Thankful

Today and everyday I have so many things to be thankful for...especially my amazing parents who always support me and my big brother and sister who are the best friends I could ever ask for.

I'm thankful for Ms. Kassie Bluefishes and my entire extended family.

I'm thankful for Thanksgiving traditions, especially biscuit breakfast and drawing and dress up.

I'm thankful for giraffes and surprises and best friends who are like siblings and for my second mommy and daddy.

I'm thankful for mermaids and Rotary and snow and laughing. And I'm thankful for all my new Thai friends and family.

I'm thankful for kittens even if they have to grow into cats and I'm thankful for comfortable beds and air conditioning.

I'm thankful for hot chocolate on cold winter days and I'm thankful for the beautiful place I got to grow up.

I'm thankful for all my childhood friends, playing elves and dwarves and Narnia...

I'm thankful for authors and for artists.

I'm thankful for dancing and for singing and for uniqueness.

I'm thankful for differences and culture and language.

I'm thankful for smiles and for generosity.

I'm thankful for honesty, kindness and promptness.

I'm thankful for friends.

I'm thankful for Earth, for the ocean and the mountains.

I'm thankful for forests and flowers and gardens.

There are infinite things that I am thankful for, this is just the beginning...

What are you thankful for?

-Kearn

Reflections with Wether's

The packaging isn't quite the same but I open it anyways and pop it into my mouth. The flavor... That's the same. I can taste the cold rainy days at the Alaska State Fair, quietly raiding the free candy bowls with my older siblings and friends, Mariah and Kaila especially. This reminds me of the days we would arrive early in the mornings and while Mom opened the booth we would run off to buy huge waffles complete with fresh peaches and whip cream. Vendors only. We'd bring them back to the booth, drizzle birch syrup on them, gobble them down... The times we went to the petting zoo and watching the "How to Milk a Cow" show over and over just because it was a place to sit. The little trucks dad would always take us to drive and me... I was always the one who drove straight into the tires lining the tracks and got stuck. Hoopin' Hula cookies with a cup of cold milk, the hula hoops and all the quarters we spent on steaming buttered buns from Bushes Bunches. Playing Bingo with peanuts in the little trailer and trying unsuccessfully to catch grasshoppers in the shadow of the big barn. Horse rides. Corn fritters with Dad. Wax hands. And of course, our annual family photo button. This is what I taste. All this... held inside one silly little candy. All this, these memories of a faraway place called Alaska... all this as I sit in Thailand eating one simple candy made in Germany. Thank you Werther's. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Tiny green ripples propelled by the slight, rare breeze. The sun beats down on us as we sit. My toe touches the water. Warm. It's strange for me, a childhood in Alaska has taught me that water is most definitely always cold. But here again, Thailand has shattered yet another of my ignorant generalizations. I am reminded how little I really know compared to how much is truly knowable... Tiny fish and water bugs make their way. The leaves in the banana trees rustle and we can hear the muffled voice of a teacher in a room in the building behind us. A thai voice, a few floors up, saying something we don't understand. The sound blends into the background and I realize how still it is... but at the same time it is not still at all. Ants scurry to and fro, water bugs and fish swim every direction, leaves fall silently to the ground, the grass sways, the fans in the rooms behind us spin onward, onward, onward... truly it is chaos, in a way. And here we are, sitting in the middle of it, insignificant to the tiny creatures and lives around us. "What are you doing?" we hear as a student in the building behind us calls out to us from the open window on the top floor as we get up to leave. We look at each other. No words pass our lips.

What are we doing? What is this thing we call life? What is our purpose? What is our goal? What are we doing? Tiny ripples... to the water bugs they must seem like huge waves. So could our tiny individual goals make a difference... could they be the waves somewhere, someday?

Absolutely.

The shore, the ocean or the ship?

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." -Andre Gide

Alaska is the shore. Home is the shore. My parents, my friends, my family is the shore. My school is the shore. My hometown is the shore. My family traditions are the shore. My way of life is the shore. 

I am the shore.

The ocean? The ocean is Thailand. The ocean is Thai people. The ocean is my host families. The ocean is my new school. The ocean is my new hometown. The ocean is my new group of friends. The ocean is my new way of living. The ocean is everything I hear, see, smell and breath now. 

So in a way, I am also the ocean.

Before I left home I remember describing exchange as feeling like I was falling. I wasn't sure who or what or if anything would catch me, but for some crazy reason I was willing to jump. And I'm glad I did. 

Here's something my Dad reminded me; 

 "A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are built for."

So maybe I'm the ship? And exchange is part of my voyage? 

-Kearn

English? Arai na?

Uhm... uhm... uhhh...

My mind is racing. My teacher is standing across the table from me; she's stopped looking at the pink flowers she was arranging and is now staring straight at me, watching as I struggle to remember English. She has asked what we call a flower that has not yet bloomed. She has one in her hand and is showing it to me... of course I understand what she is asking but what... what is the answer? I close my eyes and open them again, tap my fingers hopelessly on the desk, turn to the other girl in the room--she is Italian--"Don't look at me!" she says, I close my eyes again, think-think-think, this is taking altogether too long... OH! It comes to me, "bud". English, my mother tongue, ฉันจำไม่ได (Chan jam mai dai.) I can't remember it.

This is certainly not the first instance in which I've been unable to remember English words, and this word-- "bud"-- is perhaps a bit more obscure than a few of the other's words such as; biscuits and gravy, endangered, wardrobe, monk and perhaps the worst of all... bus, which I have been known to misplace somewhere in the rusty English dictionary in the back of my mind...

