Back to school
Call it a lack of effort, personality fault, a cultural incompatibility, language barrier, or most likely all of the above, but I didn't do much to reach out to friends in the first 6 months of school. I would always greet the people I recognized, and I spent a fair number of days talking to friends late after school, but I often didn't make an effort to break into the conversation over lunch. Had I been invited anywhere, I would have said yes, but until the last week of school it seemed like no one thought to include me. The highlights of my social life were often playing some kind of game during a free period. At the time, I had some idea of what was going on. I was a little bit resentful that these people who were so nice to me and proclaimed to want to be my friend never thought to include me in anything they did - and also that a good number of my friends rarely did anything worth inviting me along to. In the end, though, it was just life. I was happy enough and I got on with things.
Spending about two months mostly away from people my age over the summer, combined with the realization that I only have a month left of school didn't so much give me a new perspective as it reminded me why I was here. I still didn't have particularly high expectations for speaking Thai - which I consider to be the one great failure of my exchange, even more than not having a social life or when Rotary leadership shot down a completely within-the-rules trip to an elephant sanctuary - but I was prepared to speak up a little more and make my want for friendship known.
In fact, I exceeded my expectations. I can actually understand the teachers now, although trying to actually learn in class is difficult beyond my interest level. While last year I had eaten lunch with the same group of people almost every day out of convenience more than anything, I ended up eating with different groups, mostly by accident, every day this week. Since I'm the new attraction around town again, my friends who don't speak English as well have actually been reaching out to me, and to my ongoing surprise, we've been mostly able to get somewhere in conversation. I haven't introduced the idea of going out to do anything yet, but I may not even have to - over lunch, one group of friends was asking me if I had any experience with Thai barbecue. When I do see groups of people from school going out, it is often to that type of restaurant (not that there's a whole lot more choices for large group sit-down dining in Phanat). Now it will just be a matter of figuring out how to get home, since public transportation shuts down before 6:00 every day.
I've also taken control of my own schedule, so instead of going to art classes once a week, I went to see the teachers and told them I want to finish a gold leaf project. They gave me a list of every time they have a class studying that discipline and their free times.
I think an entire new year of exchange would be a little excessive, but I wish I had a few more months, maybe this whole semester. On the other hand, the race against the clock is one of my best motivators. In any case, at least the last month is shaping up to be the best one.
If there's any future exchangers reading this, my best advice is either be a little more aggressive than you really want to about getting your friends to hang out, or figure out the language earlier in the year (once you can read, Memrise is a good plan; they also have courses to teach you to read, but I haven't tried those, and I would recommend staying away from a "no reading necessary" course unless they have good audio for every word).
I will try to update soon with pictures and then share this post. I haven't taken any from this new year at school yet. My Songkran post is also waiting in the drafts folder to get pictures.
Spending about two months mostly away from people my age over the summer, combined with the realization that I only have a month left of school didn't so much give me a new perspective as it reminded me why I was here. I still didn't have particularly high expectations for speaking Thai - which I consider to be the one great failure of my exchange, even more than not having a social life or when Rotary leadership shot down a completely within-the-rules trip to an elephant sanctuary - but I was prepared to speak up a little more and make my want for friendship known.
In fact, I exceeded my expectations. I can actually understand the teachers now, although trying to actually learn in class is difficult beyond my interest level. While last year I had eaten lunch with the same group of people almost every day out of convenience more than anything, I ended up eating with different groups, mostly by accident, every day this week. Since I'm the new attraction around town again, my friends who don't speak English as well have actually been reaching out to me, and to my ongoing surprise, we've been mostly able to get somewhere in conversation. I haven't introduced the idea of going out to do anything yet, but I may not even have to - over lunch, one group of friends was asking me if I had any experience with Thai barbecue. When I do see groups of people from school going out, it is often to that type of restaurant (not that there's a whole lot more choices for large group sit-down dining in Phanat). Now it will just be a matter of figuring out how to get home, since public transportation shuts down before 6:00 every day.
I've also taken control of my own schedule, so instead of going to art classes once a week, I went to see the teachers and told them I want to finish a gold leaf project. They gave me a list of every time they have a class studying that discipline and their free times.
I think an entire new year of exchange would be a little excessive, but I wish I had a few more months, maybe this whole semester. On the other hand, the race against the clock is one of my best motivators. In any case, at least the last month is shaping up to be the best one.
If there's any future exchangers reading this, my best advice is either be a little more aggressive than you really want to about getting your friends to hang out, or figure out the language earlier in the year (once you can read, Memrise is a good plan; they also have courses to teach you to read, but I haven't tried those, and I would recommend staying away from a "no reading necessary" course unless they have good audio for every word).
I will try to update soon with pictures and then share this post. I haven't taken any from this new year at school yet. My Songkran post is also waiting in the drafts folder to get pictures.
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