klee811’s blog

[Written on Cultures Shocked. in the whiny post in the outbound section.

It was meant to be written to a friend of mine.(the only friend I feel like I have right now)

just the heads up when you read this so you don't get confused.]

 I am gonna go on my exchange, do amazing things, become someone different, change; for the better. but when i come back its not gonna be good. i lost a really good best friend. we were friends since 3rd grade ! thats 10 years of my life ! I MISS HER ! i did wrong, but she did it with me. i couldn't take it. i couldn't take her gossiping with you about me behind my back, then get caught for it. i couldn't take the fact that she flicked me off, no no; thats plain rude ! but you know how do you get over a friend that you had for 10 years, and spent ever summer together, had the same classes, roomed together at trips, called each other every night, did showchoir and choir and every singing and drama class you can imagine together? its hard.
how do i come back and expect to just jump into the life that i left? its nearly imposible. i am going my senior year, all my true friends are gonna go to college, just like me when i come back. and true friends...yeah i have less then i thought i did. all those guys who i talked to everyday in school haven't called me up or even talked to me on myspace or facebook yet ! but all the people who i meet here on cs talk to me more then you guys. my true friends?,, i think not.
i come back and go to college..there is no caughing up with friends, there gonna move on just like i will when i come back. so being scared? yeah. this was techinically my last year of high school and Nobody cared. nobody is going to talk about me while i am in thailand. everyone is going to forget about me. you just don't understand.
you are my best friend, and i know you care for me and will miss you. but look past that..think about the other people..really they don't care about some girl they made fun of for part of her life saying she eats cats and dogs. hell most of them are glad i am going.
my last day of school most of my friends said, 'good going back to your home country again, where you belong'. THANKS GUYS! i care for you too.
so you and me, we will always talk, and i won't forget you. but the others have forgotten me just like i have forgotten them. thats life. i just have to move on.

So if the title didn't give it all away yet, I'll tell you the BIG news !

I got my host family, and I am happy. I am going to Nonthaburi, Thailand. I have a host mom, older sister, and younger brother; but he is going to Germany for the year. Anyways. Nonthaburi is really close to Bangkok, which I am so happy about. It's smack dab in the middle. I don't have a school yet, I sent in my transcripts a few days ago to my host familys house so they can take it to the school so I can get accepted ! I can't wait.

My host sister is named Ploy. She just graduated high school a few days ago. And in about 8 days she will start college. Lucky me, she has perfect english, yet she has never been on an exchange before. She goes to an international school, which means she is in one of the top [her school is the top in thailand] schools in thailand, and that means the best english program in the country. I couldn't belive it when she sent me the e-mail, I was flabergasted that she never went on an exchange before. She didn't tell me my host mothers name, I guess I would call her 'ma' which is mom in thai when i get there. I don't think there is a dad involed, because she never talked about one and she didn't mention living with her dad when she sent me the first e-mail. Its all good.

Its funny, the thai exchange student my family is hosting right now living in nonthaburi, and he told me that I litterly live 10 mineuts away from him ! I am happy about that, idk about him though. I won't go to his school though, I am going to Benjama, he goes to Suwngularb. I am not accepted to Benjama yet, but hopfully thats the school I go to because I kindof want to go there now !

I am so excited I want my host family to send me pictures, show me what they look like. I don't want to call them because I am too afraid. I talk to my host sister on MSN, I think that is good enough for right now. I can't wait to go. One month three weeks. Comeon !!

Even though I am not an inbound, person who came to the country, all the outbounds were invited to go to the fairwell sleepover saturday and sunday morning. It was so much fun, you have no idea. We arrived around 4p.m to take our bags and sleeping bag to the cabin. There was one cabin for girls, one for boys, and one for out YEO. After that we all went into the great hall, or the dining area to eat a little snack. nothing big just chips and get updates on how everyone was doing. I still don't know my district, neather the less who my host family is.

They we went to go play soccer. It was fun, big field right next to the horses. I think we played for two hours before we went back in to have dinner. We had pizza and pop, my from the heart of the local pizza shop five minuts down the road =]

We then watched a slide show for the inbounds of their wonderful year. It was about one hour long of so many pictures because out YEO loves loves loves to take pictures. of whatever he can take. by that time it was maybe 9 or 10. we made a campfire, looked at the stars with this incredible telescope with someone who knows everything about them, he was amazing.

 

 Left: the camp fire we made with allison in the blue hoodie and hope in the dark blue. both outbounds going to spain and finland.

Right: the amazing telescope which you could see stars way out in the gallexies. and the wize guy who know everything about them all.                                                                

 

 

 

After that we went back in to play sheraids. It was fun. it lasted about hour and a half. it was so entertaining. and the most randomest things you could think of. The tie breaking guesses were A pengin in an swiming suit playing golf and Jay, our YEO in a garabe can with a banana peel on his head. Crazy huh?

 

 

 

Left: Alix the inbound from france who made up the who idea of playing.

Right: Waldo, from ecuador trying to get a point for his team.

Bottom: the people who are guessing.

                                       

After that some went back to the fire, some went to sleep and all the brasil boys, and just about every boy me and one girl who is going to agentina stayed in the DINING area to play soccer once again. We played untill 4 in the moring. the only reason we stopped was because one of the boys broke the window by kicking the ball to hard. but it was loads of fun.

Some of us stayed up all night. Me, hope, shannon, allison, anders, suhyun, and jay who wake up around 5. we talked, looked at the incoming exchangers for next year. and enjoyed ourselfs.

