Weekend in BKK

The best thing ever made... koala yummys....they always end up in my hands sometime around 2/3 AMish

Check out the flavors

Just a little cook out with the boys...where we spend our weekends

We took over Spencers room...we took his bed and is computer...just facebook stocking and recovering. Thanks boys for putting up with us!!

Thai street food......yuumm???

obsessed with this little guy

BEST.HALLOWEEN. EVER.

Team Edward

Rachel and Richard...aka ashley schaeffer

Just taking a little cat nap

CRAZYNESS

Whiskey bottles...real popular here in Thailand...

Brian!!

Danny and Rachybabe

Benji....maybe one of my favorite people I have met. This is at the bar where we will be spending lots of our time and BAHT

Best one man band...

Last night we checked out the local bar scene...and loved it. There was about 15-20 teachers piled around a table smoking huka, drinking beer, and singin along with one of the greatest things to happen to Bang Na nightlife.



One man, and one guitar. (britt you need to hire him to teach you some songs) It was like the top 100 songs hit list. We were all singing and dancing! Sometimes he forgot the words but we helped him out. He also mixed in some popular Thai songs that all the "of age" students were lovin too. The highlight of my night was one of my students, Golf, worked there so he could translate Vodka/soda to the bartender for me. 5 BONUS POINTS FOR GOLF!!!

Counting down the days till next Thursday.



weekend plan: Packing a bag so I don't have to go back and forth between Bang Na and BKK this weekend. We are learning fast its better to just crash down there on the weekends...saves time and money...two very precious things. I will be a BEARS player for Halloween tomorrow night...not because it is my 1st choice but because I have the parts to make it happen....for free. I was going to be an ant or a cat because then I could have just dressed in all black and made some ear pieces...but an ant would just have been weird and I don't really like cats....so football player it is. I mean, sexy football player.



Have a safe and fun Halloween weekend everyone!



xo QB Rach

Thank you Jen, Rach, Katy, Steph, Mom, Dad.....I am sure there will be more names added to this list

A little wrench in the plans.

The girl that was going to sign my lease 2 weeks ago, I guess never showed up.( have very mean and bad names running though my head...but I am going to keep it clean, at least for today.)

Soo backstepping a little and trying to get the APT rented by Nov 1st. I sent frantic emails to my friends....and of course they are doing everything they can do....while I am in Thailand helpless and feeling bad I have dumped one more thing on them! They have busy lives too! So girls and mom and dad thank you...and I am so sorry that this happened and I can not take care of it myself.

I promise one day I will be able to pay you back or do anything you need me too to help you out!!!!!! LOVE YOU GUYS!

Harry Potter meet Gossip Girl. Gossip Girl meet Harry Potter.

The last few days there has been a lot of conversation about how this school reminds us of a mix of Harry Potter campus meets Gossip Girl fashion....all with some Thai spice added in. The students uniforms are jazzed up with just about anything you can think of. The boys are in skinny jeans with Justin Bieber haircuts, fohawks, mohawks...and whatever other kind of hawk you can have on your head. The girls have some of the highest heels I have ever seen...bless their hearts, the sidewalks are all uneven and there are stairs for their stairs here. The ladies also like to take pictures of themselves at all times on their phones making some of just the strangest faces...I think they are sending them to their boyfriends...who knows. Kids these days.

The Harry Potter side....the campus is huge....I have found all these crazy stairwells and doors. Sometimes the doors are open with coffee brewing inside and somtimes they are locked...I am waiting for the massive staircases to start moving around... I call them hidden. It is probably because I have just never seen them...but if you were here you would be thinking a magic broom stick was going to be handed to you at any minute too.... :)

So I was wrong, yesterday was my basic of basic English classes. Lot of deer in headlight looks yesterday morning and afternoon...we all made it through...and looks like the same class rules go from my basic English classes to my English one classes. ( told them they could help me...but they left it in my hands...)

