Normalcy?

My Fellow Americans,

Its been the first time I HAVEN'T had something interesting to report in a while. Who'd know that having a semi-normal week was possible here right?

I sat through a meeting yesterday which pretty much sucked the productivity out of my Thursday. It was great watching the dynamics of everyone trying to decide things and the Thai culture come out as everyone talked. Its just SO different here, being direct and to the point about anything is considered rude, so you have to go about discussing things in a very round about way. Asking for money from someone is considered rude, but asking how much someone makes is almost the second thing they always want to know. "Sa  wat dee ka (hello), coon chu ari? (whats your name?) coon ayu tow rai ka? (how old are you?)" being the first. The age one caught me off guard, apparently I can ask pretty much anyone that question and they wont get offended. Its not like in the states where if you ask a middle-aged looking woman how old she is, you get a look, a slap or "I'm not telling!"

Thai class is paying off a bit. Our teacher is Pee-Ma'am this week, next week is Pee-Oh. Pee-Ma'am is a sweetheart, she's really patient with us and never falls back on English. *Harder than you think! While most Thai's don't speak too much English, even if I ask a price in Thai, they want to respond in English because they know numbers or a couple phrases* So far its been easier to compare Thai to Spanish than English, the back of all my flash cards are mostly Spanish because of the similarities. I do run the risk of speaking Span-thai however…I keep saying "Si" instead of "Chi". The result of a third language is either going to be, I loose both, or create a new and fantastic hybrid that no one understands?

Boy I'm screwed. Haha.