Last week with the fam!! – September 20, 2011

I can’t believe I have been here for almost five weeks! The first week went by ridiculously slow but every week since has flown by! Five weeks marks the end of my homestay! On Thursday we have our going away party/talent show. We all have to sing a song translated as “Sicky Rice Children.” This song is completely in Thai. So, everyday this week for the last half hour of Thai class, all the classes join together to practice and Hish plays the guitar. I’m sure anyone who speaks Thai would think we should completely ridiculous so I’m sure our families will be amused. Some families taught their student Thai dance/song to do at the party. Paw said that he doesn’t know how to do anything except paint so he thinks we should get on stage and paint together. I’m not sure how well that would go over. The best part about the party is that we get to dress in traditional Thai attire. We get to wear a sarong skirt and a light tunic top. Some people had to go out and buy outfits but Meh had one picked out for me to wear!

So, that is my update on the going away party! Today, Meh and my aunt told me I should come back to visit when I am in Chiang Mai! YAY…they must like me a little haha. I actually have recently gotten much more comfortable with them and confident about speaking. I can now understand most of the things they tell/ask me and can usually put together some sort of response. This is a huge step that occurred in the past week or so. So, I’m kind of sad to be leaving now! But, when I visit, I’ll be even better!

I haven’t talked about Crossfit for a while so let me enlighten you on my newfound heavy lifting and intense workouts. My bootay is DEFNITELY going to be in shape after this program. Today our workout consisted of 2x 50meter prowler pushes and then Burpees and Sledges where we go all out for 20 seconds and then have a 10 second break, 8 times each and then an extra set of Sledges. Now, let me explain what this all means. You may have heard of Burpees. You start standing and go down into pushup position (must touch ground with chest) and then jump up and clap hands. Once we had a “death by Burpees” workout. But, that’s a whole nother story. Sledges are pretty self-explanatory. We have 8-12 pound sledge hammers and have to hit a huge tire for 20 seconds. Prowlers are AWFUL! They are basically these huge contraptions that have two poles sticking up to put weights on and to hold. Then, we push this huge contraption on the cement driveway for 50meters (or however far our workout states). I usually push 70 pounds but the big guys and some champ girls push up to 180ish. This is one of the MOST PAINFUL workouts. Literally, my hold body pains and if you stop or lose momentum, the workout gets a million times worse. This exercise is definitely meant for larger people who have more body mass…not exactly me. This is just the main workout. Warm ups are another story and harder than most peoples full workouts (they have a shirt that says that hah). We have to run 400 meters, 10 pushups (chest to ground), 10 squats, and 10 wall ball squats…4 times with no rest.

This is just one example of a workout. If you were curious, death by burpees means you do 1 burpee in 1 minute, 2 in 2 minutes, etc…until you can’t make the amount in the designated time. This is much harder than it sounds. I made it to 15, which was actually farther than most and ended up being about 105 Burpees in 15 minutes (I think)! After almost every workout I always feel like I’m going to pass out.  We all kind of dread Crossfit! Haha. We have also started heavy lifting and I can squat with 105 pounds (almost my body weight…which is my goal)!!

Well, I don’t have much else to report on now. I had a great last weekend with the family and my week is going really well, too! It took a little while but I really think I have finally connected with my family and it’s going to be sad to leave. It’s also going to be weird to have so much independence! But, I also really can’t wait to be able to explore Chiang Mai and just hang out with friends in the city. Saturday is definitely going to be fun.

Also, just a heads up on my schedule and access to communication… I start my Agroecology course next week! We spend the first week of each block (course) in Chiang Mai and stay in our apartments. We continue Thai class in the morning and then have seminar on the course topic in the afternoon…and then crossfit. For the remaining three weeks of the block, we are out in the field staying in hill tribe villages and backpacking between villages. During that time I will have no phone or any kind of technology. The villages don’t even have electricity! So, I’m planning to keep a journal and then post some updates when I’m back in Chiang Mai for the seminar week of the next block. I leave on October 3^rd (I think).