Rules and Regulations of Ajarn Rachel's Class

1. If you get caught on your cell phone during class Ajarn Rachel calls her mom and dad in America to say hello.**

2. If you get caught speaking Thai or your Native Language in Ajarn Rachel's class you have 2 choices.

A) Pay Ajarn Rachel 10 BAHT

B)Get in front of class and sing You are My Sunshine OR Twinkle Twinkle Little Star***

** If anyone would like to be added to this list please let me know, I do have clases late at night your time and early moring but we can leave you a message

*** I told them if they do not know the words I will make sure to have them printed out....I could tell some of them knew these songs and others had not a clue what the hell I was talking about. However, the reactions from their friends scared the dickans out of them....muhahah

Food Update:

I have grown fond of a few things..I know some of you may have been worried I would be wasted away in a month from not eating but I found some things I fancy.

-The smoothie shop...they also sell just the fruit so I have been having an apple a day!
- Ham sammie from a cafe on campus..the bread is so fresh and it has some kind of sauce on it that tastes great!
-Any and all coffee I have found here, iced, large....saves a girls life sometimes
- Some spicey chicken dishes
-A place off campus last night we had old school grilled chicken( when I get a camera I will take a picture to show you how they grill the chicken)...Thai family style with soups, sticky rice, and some kind of salad. We ate this under a Tiki hut with cute little lizards running around and cold beer on ice.

This tends to be my face when I ask myself these three questions.
WHERE AM I?
WHAT AM I DOING?
HOW DID I GET HERE??

I mean I know the answers to all of them.....but sometimes I have to make sure I am not dreaming. Today after teaching my last class I walked out the doors with a smile from ear to ear.

I am in Thailand

I am doing what I love. Teaching. Traveling. Meeting new people and making memories I will never forget with old friends

A verrrrrry long plane ride with some pit stops along the way...... encouragement and support from friends and family

whooo hoooo

Emma, Danielle, Erin, Rachybabe...this is not glamor shots people....but it was the only picture taken of all 4 of us this far. We are sober.

"Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy." -Benjamin Franklin

1st day on the new J.O.B. LOVED IT.

I pranced into class.......

It was a hot and muggy morning so my blown out hair was a frizz ball by the time we picked up our class lists and course outlines to hand out. I found my classroom and asked the two girls if they were in the right class and section number. They shook their heads yes. No more then 30 seconds later they said..."Teacher this is not that class." " Uh....are you sure!?!??!?!" "yes...its Tuesday!"

Looking down at my schedule, sure enough I was at my Monday morning class. I booked it down the hall, down the stairs, across the street, down the block, up to the 7th floor. I would also like to mention it was pouring down rain. So when I walked into the room my heels were full of water and I looked like a drowned rat.

I had three classes today, and they all went great! They were my lowest level classes, English Conversation level 1. The time the 3rd class rolled around I had the routine down! I would have to say one of the biggest challenges this afternoon was pronouncing their names!! All the students have shorter nick names off their family names which I am very grateful for... however, some of the names are hard to get the right sound out. For example here are some nick names... Audi, Pooh, Cheer, Mark, Best, Oui, Kade, Jet, It, Golf...

I will keep you posted on some more of the fun nicknames after I go through my 5 classes tomorrow!

1st weekend in BKK

Well, well, well.....its all started off at the doctors office. All 13 new teachers went through the process of EKG's, blood work, urine tests, checkup, and x-rays. Then we all waited for our results....I was healthy except they said my heart rate was a little low. But then as people started trickling out of their meetings with the doctors seemed like a lot of people had something wrong with their hearts. So I am going to go ahead and assume they need a new heart machine



51/2 hours later we were running around the mall and food court trying to get lunch and hooked up with some super fly phones. I got a flashy nokia, good chance it was one of the 1st cell phone models EVER made.As for lunch..grrrr I got frustrated, took a deep breath and said to myself its to early in the whole experience to have a break down in the middle of The Mall food court. So I wiped the one tear that snuck out of my eye ordered white rice, a fried egg with a side of vanilla ice cream. Then we found a grocery store that almost brought me to my knees to praise God. I found lots and lots of food and labels I recognized. I got a real diet coke, teddy grams, and crackers. The box of teddy grams was half gone before I even got out of the store.



