and endless potential. Every day it becomes a little more my own. I just bought a neon mosquito net that I’m kind of in love with. My next-door neighbors are two Chinese teachers on one side and a Thai English teacher on the other. All speak English and all have been lovely and helpful.

My classes are enormous and hilarious. Sixteen classes of about forty students each. That’s six hundred and forty individual students. Every week. I constantly hear “Hello Teacher!” and my favorite, “I LOVE YOU!” followed by choruses of giggles (and yes, Anna, they say “veshebles”). My life slogan seems to have become “fly by the seat of your pants,” or “fly by the seat of your long flowy skirt,” in my case. Every day is an adventure. Every class is an adventure. Every meal is an adventure. Every breath is an adventure.

The dear Allison Moran gave me a Quotable Card before I left with the ever-wise words of Mother Teresa,

"We have been created for greater things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degrees, this work and that work. We have been created in order to love and to be loved."

I love the simplicity. To love and to be loved. Short, sweet, and all-encompassing. I’m not sure how the next few months will shake out, but I have an open mind, an eager heart and eyes peeled for greater things. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted.