Orientation Week

So far this week has been ridiculously long. On Monday we started our orientation with a visit to the school's President's office where he gave us a big speech on the history of Payap University. After his long, and pretty boring, speech we broke off into groups where Thai students who are majoring in English took us on a tour of the campus. Now when I say tour I mean they showed us where a bank was and then took us to get our pictures taken for our IDs. It was a pretty shitty tour but it was hotter than hell as usual so I was alright with not walking around all day. This event was followed by lunch and then 2 long and very uninformative classes. This capped off a day that started at 830 and got over at 430. I felt like I was in high school again. By the end of the day I wasn't paying attention to anything.

That night we, as a program, went to a Khantok Dinner which is a traditional northern Thai dinner that also includes traditional dances and music. The environment was very cool. It was weird sitting on the floor though. I had never been to a restaurant where you had to sit on the floor and I must say, it is not very conducive to eating but I managed. Don't worry Phil, I don't think I am going to have any problem maintaining my weight while I am here. I have pictures and a couple videos that I will put up as soon as I have time.

Tuesday contained more pointless school stuff until lunch. After lunch we, again as a program, left for a Wat (Buddhist temple) to be lectured by the master of the temple before we went to the meditation retreat outside of Chiang Mai. This meditation retreat was something I was really looking forward to after hearing about it. It was so unbelievably boring. My hopes for it were way too high. Not only was it really painful to sit in those positions for that period of time, it was also just incredibly boring. I had hoped that it would help cure my sleeping troubles and if I had the monks telling me how to meditate as I was going to sleep I would be out like a light. I fell asleep several times over the course of the day that we stayed. Part of me felt bad because that is their life but at the same time, I couldn't help it. It was boring. I have pictures of the Wat and the meditation retreat that I will post at a later time.

After getting back from the meditation retreat this afternoon we had to basically go straight to our Thai culture class. We talked about geography the entire time and he had us draw a map of Thailand. I hate doing busy work and this dumbass didn't know what to do so he had us draw a map. This class is going to be really boring I have a feeling.

After class got over this afternoon and bunch of us went into Chiang Mai were they all got massages and I went and checked out a weight room. I was very very unimpressed. All they had were Smith machines and other stupid machines. Their dumbbells only went up to 45 lbs too. I guess the search will continue but my roommate, Pek, is going to take me to his gym and he says its a lot better so we'll see how it is.

That is all I really have for now. I am starting to get busy but I will try to keep this thing updated as often as possible. I will also get some of the pictures up very soon. I hope everything is going well for everyone. I miss you all.