We had limited time to get back to campus, shower and get on our dancing shoes. I keep saying "we" I am referring to most of the new teachers and my loyal companions Emma, Danielle, and Erin. We are at the campus about 30 min out of the city. I will give you a whole run down on that in a later post. However, I will say there are lots of bus rides and zipping around in hot pink cabs.



The group started out at an American Bar. We met some teachers that have been there for a semester or more. Two of our buddies from DePaul are part of the veteran teachers so they were taking us out on the town. This bar was great. Cheap beer, pool tables, huge tables to pack us around, bottles of whisky for sale the same price you can get them at the supermarket, the MN WILD game up on the TV, bags, western food, great outdoor area and cockroaches. Yep Big, HUGE, GIANT cockroaches. Only outside....sometimes creeping on to you seat or running across your toes. Great place though.....we will be spending many Friday and Saturday nights there. One of our buddies is even getting together a group of us and we hare having a Thanksgiving meal to be remembered.



After some drinking, picture taking, getting the shivers watching Emma FLICK the little buggers off the back of our booth we headed to the club. Different levels, playing different music and out of control dance parties. We rolled out of the club around 5 Am...But Emma and I were just not ready to go back to "the burbs". Our friends have APTs down in the city so we grabbed some chips and beer from 711 and continued to hangout. Bedtime was 7AM. We all woke up and were all as my family likes to call it...a little tired. The living situation of the amigos in BKK is this. They are not really APTS or studios...they are rooms. The building looks like an apt building but you walk in and there is a bed, dresser, fridge, desk, and chair. The bathroom is all rolled into one. The shower sprays down on the floor...NOTHING to step into, or to slide open...its just hanging across from the sink. So that was an interesting sight to see and one that made us a light shade of green that they had such great places in the city. Best part, they were CLEAN!! Not what we expected after being down there during the day. There are no TV's in the room so you have a few options. We started out all laying around, talking about the night before, and just about everything else under the moon. We had some tunes playing, the smokers were puffing on their cigs, and some of the boys were cracking beers. I was in fetal position.(I blame the pizza I ate the night before...not the booze. ;) ) Sometimes one of us would get the facebook itch and would hop on the computer to remember most of our friends back in the states are sleeping or out hammered at Burtons place, probably making bad decisions.

After laying around all day we ordered Micky D's (yeah, they deliver that down here?!!!????) hopped in a hot pink cab and headed back to campus. That was only one night. We hear there are many great places we still have to experience and I am sooo excited to get in the grove down here. Everyone we have met has been so helpful and I can not wait to see what the rest of this year has in store. Its going to be a good one. I am sooo lucky to have these people in my life out here and I will be posting pics soon so you can put faces with the people I am talking about if you do not already know them.

xoxo Rach

Starving!!

it is 4:49 AM here...I woke up and am starving!!! I can't even dive into my cereal because we were all banned from eating or drinking past midnight last night. There are serious doctor appointments tomorrow for all the new teachers. Leprosy checks and stuff.....for real. Somebody had a really bad case of cancer a LONG time ago and the university had to pay lots and lots of money for this persons treatments. I guess they were not happy about that so we all have to get tested for everything head to toe.(sure there are many reasons for this check up but that was one talked about) Wish me luck!! I am sure I will be fine, but my tummy and lack of food may have something else to say about that. I also only tend to be hungry during nightime here, which makes sense because my metabolism is usually up and running.. one of our bosses told us we would have jet lag for about 2 weeks because of the abount of time we traveled. fantastic. If I could eat anything right now.....a turkey sandy with yellow mustard, avacado and tons of veggies with a side of chips...any kind

...uhhh man!!!

and some more......

Garden on Campus

Cathedral of Learning...if you look close I am up there!!!

ummm....this is part of rolling with the punches.

SNAP SHOTS

ABOVE: This is what I walk across everyday to get to the main parts of campus.It is sport courts and a social area between the dorms.


Just your average hallway on campus

Cathedral of Learning Tower. Our offices are in there! Road to class!

