Hooray for the weekend!

I am exhausted!  They weren’t kidding when they said that the CELTA was a rigorous class.  We have lectures in the afternoon and teach our class in the evening, and my nights and mornings are generally spent preparing for class so I haven’t had a lot of time to explore.

I’ve finally starting to adjust to the time change, although I’m not sure that’s a good thing.  It was kind of nice to wake up early on my own, I had a lot more time to do all of my work.  I went on another run yesterday morning and had to pry myself out of bed.  I went straight to the University and took a nice run around their campus.  As I was nearing the gate to leave I noticed that everyone suddenly had stopped what they were doing, the students stopped talking and the cars and bikes all stopped in the middle of the street.  I had vaguely heard a loud speaker but didn’t think much of it because there are trucks here that drive around blaring music and advertisements.  I turned the corner to see a man in uniform raising the Thai flag to the national anthem.  And then as quickly as it had begun, he finished and everyone went back to what they were doing.  It was kind of nice to see how everyone stopped what they were doing for a few moments to watch.  

I’ve been pretty careful about what I eat and drink here in Chiang Mai.  I haven’t been drinking water unless I see that it came from a jug or it’s a nice restaurant that caters to foreigners and I haven’t risked eating any uncooked and un-peeled fruits and vegetables like lettuce.  I’d also read something about staying away from crushed ice because it’s delivered in pick up trucks and you don’t know where it’s been and how many people have touched it.  Well I went to my favorite coffee shop and ordered my usual soy Thai tea, with crushed ice, and was relaxing and working on a lesson plan when to my surprise a pick up truck pulled up and two guys got out and carried large bags of ice into the cafe.  Oops!  I was worried about it in the market but hadn’t even thought about it at the cafe.  Although I was picturing guys shoveling the ice out of the dirty bed of a truck... it came in plastic bags, and obviously hasn’t killed me yet so I guess I’m just not going to worry about it.

I taught my second lesson last night and it felt a bit easier and less scary, still have a lot to work on and not feeling particularly confident.  Afterwards we all went out as a group to a local ‘English’ style pub.  My classmates are a great group of people and it was fun to relax and wind down after a busy and stressful week!

A pond I found on my run at the University

Raising the flag

Dirty ice?