Same Same But Different

Things have been moving along fairly smoothly here the past few weeks. We were all comparatively busy with the end of the trimester, hence the lack of updates. I finished up with classes last week and just finished my last exam a few minutes ago. All I have left is a final paper and I'll be officially finished with my trimester at Mahidol.

Me, Fin, Whitney, Lilly, and Sara:

People are starting to move out of the house and fly home, which is sad. For UNC students, this is basically the halfway point in our program, but from now on we'll be traveling as a group rather than studying as exchange students. I'm sad to leave Mahidol because I'll miss all of the Thai students that I've met here. The classes here weren't totally satisfying, but I learned a whole lot more from just living here and traveling, anyway. I'll also miss some aspects of the house and a lot of the silly routines that I've developed over the course of the trimester (for example, raisin bread, iced coffee, and smoothies from the stands at school, crazy motorbike rides to and from school, and mass consumption of Frosties and Cocoa Frosties in the ice cave) .

Here's our largest Chaiyapruk house group photo, with a handful of pepole missing, taken at the neighborhood restaurant (we're all sporting peace signs in the style of Jung, the lone South Korean of the group):



I'll officially move out of the house on April 3. One strength of this UNC program is that we have lengthy breaks to travel on our own, but the drawback is that we are not provided housing during this time. I'm a little nervous about essentially living out of a suitcase for the rest of the semester. Our first break lasts from now until April 14. I'm still not sure where I'll be going, but it will likely involve a trip to Laos with friends, a few days in Bankok, and some possible beach time.

From April 15-27, the UNC group will be in the western province of Kanchaniburi, living in a homestay and observing village life. We're working in pairs and will be writing about specific aspects of the culture. From there, we have another 2-week break followed by a course on healthcare economics with a UNC professor. We'll spend a week in Bangkok and another week in Vietnam before finishing up on May 25.

From there I will stay in Vietnam for a few extra days, fly back to Bangkok and stay with a Thai friend for the weekend, and then fly to Sydney for 12 days. I've officially booked my flight home (to good ole RDU) for June 13.

P.S. As I discovered earlier today (when I tried to edit using Internet Explorer), my blog is best viewed using Mozilla Firefox. Yep.