First 24 hours in THAILAND

SO that is far as I got. I should finish the story...but I am not in the air anymore and I have officially been in Thailand for 24 hours. To sum it up in two weeks... I quit three jobs, sublet my cute little studio, tied up my life in Chicago, drove to MN, said goodbye to family and friends...traveled for 27 hours and here I am!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been a very busy 1^st day . HIGHLIGHTS of Rachel’s first 24 hours in Thailand

-Got to skype with mom, dad and luke to say goodnight to them as they wished me a great 1^st day

- Went to Tesco...which is like a Walmart/Target/Sams Club rolled into 1 with some English signs here and there. We were in a 10 person van. No trunk. Now picture 17 people with everything they needed to survive the 1^st month....think big. Gallons of water, laundry baskets, food, dishes, mass amounts of toilet paper. I got thrown up front in between two people....the only Thai speaking people the van. I was in the middle of them, towering over them...tried to make convo, but failed...so they laughed and talked and I hung on for dear life as we splashed through puddles, as crazy dudes( sometimes women, sometimes with a women, maybe a child...I even saw a dog with one person) swerved in and out of traffic. DON’T WORRY MOM I HAD ON MY SEATBELT.

-Paperwork and opening up a Thai bank account...lots of standing around and sweating. Until I went to go buy tacks at the bookstore. A new student (we can tell who is a student because they wear uniforms) asked if I was an incoming freshmen. I had to inform him I was an instructor and he just about died. He did a respectful bow and said he was so sorry but I just looked so young!! Hahaha!

- Food has been an issue today. Soup that was really lemony and gingery....I tried hard to love it...I ate all the chicken and mushrooms out of it! We tried a noodle buffet for dinner.I failed again...I choose the wrong sauce and the noodles were cold and I just did not put the right “toppings???” on/with the noodles. I gave dessert a shot but it was little hot pink mushy balls with ice and milk. STRIKE 3. At the store I did find some special K and milk and was just beside myself I was so excited. Now....it was the best thing I had all day but they just don’t make Special K here like they do in Chicago. Tomorrow is a new day with 1,000 different things to try, keep ya posted if I hit gold.

- We took a bus down to Bangkok and found the mall....big flashing lights told us we were there.. THE MALL was the actual name! It was huge. We got lost 10 times in 2 hours. Asked for directions and somehow still found ourselves right back to the person that gave us the directions...until we finally found what we were looking for.

THAI MASSAGE

It changed my life. For about 14 US dollars I got an hour massage. I was twisted, walked on, turned, pulled, massaged, cracked (each finger, toe, back, neck, arms, legs...EVERYTHING!!!) and stretched. I think it will be a weekly thing.

GREAT 1^st day!

FLIGHT 295 to Thailand

Here it goes everyone! I write my first post from up, up in the air! My mind is racing because I am not sure where to start. I need to say a big thank you to my mom and dad. Without them I would not be sitting on this airplane halfway around the world. Props to papa bear for having such a sweet job because I am reclined back sipping some vino and having some snacks before dinner with my slippers on.....this would not have happened if he was not up until all hours of the night last night and up early this morning. He was checking and rechecking loads in and out of 2 or 3 different cities to make sure we made the right choice of what route to take to get me to Thailand.

Mother dearest.....we all know I talk to her 5 times a day sometimes for 30 seconds and sometimes for an hour. She is my best friend and somebody that was more excited then I was when we first found out about this opportunity. I got to spend my last crazy Saturday night in the US of A laying in bed, eating Chinese food, and watching movies with the lovely Polar Express.

When I told Famous (Amy) about the move she said......WHY WOULDN”T YOU! Luke had a one track mind. Rachel can’t take her car or her flat screen all the way to Thailand....I score big here. So he gave me a big hug and scooted me out the door.

So with that said....here is the story of how I came to be in Delta Flight 295 to Thailand........

The Short and sweet version:

Monday October 5th- Sent in all my application forms

Tuesday October 6th- Had a Skype Interview...got offered the job...met my dear friend Rachel for some brewskies at Lotties. All I could think is.....IS

THIS REALY HAPENING!!!

Am I making the right choice?

Can I really up and leave the wonderful city of Chicago?? Can I lease my APT? What do I do with my car? My JOBS????

I did not have 1 to 2 months ponder and plan, I had about 2 hours.

Wednesday October 6^th- Quit my TA job. Leaving some of the best people I know and have learned a lot from and will miss dearly.