Moving

Alright, so I may have stretched the truth a bit about the every Friday thing. But I'm still trying to post more! So a lot has happened since I last sent out a post to everyone! I've decided to move! I'm going to be moving to Koh Samui and take my TEFL there instead of in Khon Kaen. Essentially, I've just been having a lot of trouble in Khon Kaen, finding enough to keep my attention held and getting things productively done. On top of that, there's just not a ton going on here in general. I've had a general difficulty making more than a just a handful of friends due to the fact that I just can't speak that much Thai which means it's really hard to communicate with people. So anyway, due to all this, I've decided to move to Koh Samui. I'm slightly worried about how it's going to be since it's been pretty built up. Definitely not quite as authentic Thailand as Khon Kaen, but I'm confident that I'm going to have a lot of fun there. Right now I'm just packing up stuff slowly and getting all my transportation arranged for going there. Fortunately, I really haven't bought that much for my apartment here in Khon Kaen. And, from that stuff, I can bring most of it (sheets and table lamp etc).
Anyway, on a different note, Caroline, who was visiting me for a while left on the 1st which has left me remarkably lonely. Surprise. But I'm muddling through, and will be OK =]. (To the elder generation reading this, =] is a smiley face). So, really not a whole lot to report. I'm currently working a class on Thursdays that is a conversation class. This involves me sitting with a bunch of girls trying to learn English while I essentially talk at them. They generally pretend to understand what's going on. However, it's totally fun because we always joke around and we have lots of food.

Honestly, this is the first time that I've truly been at a loss as to what to write about. So I'm going to tell you all about going to an official Thai business dinner.

After my class on Thursday, the owner of the school asked if I wanted to go to a semi-official business dinner, and that the teacher could come along with us so that she could translate for me. (The teacher I work with for the class is a fluent English speaker who does English lectures at the University). So we went to an open restaurant, meaning it wasn't inside a building but rather just under a roof. (So that I can use names to not confuse you with weird pronouns, the English translator is named Waen, the owner of the school is named Buun, I don't remember the names of the two guys we met with but lets call one the Creator, and one the Consultant) So we went to this restaurant and were introduce to the Creator and Consultant. We sat down, and they talked a little bit. No business talk but just small talk. Mostly they spoke in Thai so I couldn't tell what they were talking about but I know that it wasn't business. I found out that the Creator basically wants to market a product that is made in Japan, but he wants to market it in Thailand (they were little dessert sweet rice cake things...actually pretty gross) The Creator and Consultant had arrived at the restaurant before us and had actually already ordered food. This might be considered weird, but the way that we actually did the dinner was as a shared dinner. Much like when you share plates of food at home, but you would never do in a restaurant. But they ordered large dishes that everyone would dig their spoons and forks (and occasionally hands) into. I found this amazing because any sort of "fancy" business I imagine, everyone has their own very specific plate and you would hesitate to even share a salt shaker. Throughout dinner there was very little talking except between me and my translator. Though Buun was sitting in front of him, the Consultant completely ignored her and just watched the TV that was above our heads. I thought it was horribly rude, but I guess that it wasn't. After dinner was finished, there was a fair amount of time of just sitting around before they started talking about business. Something I found interesting was that the Creator was completely ignored. I mean like, staunchly ignored. I think throughout the entire conversation they consulted him once on something. The Consultant did all the talking with Buun and I assume they went over it. Anyway, just some cultural differences that I noticed between here and the US.

I know, not the most interesting post ever, but I'm moving on Friday so that should be rife with stories, which I will attempt to post this month ;)

Miss you all

Mikolka