normal.

(just a picture of my breakfast this morning. can't stop thinking about it.)

My day to day surroundings are so far from what I used to think was normal, that now I have to sit back and remind myself that this place is crazy and weird and different and after living here, my life will never be the same. Things that I encounter everyday are just something that need to be recorded, so that I will never forget what my life in Thailand was like. 

I ride a motorbike to school everyday. 

I eat 80 cent noodles for lunch everyday. 

Every morning my students have to line up in perfect rows to sing the national anthem and listen to lectures from their Thai teachers. Every morning, I have to attend these assemblies, where I really have no idea what is being said or done. Like one time when some male students were laying on their backs with their feet in the air in front of their entire 8th grade class. A Thai teacher was making them do this. 

Like how for the majority of the day, I don't understand a single word being said. When my students show up 20 minutes late for class, it is completely normal. 

Oh, and my students practically begin and end class everyday. The class leader shouts to the class "Ready, rise" and the whole class stands up and bows and says "Good morning, teacher" and then I must tell them to sit down. If I don't tell them to sit down, they will stand the entire class. When it's time for class to end, the leader again tells the class to rise and the students stand up, bow, and quickly shout "Thank you, teacher!" 

I can eat the biggest bowl of the best fruits known to man for about a buck thirty. 

We swerve in and out of traffic like it's nobody's business. Stephan whips our motorbike between cars around cars through cars to get around all the traffic and I never think twice about it. It doesn't even scare me anymore. 

I cringe at paying more than four bucks for a dress or shirt or any kind of clothing. 

If my meal is more than 5 dollars, I feel sick to my stomach. 

I bow to every teacher that I walk past at school. And I even bow to the sweet girl that makes me a fruit shake every day at the market near my apartment. 

The other morning, I poured myself a bowl of cereal and realized that ants had taken a liking to it. I just poured the milk right over the cereal and the ants and ate it. Just a little added protein to my breakfast. 


...these are just a few things that probably would have just seemed so strange or crazy or different a year ago. I'm sure there are plenty more unusual things that happen day to day, but they are just so normal to me now, that I can't even think of them.