Mai epn rai. Ever since I learned the phrase, it's all I can think about. In Thai, mai pen rai means no problem, or don't worry about it. It is basically a kind way of telling someone to just relax about something. I am still tremendously growing accustomed to the Thai way of life: slow paced and relaxed. Being a person that likes to have generally all the details planned, I have been forced to literally chill out. In the states, time is money, and people are pressured to know what they want to do with their time. Here, it is literally on your own time. I have been extremely blessed in experiencing what I have so far, and it is still only the first week.
I have moved apartments, from Amarin Mansion to 3J Court. Amarin was great, but 3J has an amazing character to it. 3J is a quaint little apartment complex right over the bridge, a 12 minute walk to classes. When I first arrived, I was a bit skeptical, but it must have made an impression on me, because here I am. The more I thought about it, the more I favored 3J over Amarin Mansion. The apartment is centered around everything a student needs, laundry facility, beauty shops, post office, convenient stores, and a number of small restaurants, not to mention the abundance of street vendors just a step away. The room is a little older than at Amarin, but it doesn't feel stuffy like the hotel, and it actually feels like home. Without even decorating and adding my own personal touch, I can see myself living and studying there. The people here are great, Narreerat, the manager and savior of the building is a extremely nice woman that has gone above and beyond her call of duty to accommodate us. We didn't get our rent stipends until today, but she still let us move in and told us, Mai pen rai, don't worry about it, we could just pay when we received our checks. Seriously? In the US, we would be in the streets. I can't think of any scenario where I could just pay for something as huge as rent later on. Just another little thing to remind me that I am in a completely different world.
Orientation was really interesting. There was a ton of international students in attendance, far more than I initially thought there would be. The information session was really nice, and I felt as if they made an excellent effort to tell us basically everything we needed to know. With a surplus of new information ranging from the royal family to what to eat and what to avoid, I felt like I was more in control of my surroundings. I was happy to apply the new tools that the friendly Thammasat staff had provided me. After the little Bangkok/Thammasat 101 session, we had a break for lunch. This was my first taste of Thai fruit. We had mango with sticky rice that was dressed with coconut milk. It was amazing! Since then, I have been grabbing fruit at every chance I have! It's ridiculously good here! After the lunch session, it was time to register for our classes. As no day here is incomplete without some small snag, I couldn't register because BJM or the school of journalism and mass communications moved to Rungsit Campus because of the flooding in the previous semester. Of course. While everyone else had their schedules in hand, I was freaking out thinking that I wasn't going to be able to get into the classes I wanted. Mai pen rai. I went today to register, and afterwards I felt incredibly silly for doing so much worrying. They didn't have ANY of the classes I wanted to take anyways. But, when in Thailand, do as the Thai's do, and just go with it. I have settled, quite happily on an international film class, thai media, thai cuisine, and Islam in Thailand. The classes aren't what I had previously imagined, but that is what I really like about them. Nothing I am doing in Thailand is like what I would do at home, and I love it. The second campus is gorgeous and I am excited to be spending one day a week there.
After I went to the other campus, I finally got my bank account and received my stipend for housing and meals. It was nice to see that everything was falling into place, and I finally felt like I could relax. I paid my first month's rent and then we headed to the mall. The mall here is so close to the apartment that we walked both ways. (something unheard of considering the closest mall to Petersburg is over 2 hours!!) The mall is a pretty crazy area. It includes 5 floors, housing everything you could ever want to buy or see. Across from this is a giant movie theatre and a pretty fair sized market, basically a second mall.
I believe that I got burnt today, so tomorrow I will be investing in some good sunscreen. The heat is getting a little better, or maybe I am just getting used to it. Regardless, it is still very hot, it is just more expected now.
Food in Bangkok is something that will take a lot longer than a week to become adjusted to. I feel like I am adjusting to many other things rather quickly, but the food is just an entirely different world. In Bangkok, one of the most common practices for getting food is right off the street. I have been too scared to even look at street vendors since I've gotten here. I have been brave enough to buy coconuts, watermelon, and a strange pear-looking (but nothing like a pear) fruit. I think the bulk of my problem is mental. Being extremely paranoid about everything doesn't exactly help when you look into a glass box and see the "food" they are trying to sell you. I simply cannot get over that the meat sits in the sun and heat all day and people come along and snatch up a chicken leg or eggs straight from the cart. I know that getting food from these carts are common and I see people doing it every day and night, but I just don't know how long it will take me to get to that point. So far, there's no way... but it is the first week. So far, I haven't been incredibly adventurous, but I hope to work my way up to trying all the strange foods Thailand has to offer. Today I had some really interesting food, and I was glad to see that campus had some really nice lunch options. I had some kind of fried chicken pieces with sesame seeds and a sweet brown sauce, a large portion of rice with chopped garlic and lime infused in it, and a small side salad with a sweet white sauce on top. The food here is really interesting and I think that overall, I will grow to like it, there will just be a process to getting used to some of the sights. It isn't every day that you see a duck's head lying out on a cart prepared to be purchased, well that is, unless you're in Bangkok.
There are some incredible people here, and I have been really luck to have made several new friends already. It seems to be a really awesome group of people and I look forward to studying and hanging out amongst both the international students and Thai students that I have met here so far.
Tomorrow, I start my classes at Thammasat University. I have Thai Media tomorrow, which sounds really interesting, so I am really excited. I cannot wait to start the semester off right. I have a lot of new resolutions for the year, and I look forward to taking advantage of all the opportunities that I am lucky enough to have during my stay here in Bangkok.
No comments:
Post a Comment