When it was time for breakfast some woke up and we had donuts, milk or orange juice. We packed our stuff and went to the playground and took pictures and then slowly said our good byes.

 

 

Left: The moring. Breakfast and some people who woke up to eat some.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left: German boy and French girl.

Right: 3 Brasil boys, 1 hungray and 1 thai boy. they all played soccer that night with me untill 4 in the moring. and the boy in the blue, from hungary broke the window. =]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Left: Mayumi from japan and Suhyun from south korea. I love them both because they became so nice to me.

Right: Mayumi and me. one of my favorite pics from the whole weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Above pic: the whole group. One of the greatest moments in my exchange experiance.

Overall this was a fun weekend and I love all the inbounds and I can't wait to be in Thailand and have just as much fun as they did coming here to America. i'll miss you all, keep in touch with me!

Yesterday I went to Niagra Falls with all the Northeast Ohio Inbound and Outbound students. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! We left at 9a.m. When we got there we had a picnic and walked around the falls.

In the beginging I met two other Outbounds. One going to Finland and the other to Argentina. I love them so much. I had a blast with them. We are like best buds now. I talked to the other Inbounds which was really cool. And they gave us a lot of advice, and we all just talked about normal stuff. FUN!

We had hamburgers at the park in Niagra Falls, New York. While it was raining the whole time. It never Stopped! Then we just walked around and explored the falls. Then our YEO, I guess, took us walking, to the place we just went to!

Which is the picture I took. That is also the Canada side. And the guy from Hungary just happend to get in.

 

 

Then we all walked for like 20 min to go ride the Maid of the Mist, as if we weren't soaked enough already. lol. We just wanted the poncho!

After that we went home. Most of us went to sleep. And Jay took pictures of the sleepers! lol. We stopped at Erie, Pa to grab a bite to eat at Quaker Stake and Lube. It was once again, fun.

That is the inbounds, outbound and the bold headed guy is Jay.

 

 

It was supposed to be one hour before we got home. It started getting darker and we had like a flash war on the bus. Everyone had their cameras out and was seeing whos flash was better!

About 20 min after we stopped that it felt like we were going 20 mph on the freeway. and how ironic we had to exit, stop the bus at the side of the exit ramp, everyone had to get out and stand at the side of the road because the bus was catching on fire! We had the fire truck come and police. Some called their parents and host parents to pick them up because we were only 10 min away by then. It was still some how FUN! I got a ride with Jay and 3 other Inbounds back to the high school. We were the last ones there. We were supposed to be back at 8:30p.m., but we got back at 10p.m.

 

 

Thats a wrap. I had so much fun. I loved talking to all the people. And I can't wait for the next event! omg I love RYE and I love the Northeast Ohio Kids!

Check out the Video!

     Last week I was asked to visit my local Rotary club, or the club that sponsored me to go on my exchange, and give a presentation about how my 'exchange experience' is so far.

     Okay, that didn't seem so bad to me. Yesterday in school I was called down to the office to get my exit pass for tomorrow, which the president of my local Rotary club called in for, so I guess it was really going to happen.

So when I got home I wrote up a little presentation on word, it was four paragraphs long, and basically I explained what I did to get to the point that I am in now. I talked about how I began my whole exchange experience, and the interviews  that I had to go through, and how I am preparing myself right now before I leave. It was about 5-7 minutes long, so to me it wasn't that long because I am supposed to give like a ten minute presentation. It's all old people, I didn't want to get them too bored.

     But anyways, so they introduced me, and I went up and read my presentation. I thought I did very good. I made them laugh at some of the things I said, and made some of them smile, so I thought I hit the jackpot. Well actually I did, to everyone but one never-can-stop-talking-will-say-the-complete-oppistite-of-you-no-matter-what old man. He said, it was too long, I should have done note cards instead of just read off my paper. blah blah blah. 'old man, shut up.'

    So other then that, everyone else loved it. They came up to me and wished me good luck, told me have a good time. And one person told me about her daughter-in-law who was Thai, and I had just recently met her at a party too, so that was cool. I told my club that before I leave I would do one more presentation, and during my exchange I would give them updates to how I am doing in Thailand. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't even have the chance to do this, so there are really grateful to me, except the crazy old dude.

    Over all. Today was a good day. I need to do some college searching, do more SAT studying. and get ready to go on my exchange. I need a camera. and a hard shell for my i-pod, and maybe a charger to charge it instead of putting it in the computer all the time, hmm.

 

Yeah. I know this isn’t really the Departure, or day before. I don’t plan on making to many pre-dee posts, but pre-dee is just as important as actually exchanging. [p.s.-this is my official blog site.]

So I just recently went to an outbound meeting for Rotary. I got my shirt, duffel bag with there logo on it, American flag, and I am getting pins with my district '6630' on them. I am pretty excited about it. I found out approximately when I leave too, the last week in July or the first of August. I am so excited, and I come back around the middle of July. So its really a year of exchanging. Soon I get my as they called it, blue packet, which is really my packet to get my visa which will let me get my plane ticket and my host guarantee! The travel agent who is affiliated with our district said the a Visa to Thailand on a scale of 1-10 is about a 2. It's really easy to get a Visa, thats good. Did you know for France its about a 9! Ouch!

Knowing that I went to Thailand before, more then once I have a little problem with other people. My mom's friends criticize me almost every time I see them. They say things like, why Thailand you been there before, you go the most expensive way, blah blah blah. Then after they say that I go in like this denial stage thinking if I really want to go or not. I can't wait to go but sometimes I think to myself why did I choose Thailand. I know why I want to go, but I think am I lying to myself?