I often find myself repeating English sentences in my mind and wondering if they are grammatically correct. ("I'm going to go take a shower." still gets me... you are not taking the shower anywhere! It stays where it is! What in the world, English! Why?)  I often think in Thai and translate into English when I'm writing. I type, delete and retype words. I talk to myself in Thai. 

This forgetting of my mother language; it's strange, obnoxious at times and also in it's own way, it's wonderful. Of course, it's all part of the adventure and I hope you'll continue to follow along with me despite having to bear with me as my English slowly gets worse and worse... I'm apologizing now for any spelling or grammar mistakes I've made previously and for all of those which I will undoubtably be providing you to laugh about in the future. Wish me luck with my language skills -- both Thai and English!

So... I'm out, off to sleep, but I'm going to leave you with this little man... I think he feels kind of like I do when I try to remember English. (<--- Oh dear, overuse of commas? Run on sentence maybe? I don't know. English language strikes again... :o)

Pasa angrit? Arai na?  English? What? 

Kearn 

Three Months

After tucking the keychain on my backpack inside my bag I'm ready to go. I walk across the uneven pavement and across the train tracks. Monkeys are all around; they gnaw on banana peels, the remains of someone's uneaten lunch and anything else they can scrounge up on the street. As I pass, some of them stare at me, there eyes following my every step. [This is why I have tucked my keychains inside my bag. After seeing a monkey rip one of my friends keychains off and steal my other friends glasses right off her face, I know I have to be careful around the monkeys.] It's about a twenty minute walk home from school, but I stop here and their looking in the windows of shops and down streets. I stop in one shop and the shop owner begins a conversation with me... asking about why I have a school uniform on. I explain that I'm an exchange student and this fuels his interest, we end up talking for about fifteen or twenty minutes solely in Thai. He explains that he is trying to learn English and asks me what I want to do when I grow up. So many people ask me this now and still I don't know... journalism, design, international relations, baking, forestry... so many options. Finally, I take my leave but not until I've promised to come visit his shop again. A week later I visit again and I'm pleased to see he can remember me. I enjoy talking with him and as I leave today he gives me a bunch of fresh bananas. A simple gesture, but one that illustrates perfectly the kindness I have found in Thailand. Today marks my third month in Thailand. So many strange things now seem entirely normal to me; watching out for monkeys on the street, elephants being led around town late at night, entire squids in your soup, fried fish--the whole thing--eyes, skins, scales, tail on your plate, taking off your shoes when entering shops, going to the market rather than a department store, wearing a school uniform, showering twice a day, eating dinner food for breakfast, wai-ing, going outside in November without a coat and so many other things. I've met innumerable kind people, been taken in by a wonderful family, been shown many places in Central Thailand, been taught about the culture and customs of Thai people, learned a ton of Thai, acquired a sick addiction to spicy food and gained a new perspective on and appreciate of many things.

This is an amazing journey. Every day there are challenges, trials, successes--every day, every little thing is part of the adventure.  I love it.

Right now I'm looking forward to Loy Krathong which is a holiday celebrated on November 28th. Thai people make Krathongs which are vessels made from banana leaves and flowers and float them on  rivers, lakes or the ocean. With the Krathong they cast away the negatives of the year and wish for happiness and success in the year to come.

Also... funny fact, my "try anything once/just say yes" attitude has gotten me entered in a two day Thai beauty contest later this month. I will be wearing modern Thai traditional clothes and right now I'm just hoping I don't trip in my heels... try everything once! It's all part of the adventure! :)

Life is good!

Kearn

Back to School & Halloween

The sun is hot and I'm standing by the side gate of Pibulwittayalai... trying to imagine that there is shade when there is not.  I'm waiting to be picked up by my host Aunt. It's my first day back at school after a month break. It was strangely normal, waking up in the morning, pulling back my hair and putting in my shiny little black bow. Wearing a skirt and button down shirt, that shiny belt with no purpose but to look shiny and my funny white socks and black Mary Jane shoes... It's makes me feel like a little kid again but I don't know why... I certainly never wore this uniform when I was young. I'm staring off down the road, supposedly watching for my host Aunt's car but really just daydreaming. I feel a tap on my shoulder and I'm jerked out of my reverie, I turn to see a girl standing at my shoulder. "Hello!" she says and then scurries off without waiting to hear my reply. "Hey--" I say, my voice trailing off halfheartedly after her. It's silly but so many Thai students act like this. They're surprised and excited when I speak Thai to them. The other day I went to art class, the teacher asked me a question and I replied, speaking Thai naturally.  "Whoah! You can speak English!" one boy exclaimed mixing up the words English and Thai. I laugh, why yes... I can speak English... though I think you meant to say Thai.

 I'm really enjoying being back at school. I've been to History, Violin, P.E. (handball), English, Math and Cooking class.

Well, I can't deny I sort of forgot about this here blog thing-a-majig. Thanks Dad for reminding me! :) [Happy Belated Birthday to my awesome Dad!] Lots and lots has happened since I last posted. So lets see... a quick list... went back to school, went to the temple and saw a sort of parade in which they duplicate the time when Bhudda came down from Heaven, taught my host Aunt how to carve pumpkins (well squashes, since Thailand doesn't have pumpkins), got to see my friend Yin who lives in Bangkok and was an exchange student at my school last year and saw elephants playing soccer!

For now, I'm off to sleep but I promise I'll write more soon! If you have certain questions please comment here or message me! :)

Hope you are staying warm in AK!

Traditional Thai dress, these girls represent the angels (at the parade replicating when Bhudda came down from Heaven).

an elephant is hugging me! :)

Kearn