Where to begin.

Well hello again.

Wow 2 weeks, this is getting ridiculous :/.

          Long winded again this week, sorry guys, you should make sure you stick around till the end for some photos :D.

        I have recently met some lovely interns from America who are way up on their bloggings, I think I may take a leaf out of their books and complete blogs slightly more regularly and cover smaller chunks of time, at least that's the plan.

So where were we?

        Last time I was telling you about my amazing 10 days of blessings, I am lucky enough to be able to say that the amazing blessings have continued in my life since then. However I have experienced a really weird thing where just when everything is going great it has really increased how much I miss my family and friends back in Australia (how dare I whinge). I want you all back in Australia to know that this blog is to tell you those two things. Just to be clear:

        1). I am doing well and I am fine, there is no need to worry about me.

and

         2). I LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU SOOOOO MUCH.

         So last time I was just about to head off to church for the very first time this trip, and it was amazing :D. On my first day I had lunch with a bunch of new friends, was washed in worship and prayer (all in Thai, which is great for my Thai learning), had my first ever shot at playing badminton (or at least hitting the thingy) and ended up at a birthday party at the local Korean BBQ restaurant, what a day. I have continued to attend this church since then with the exception of yesterday (I was unwell) as well as attending a bible study on Wednesday, a great way to worship, meet new friends and practise Thai. Although I will miss Wednesdays Bible study session this week as I will be in Bangkok.

          I have also managed to squeeze in a few Thai lessons with the Awesome Aw who is Kruu (Teacher) Aw to me when in class and my friend Aw any other time :D. Aw has fast become a close friend and an amazing encouragement to me. She is never far away with a kind word, beautiful smile and offer to catch up and have a chat, THANK YOU AW. She is also a very patient teacher and does a great job of not laughing at me while I try desperately hard to get tones and Thai sounds right, the good news is that I am slowly improving, it is amazing what a good teacher can do.

          Speaking of a good teacher :p... So my big news over the last few weeks is that I am now.... wait for it... AN ENGLISH TEACHER. All you family and friends out there should stop giggling (I know you are). Ok I should probably explain. So last time we spoke I was desperately short on money and while I have a lot of things to do in terms of organising and preparing for future projects I still had some spare time. A friend I have worked with on previous trips knew of a need for an English teacher in a new school just around the corner from my house and to cut a long story short she recommended me for the job, spoke on my behalf at the interview and now I have a job. There are many many really awesome things about how this happened and the fact that it happened at all but I will give you the highlights. Number one it is a new (they have been opened less than a year) Christian school who currently caters for Prep to grade 1 (next year they will be expanding to grades 2 and 3). They focus on Montessori based learning which is very much in line with my beliefs as an OT and there are a few children attending the school that I may be able to assist with some OT skills I should be using.
          Some other amazing things, when we got down to the nitty gritty of the interview the principle hesitantly mentioned that as a new school they could not afford to pay me the full wage for a foreign teacher (p.s. the fact that I have a degree qualifies me to teach English to this age group) as I am not here to earn money I told them that I was only interested in enough money to stay, I asked the principle to go home and pray and let me know what God had told her to pay me. So we parted ways and a little over a week later we met again, the amount she offered is just enough money to cover what my sponsorship from back home is not covering. Thank you again to all my amazing sponsors and thank you to God for helping me to receive the money that I was short. Another amazing thing about this job is that tomorrow should be the last trip I have to do for my visa, as of Monday next week (My official start date) I will be able to apply for a different visa which will hopefully allow me to stay without the need for visa runs (please be praying for this as it gives my position in the country more stability and makes things much easier in many other ways).
          Also, just to let you know in order to give me time to focus on learning Thai and making arrangements for other projects I will be doing half days with the children Monday to Friday (9-12:30) as well as an hour on Mon, Wed and Thurs afternoon with the teachers (to help them with conversational English). Thank you so much for all your prayers and positive thoughts, I am staggered by what a perfect fit this position is with both my needs and the schools needs and hope that this is the start of a long running relationship with this school.

 Ok, looking at my post so far and I think it is time for some pictures :D.

The last 2 weeks I have again had the pleasure of spending time with new and old good friends :). Last Friday night we had an amazing Mexican night at the house of some of our American friends with people from Australia, America and Thailand, it was very multicultural.

Making lemon meringue slice for desert

Almost there




Out of the oven she comes

The lovely Doni (whose house we invaded for
Mexican night) and the Amazing Aw who
is ever patient and ever caring :D.

Aw was pretty excited about lemon meringue

       

        

          I am very sorry that I do not have more photos of the amazing Mexican food that was served (my phone was busy being used as a recipe book) and I would like to thank Emily Lloyd (one of the awesome interns, you will meet a bit later in this blog) for sending these to me (this blog would have been a very sad blog without them).

          A big thank you to Jason, Doni, Aw, Katie, Bobby, Emily, Elizabeth, Jenna, Jason, Josh and Palmy for an amazing night of food (Katie and Doni make amazing Mexican food) great company and enlightening conversation.

          Just one last thing on Friday night, special mention goes to Jason Rutch and Josh Denison... FOR FEEDING US BUGS:

These giant bugs to be precise :/

          In Jason and Josh' defence, they didn't actually know they were feeding us bugs (this is what happens when you don't know what absolutely everything is), J & J wanted to do the right thing and contribute to the party so they brought along two dips (on the recommendation of the children they work with). When reading the ingredients in Thai Jason came across one that he didn't recognise and given that the dip tasted kind of fruity he assumed it was a fruit... turns out no, after some discussion between the party goers it was worked out that the dip was actually made of giant bugs all squashed up, eeeewwwwww. Not all of us were 'lucky' enough to try the dip, but I happen to be one of the lucky few :/ it was surprisingly not terrible (however knowing it was giant bugs afterwards made me feel decidedly unwell).
          It did however make for an entertaining talking point, so thank you boys for keeping the night interesting :D.

          Saturday night I had the opportunity to spend some quality time with the three interns I have mentioned a few times, introducing:

Elizabeth and Emily

And Jenna

       





          Our night was supposed to be spent discussing them and their internship in Khon Kaen so far, but they were way to polite to stop me talking so there was no where near enough of their stories and far to many of mine :/. However we are hoping to have another opportunity to catch up before they have to head home. We did have a night of amazing food at a great Japanese restaurant in the big western plaza in Khon Kaen.



A train of raw ingredients



Sushi mmmmmmm



More Sushi



Deep fried prawns

         





        
          Again special mention to Emily for the amazing photos.

          So I mentioned a little earlier that I will be heading to Bangkok tomorrow (well today by now) to extend my visa for the first time and farewell a friend who has been working with an organisation here in Khon Kaen, he will be sadly missed. Just a few more pics so that you can meet and say goodbye to Josh, he is an amazing guy with a huge heart for God and the children here in Khon Kaen and I know that he will be missed by all who have met him here. The good news is that we expect to see him back in town in about 5 months time :D.

That thing in his mouth is a paper rose

Josh and Aw being silly while they work
out who is taller (hard to guess right?) 

On a bus at the markets with Josh, Jas and Aw

Testing out the mocca

Josh doing what Josh loves best

         

Ok folks, I think that is all for the night, there is so much more I should have told you, but it is well past time for me to try and get some sleep, I hope this blog finds you all safe and well until next time.

Cheers Cleo XO