2 months in and I'm doing alright!

This is Erin. Dan has had the last few posts so I'm finally back to contribute a few of my thoughts.

School has been SO busy! I still stay at least an hour after the last bell rings trying to finish things up and am still taking work home at night because preparing for classes is never ending. But on a very positive note, the last 2 weeks have been pretty great. AND I have finished writing my midterms! Things in my classes have been going so much better and things are clicking. I'm getting to know my students pretty well and they are so funny. I had my club singing along to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and Justin Beiber this week... Like any 13-15 year old girls, they LOVE Justin Beiber.

Last weekend for 4th of July Dan and I got out of town and went to Hua Hin with some friends. It was sooooooo good to get out of the city. Nothing really compares to 4th of July at home, but taking a break from Bangkok with an amazing group of people helped curb the homesickness... plus the area we stayed in had a ton of American food! I had an omelet and toast 2 times AND a club sandwich. I think its really hard to visualize how much rice I eat in a day, let alone a week... but having American food options just made the weekend that much better. We also went to a monkey temple and got to feed the little guys... monkeys are so much scarier than you would think and they FIGHT for food. You can see in the picture one of the guys is pulling at Dan's shorts. They will climb on you without thinking twice to get some bananas. Its crazy. This weekend we stayed in BKK again, but I think next weekend we are going to visit our dear friend Rory in Saraburi and the weekend after that we have a 4 day weekend so we are going NORTH to Chang Mai. I'm so excited!

A monkey!

Dan feeding monkeys. Notice the cage in the background... Thats where they keep the food.

This photo is of Rory and myself. To celebrate the 4th I decided to get an ice cream sundae for us to share... as you can see I was very excited!

After 2 months of living in Thailand, things seem pretty normal. For example, my day today will consist of cleaning up the apartment, doing laundry and grocery shopping... maybe finding someplace to work out and going to bed early because I have work in the morning. All in all, my daily routine is not very different from what I was doing in Madison. The good news is that I'm not getting as homesick anymore, but I still have my moments where being here is too far away from home. Last night we met up with some other teachers from school who have been living in Thailand for 3+ years... while that would be exciting that's not the life for me. 10 months of this heat will be plenty, plus I don't want to miss out again on raspberry picking and jam making with Grandma, Kelly and Mom. And yes Mom, I am jealous :)