Home is where the heart is.

I feel as though the last few times I've written I haven't really shared many details about my adventures of late. The reason for that is not for lack of having adventures or things to write about but rather that there are so many millions of things I have been doing, learning, seeing and feeling that it would be impossible to write them all down without going on for pages and pages and hours and hours, so I shall save the majority of those for later... when I can share them with you on a rainy Alaskan summer day over a cup of steaming tea.

I imagine this may be the last time I post for a while and perhaps my very last post from Thailand (which makes me incredibly sad), though I do plan to post sporadically during my return year in Alaska. 

Out of the twenty-eight people in my District 3350 family almost ten have gone back to their home countries already. It's strange realizing the possibility that all twenty-eight of us might never be all together again. In around a month's time I too will be back in home country. Back in Alaska. Driving down those streets... seeing all those people... doing all those things I used to do. But I won't be there fully... I'm afraid I might never be there fully. I know already that when I leave Thailand I will not only leave friends and family, but also half of my heart.

If "home" is where the heart is, and I call two places across the world from each other "home"... does that make me heartbroken? 

Soon enough, I'll be leaving "home" to go "home". Saying goodbye to my District 3350 family to say hello to my District 5010 one. Saying goodbye to my friends, to say hello to my friends. Leaving my Thai family to go back to my biological one. I can't believe this year... this amazing, wonderful, magnificent year... this year that has had it's rough patches but always pulled through to the good times, this year that taught me so much about myself, this year that I failed more than once during, but stood back up again and succeeded.... this fantastic, incredible year that words cannot even describe, I cannot believe that this year is almost over. Truly, I could not be more grateful to everyone and everything that has contributed to this year in even the tiniest way. 

Thank you for telling me I'm beautiful. Thank you for keeping me well fed. Thank you for teaching me patience, for showing me real confusion and letting me conquer it, for empowering me to believe that if I am persistent I can overcome the difficulties the world throws at me. Thank you for hugging me when I cried. Thank you for laughing at my jokes even if they weren't funny. Thank you for being patient with me when I struggled with language.  Thank you for teaching me, for caring about me, for spending time with me. Thank you for listening, for helping. 

Thank you to the oversize beetles in the bathroom for making those times that I wake up in the middle of the night that much more exciting. Thank you to the geckos for giving me something to watch at boring dinner parties. Thank you to the heat for teaching me to appreciate the cold, to the rain for teaching me to dance. 

Thank you to the entire peppers I ate by choice for a competition, for being spicy... but not spicy enough to scare me into not do it a second time. Thank you to rice... for understanding that week where I broke up with you, it only made our relationship that much stronger. Thank you rice for being there when the other food was all scary and/or not delicious. And thank you rice for letting me bare your name... I wear it with pride.

Thank you Skype for letting me light the Hannukkah menorah all the way from Thailand. Thank you mail for letting me realize the true joy a letter or package can bring. 

Thank you distance, for making me realize what a wide world it is. Thank you to this year, for making me realize that no matter how small I am, I can affect the world if I try.

Thank you darkened windows for giving me something to stare out on those nights when I was lonely. 

Thank you sunshine for spilling in in the morning to wake me up in time to enjoy every single new and amazing day.

Thank you friends for coming to me for advice and for being there when I needed you. 

Thank you housemaid for always washing and ironing my clothes. Thank you to the Thai way of washing underwear by hand for teaching me to appreciate the American... throw it all in the washing machine together technique. 

Thank you to my host family, for loving me. Thank you Rotary for sponsoring me. Thank you everyone, for accepting me. Thank you to the exchange students of D3350, and especially to the Lopburi Kids, for being truly, one-hundred percent, the best friends I have ever had.

Thank you for every single thing on this list and all the other things that are not, but most of all, thank you for making it so ridiculously hard to say goodbye. 

Seriously, thank you.

ข้าวหอม
Kearney

Sand

The past two months have literally flown by. I feel as though every time I look at the calendar a tiny grain of sand settles in the bottom of my stomach. Realizing the small amount of time I have left as an inbound exchange student scares me.
Yesterday I dropped one of my closest friends off at the airport. Jon has become an older brother to me this year and there is no doubt that it was difficult to say goodbye. Yet, it wasn’t until after he stepped off the top of the escalator, backpack on, passport in hand, turned away and disappeared out of sight that it all began to hit me.
 Alex turns to me, “Did Jon just leave?” she asks in voice that almost pleads me to tell her it’s not true.
I don’t even have the energy to nod, the grains of sand in my stomach have turned into one solid rock in the pit of my stomach. We wrap into a tight hug as the tears rain down from my face. He is the first of my close friends to leave and the realization that slowly my family of exchange students is separating hits me like a frying pan to the forehead. Soon enough we will all be back in our home countries, far apart from one another, far away from Thailand. Soon enough we will all go back to those old lives that we lived before we knew each other. The same houses, the same towns… but it will never be truly the same. Nothing will ever be truly the same.

All I can say is thank you. Thank you to every single exchange student in District 3350 for being a friend to me. You have all influenced me in ways that maybe even you do not know. I truly value every single second of time that I spend with you. Though our time as inbounds in Thailand may be nearing a close, lets not call this goodbye, let’s call it see you later… because one day, I’ll

visit you. In Europe, in Asia, North and South America. See you in Australia too. ♫

Lopburi Kids <3
All the exchange students who lived in Lopburi this year (and Lydia who is drawn on the peice of paper because she couldn't be there)

I love you guys <3

I love you big brother!

empty escalator... 

 

All of us at our very first orientation, we've come so far. I love you guys <3