Kim and Jeremy in Thailand

The conference has gone pretty well. There are a LOT of people here, but they're spread out among little seminars for most of the day, so it doesn't feel so huge. Last night Angela, Sam, & I went to Mike's for dinner. It's a hamburger place, and it was great to have some American food! Then we watched National Treasure.

The best was this morning, when we went to a little place called Bake & Bite on the way to the conference. We got bagels!!!! I know that doesn't sound exciting, but it's the first bagel I've seen since I've been in Thailand. I even took a picture!


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Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!! I hope you all are having wonderful celebrations!!

We took a break from the conference to have Thankgsiving dinner at SoJo's with Gene, Linda, & Angela Fisher, and Don & Lynne Picker. It was great!!


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The end of the semester, that is. It's hard to believe how fast time is passing here. We only have two days of school this week, because Wednesday through Friday we are doing the ICEC conference. It's going to be huge-almost 700 people are coming, mostly staff of other international schools. Then two more weeks and a week of final exams. It's going to be over before I know it. On the one hand, the prospect of being caught up on my grading is very exciting to me!!! It will also be nice to have time to see more of Thailand than just our immediate surroundings. But on the other hand, a lot of people will be gone, and it's the first time I'll have ever been away from my family for Christmas. So in some ways I'm not really looking forward to the break.

One thing that makes it easier is the weather. It still gets above 90 degrees almost daily. Everyone is in shorts and t-shirts, and downtown Chiang Mai is perpetually full of tourists. So it's easy for me to think that it's still late August, and it's not really time for the holidays. Even though I know that this week is Thankgsiving, for example, I don't feel like I'm missing Thanksgiving because it still feels like summer. I think in that respect it's easier for us than for our families when we're away for the holidays.

We'll be going to SoJo's for Thanksgiving. It's a restaurant run by one of the baptist groups around here, and they feature mostly southern food. We've got a group of 9 going, and they'll have turkey, dressing, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie-most of the traditional dishes. It won't be the same, but I'm excited that we will get to celebrate with friends here.

Yesterday was a packed day! After school, our girls had two soccer games. The first team was a little too easy for them and we got kind of embarrassed-I think we won something like 11-0. The second team was much more of a challenge for them, especially since they had just played a full game and the other team hadn't. But they hung on and ended up breaking the tie with just a few minutes left to play and won 2-1. It was good.

Then we went to dinner downtown. Yesterday and today are Loy Krathong, which is one of the biggest celebrations in Thailand. The people send these beautiful krathongs made of flowers, banana leaves, and candles, down the river. I have heard several stories as to why; everything from it originating with the women sending notes to the men who were fighting a war downriver to it being an offering to 'mother river' for polluting it. I think the stories about it being an offering are probably more accurate, but it is like many holidays in the US that no longer hold spiritual significance for most people who participate. The Thais also light these big paper lanterns that work as kind of mini hot air balloons that float up into the sky, and there are lots of fireworks!! It was really neat to see. A large group of us from Grace went downtown and ate dinner at The Gallery, which is a riverside restaurant. Unfortunately, since it was at night, a lot of my pictures didn't turn out well. But I do have some up in the gallery.

This weekend was the gigantic yard sale at Grace. It's a big fundraiser for all the classes, but the community also gets involved renting spaces to sell whatever they like. Some of the local businesses rent booths to sell too. We knew that over 1000 people came last year, but I pictured them spread over a large area of the school, not all trying to walk down the sidewalk at the same time!! It was crazy busy. My 9th graders were selling milkshakes, fruitshakes, and pizza, and they pretty much had customers nonstop. It was a good day, but a tiring one.

That afternoon I ran some errands, including mailing Christmas presents to our families! That was an exciting moment, since we've been collecting things for nearly two months now to send!! I wish we could have sent to more people, but it costs more for the shipping than it does for the actual gifts here. Still, it was exciting to ship those off. They should arrive in a month or so.

Sunday we went to church and then went to SoJo's with the Fishers afterward. I may have mentioned SoJo's-it's run by a Christian family and they have a lot of really good American food with a southern slant. They are having a big Thanksgiving meal, so we signed up for that while we're there. It's nice to know that we'll be able to have turkey and sweet potato pie, even if we can't spend it with family.