my new life

Ayutthaya, my future home

Instead of writing about the emotionally and heart-wrenching goodbyes I had at Ban Chang Thai, (which I'm sure I"ll get around to expressing sooner or later) ... Here's a quick life update:

I've been in teacher-training class for the past 4 days, and it isn't as much of a nightmare as I thought it would be. It's a pretty good group of kids.

And despite all the mystery that has surrounded the program up to this point, I got my school placement yesterday.

Turns out for the next five months I"ll be living and teaching elementary school in Ayutthaya, the Old Capitol of Thailand.

So much for sticking around Chiang Mai, but I really can't complain. I'm not in Bangkok, and I don't have 7th graders. So that much I'm very thankful for.

Everything this week has been kind of overwhelming... leaving my Thai family, adjusting to new people and places, and discovering what this new chapter in my life is going to look like for the next 5 months.

Needless to say, there's been a lot of som-tam [papaya salad] and lao [whiskey] consumption this week to cope accordingly.

I'll post some videos later this week, but until then I added some more pictures to my facebook album about my last weeks at Ban Chang. (see link below)