taryn 11.4.09

Hey!>
This past week has been really good. Jord and I hit our 5 month mark yesterday! i have a year left..>
The weather hasnt been too horrible lately! yesterday was the first day in country that i didnt sweat! it is supposed to get hot again, but it is nice for a few days. i will welcome cool weather anytime! Thank you all for writing!!!!!!! it really is amazing to hear from people. mom, before i forget, could you keep forwarding me ryans emails? i havent gotten one for a few weeks.. >
im in muang thong right now, where the office is, i had to renew my visa! i think today is just going to be a hang out with the sisters day before we return to sapphaan sung, about and hour away, to teach english. after i emailed last week we went down to the neatest little island. definitely the most foreign place i have ever been!! we rented really old rickety cruiser bikes and rode them around it (more like back and forth through the village on the crazy little pathways) every house was the traditional thai house (looks like on stilts), most were over the water, using boats to get aroung. hah we passed a man who was using a hammer, crushing little chipmunks heads and pulling out the guts for his restaurant. hah sister oneil said as we were passing "poor alvin". weird how being out here you just get used to stuff like that. we rode through tons of banana trees and other tropical things, it was beautiful. m and d, i cant wait to take you there! > last week in sacrament we sang "press forward saints" i was just waiting to hear coops and ash sing out alleluia, but it never came:( hah it sounds very different in thai..>
we have found out that there are fishes included in the water that floods our streets. i have no idea how! the first sign was when we were teaching 3 little less-active girls that we are in charge of. we were in their "backyard" which consists of a gas stove, a sink, a shower head for showering, a little wooden platform for sitting (beer bottles all over it from their dad and others that live there) overgrown plants and trees, and lots of trash. there was a little pond from the flooding back there that the two younger girls, 6 and i think 9, were catching fish with a little string and some meat on it. they would pull hook out and everything and then stick them in a bucket. they caught 3 in a teeny puddle within the time we were there! we were amazed! >
then, with our street being flooded, lots of trash and leaves and things get washed up under our bikes by the house. there was a dead fish under my bike! the final sign was while we were biking, a fish went flopping across the road to get to the other side where another huge puddle was! haha i didnt know fish were that smart! (except for the fact that we almost ran it over with our bikes!) >
halloween was a good day, though it was hard on sunday morning waking up and knowing that all the kids were dressed up cute at that moment going out... on sat for lunch we ate at a nice itaian restaurant (only one around) it was nice to get a break from thailand for a minute. before we started our fast (we start in afternoon and end in afternoon) we went to the 7-11 (which are everywhere, but i havent ever seen one attatched to a gas station) and bought a bunch of candy and indulged..>
monday was loygratong, a national holiday where they make little floating things and put a candle, money, incense, and other things on it to give thanks and apologize to the water and send it on the water. we got to go to the wat and see the festivities, it was really cool! there were people selling the little lanterns, random things like snakes, and also food like seahors and squid tentacles on a stick everywhere, fireworks, monks all over the place dressed in their orange robes, and thousands of thais, all sending their lanterns on the khlong. we were the only farangs (not asian) in the whole place. it was one of the moments that makes me realize im really in thailand. no place like it. > >
oh my so frustrating. i lost my work that i wrote after this. i had some good stuff. oh well. i hate comps i thailand!! i have a feeling im moving next week, that would be sad. we have gotten the work really going here. we got praised by the APs for being the best area right now. oh man i wish that would have gotten erased.>
well i love and miss you so so so much. talk to you soon>
love, sister young >
random: andie, when is class registration next fall for winter semester?