All right. This feels a little bit early to be writing a blog post as I haven’t left for Thailand yet, but I feel like there’s been a lot going on, so I wanted to record a little bit of that.

It’s summer right now, a few weeks past graduation. It’s simultaneously been quite a busy start to break and at the same time, not a lot going on. I’m really excited about working this summer, hopefully at the Samasat Resort, which is a nice resort and conference venue near where we live. I went down and interviewed for them a few weeks ago and so hopefully, I’ll hear back with good news soon about what my position will end up being.

Before that though, I’ve been doing a lot of work out in the garden with my mom because of how busy the end of the school year was, we got a little behind on planting things. So we spent several hours weeding the other day and then we went up and got a bunch of seedlings from a local greenhouse. I saw a pack of Thai red bird’s eye chilies for sale at the greenhouse and of course couldn’t resist buying them. I feel like now that I am going to Thailand, I see the country popping up everywhere. Even in the news, I feel like I constantly see things about Thailand that I wouldn’t have thought as deeply about or just skipped over before. So it’s really interesting to see how many places the country keeps showing up.

Rotary Orientation

About a week ago we had our Rotary outbound orientation and it was so much fun to meet all the other outbounds in person and actually start talking about our plans and rules for the upcoming year. One thing that was really interesting to me was a graph that Kathy, our district youth exchange coordinator, showed us. It details the ups and downs of emotional states that you’ll experience throughout the exchange year. She told us how they found this model to be true for people regardless of the length of the stay, whether or not it was just a few months or even two years long, which I also find to be really interesting.

outbounds from maine: jackson and I in the back, then cecelia, stella, petra, and sabine from left to right

The Adjustment Cycle chart showing the emotional journey of exchange students

There are six students leaving from our district this year, which encompasses most of Maine and a part of coastal New Hampshire. Petra is the other student from my high school who’s going on exchange, and she’ll be going to France. She already speaks French pretty fluently, so it definitely puts me a little bit to shame when my Thai ability is not even near that level haha.

Language Learning

Speaking of language, I do feel like I’ve been making some progress in that regard, but it’s definitely not much past the basic level. I can say hi. I know how to say “I like,” and I can do some numbers. To future exchanges, I’ve been learning from P’Bow, and couldn’t recommend enough to anyone learning Thai to get a real teacher. Thai isn’t even on Duolingo, and so many resources online are really kind of bad.

My Host Family

Anyways, I met my first host family on FaceTime a few weeks ago, and literally mean it, I cannot wait to meet you all in person. Mae Yui will be my host mother and Por Nui will be my host father. I will have four siblings: Ken and Kim, who go to university in Bangkok, Khun, who will be on a Rotary exchange himself while I am in Thailand, and Nadee, who is a few years younger than me but who I will get to stay with in Nakhonsawan.

ขอบคุณครับคนอ่าน! (Khop khun kap kon aan!)

Declan