Abroad in Thailand: A Day in the Life

I figured everyone might appreciate knowing what my days look like in the homestay, so here’s a general idea of how each day goes:

6am: I wake up and shower (more like a quick rinse) before getting dressed in my school uniform. Uniforms are a large part of Thai culture, and almost any person you see out and about will be wearing some sort of uniform. The university uniform is a black skirt with a white button up shirt; we wear these uniforms to identify ourselves as students, and to show that we are here in the city study and not just as tourists. Since I don’t go out much dressed in clothes other than my uniform I wouldn’t know, but I have been told we get treated differently by the public when we are wearing our uniforms as opposed to regular clothes.

First day of school in front of my house.

6:30am: Breakfast. Usually it’s some sort of rice or egg dish, although it varies from time to time.

This morning we had sticky rice with bananas (a first) because according to my host parents, it would make me strong for climbing the mountains!

7am: We leave for school. Two other girls in the program live near us, and so we’ve formed a carpool. My host dad drives in the morning; first we drop my host brother and his friend off at school, and then swing back to pick up the other two girls.

8am-12pm: Thai class starts at 8 and goes until noon. We get a small break around ten, but the rest of the time is spent learning the alphabet and various vocabulary words. There are six of us in my Thai class with one teacher, and her instruction is entirely in Thai.

12-1pm: Lunch break. We all (instructors and students) eat outside under a covered patio, and ISDSI serves us lunch. Usually it is some form of rice with vegetables, meat, and fruit.

1-4pm: Lecture time. This past week was orientation, so we spent our afternoons going over rules and expectations, checking gear, and doing a scavenger hunt around Chiang Mai. This coming week begins the block course Foundations, so our afternoon lectures will focus on Thai history, religion, culture, arts, and a variety of other subjects pertinent to giving us a base of knowledge on Thailand.

Eating fried bugs as part of the scavenger hunt....not really that bad, though the after-taste is kind of gross.

4-6pm: On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have CrossFit for an hour right after lecture ends. I thought I was in shape, but apparently I am only in running shape, because the workouts are hard and we are all extremely sore! We get picked up by one of the girls’ parents, and when we do have CrossFit I’m home by around 6. If we don’t have a workout I’ll get home a little bit sooner, so I try to go for a run around our village on those days.

7-10pm: Depending on the day, I usually walk for a bit with my host mom around our village, sometimes after dinner and sometimes before. Either way, my evenings are spent showering, eating dinner, and studying before heading to bed relatively early.

So that’s it, a pretty general week! Fridays are field trip days, so we do not have class, and it is extremely nice to have a break! Today we spent the entire day at Crazy Horse Buttress rock climbing, climbing in caves, and rapelling.

I have decided that studying abroad makes me feel like we are five again; I eat what is put in front of me, I can barely communicate with anyone, I cannot read, and I get driven to school by my host dad. It didn’t help that we were given workbooks to trace Thai letters. We are told the title of the book is something like “My First Letter Book” but we don’t even know enough yet to read the title!

Also, some random snapshots from the last week: