"The plain fact is that the planet does not need more 'successful' people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it." --David Orr

The quote above comes from one of our reading assignments from this past week, and I think explains the purpose of this study abroad program well. We're not learning to be medical doctors or lawyers or even CEOs...but we're learning more about how to "live well in our places" and be kind to and be productive with the world that we live in.

The homestay is coming to an end, and it's definitely bittersweet. I'm going to miss my little host sister who is 8, and my host parents as well. I'm excited to have more freedom and be able to explore the city more, though. Last night, my mom dug out an old box of Thai dancing costumes for me to try on because next week there will be a banquet for all the host families and students...and Franchi, Angela, Marcia, and I will be performing a traditional Thai dance for everyone. My dance skills are limited, so this should be interesting. I was also in the backrow in cheerleading...and generally default to the always funny box-step during dance parties. I'll make sure someone captures that lovely (and embarrassing) Thai dancing moment on video so that everyone will be able to laugh at my expense.

I'm still struggling in the Thai class department, my brain is pretty much rejecting the language. Every day without fail in Thai class I experience an extreme laugh attack and cannot control myself. Yesterday my Thai teacher called me "Diing Dawng" which is a cute way of saying someone is crazy in Thai...sooo that's always good. The other night I was going through my Thai class notebook with my host aunt (Pa Daang) who lives with us. I pointed at the word for "not smart" (mai chalahd) and said "Hannah gahp Franchi mai chalahd passah thai" which means "Hannah and Franchi are not smart in thai language". Pa daang laughed at then pointed at the world for "funny" (dtahlok) in my notebook and said "Hannah dtahlok mahk mahk" meaning "yes, but you're very funny". So even if they think I'm stupid...at least they're getting a good laugh.

Last Friday, a group of us from ISDSI got to speak with a group of Burmese students. We had the opportunity to ask them a lot of questions regarding their feelings on the military regime in Burma. I can't go into much detail, but it was definitely a life changing day. If you don't know much about what's going on in Burma right now, take a minute and look up some news on the subject. The people are being oppressed in ways that I'm sure are unimaginable for most Americans. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to speak with people who could give us honest and candid answers instead of getting an edited version of the story through the media.

Tomorrow night, Franchi and I are going to the Night Bazaar with my host family. The Night Bazaar is basically a big market with cool clothing and food, and lots of local street performers. Other than that, I think we'll just have Thai dancing class this weekend and I'm not sure what else. It's the last week with our host families...hopefully it will be a good one. Also, my host mom found out that I like to run, so we're going to start running together which I'm excited about, even though is incredibly hot and humid here and running is pretty much torture...it needs to be done. I'm starting to feel ill from the lack of exercise and the excessive eating, especially when my host mom's key phrase during meals is "take more" or "eat more". She makes me eat a ton of food, but she's on all fruit diet right now because she thinks she's fat. Unfair.

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weekend #3

Helloooo to those special few who are actually reading all this random stuff that I blabber on about. This weekend was really fun, but it was supposed to be relaxing and I now find myself even more exhausted than before. On Friday, we went to a reservoir right outside the city and were asked to swim 300 meters and tread water for 15 minutes as our swim evaluation. Then we drove about an hour and a half outside Chiang Mai to a national park where we stayed for the weekend. We slept in bunk houses basically, that weren't rustic but weren't exactly glamourous by any means. There were about 15 "mattresses" on the ground in each bunk house, and there were ants crawling all around. We had a lot of free time on Friday, which I used as nap/reading time. On Saturday, we woke up early for breakfast and listened to a talk about risky situations in the wilderness. We broke up into 4 groups, and then each group had to rescue one of the other students that had been "injured". I can't figure out how to explain this easily...I think it's from the lack of sleep...but basically each group was given a map and we had to walk out into the park and find the "injured" student and then evacuate them back to where we started. My group had to evacuate a guy named Leo who weighs 200 lbs and is 6'4". That was interesting. The point of the activity was to teach us the basics of evacuation and medical care in case anything were to happen later on during the field studies. After that, we had free time so we all went to the waterfall which is in the national park. That was the coolest part of my time in Thailand so far. I have to figure out how to post pictures, because we all got to swim in the pool of water at the bottom of the waterfall. It rained earlier, so the water was moving really quickly. During that time, it finally hit me that I'm actually in Thailand. On Sunday, we woke up and went for a hike in the jungle. It was really beautiful, but kind of muddy because it's the rainy season. I didn't bring my camera with, but we saw all sorts of cool plants and also ended up at a beautiful spot overlooking the waterfall. We saw a eucalyptus tree which was beautiful...try and find one on google images or something, because it looks like a camouflage tree. After the hike, we got all cleaned up and drove back to the city. Angela, Franchi and I went to watch my host mom play soccer, which was really fun and goofy. Angela and Franchi both played a little bit, but I decided not to because I was tired and hot and just not really in the mood.

I've been trying to get as much sleep as possible, because my body is starting to react to the exhaustion I think. So, I apologize if my blog posts are spacey and misspelled or don't make sense. My head isn't all there, especially before 9 am which is usually when I have a chance to update my blog. Other than being tired, things are going well! I'm excited to get out of the city, and out into the hills once the field studies start. The city is kind of dreary and incredibly polluted. It's crazy to think that my homestay is almost half way over though. Time is flying.