MeaganClem.com

I just want to say that I love receiving your emails and I apologize if it takes me awhile to respond. Becca - your email made my day today. I also love receiving letters. If you like writing them, my address is:

Meagan Clem
98 Moo 18, Khlong 1
Khlong Luang
Pathum Thani 12120
Thailand

That’s pretty much just a big, bold hint.

Also, send me your mailing address if you’d like some mail. I enjoy real mail even more than emails, so I’d love to send you a letter on ridiculous stationary with funny animals and absurd sayings (all you can find at the stationary store). So even if you don’t want to hear from me, but you like funny animals saying stupid things, send me your address.

I’m taking 2 classes here, Chemistry for Engineers and Construction Management. As you know, I am not an engineer. Classes are 3 hours on 1 day. My Chemistry class meets on Wednesday from 9-12 and the lab is on Saturday from 9-12. Yes. Saturday. UGH! My Construction Management class is Thursday 9-12. I just left that class. Here’s a quick summary.

Construction Management - It’s for seniors in civil engineering, of which I am neither. It’s really more management than construction information, so i can handle that. Today my teacher, who is Thai but got his PHD from Texas A&M, asked who is not a senior in civil engineering. I raised my hand and he asked what kind of engineer I am. That led to me trying to explain that I am an International Affairs (but I have to say politics for it to make sense) major but that my school requires a technology credit. This was pretty much just met with confused looks from everyone. During our 15 minute break (because class is 3 hours) I explained to him my situation a little more indepth. He says I’ll be fine. It was pretty easy today, and he mentioned this book about leadership skills that my Dad had actually given me to read. He asked if anyone had heard of it, and it was pretty much just me - the only non - Thai and non- engineer in the room. Oh, and class starts at 9, right? Well, no. I got there at 9 and there was no one there, so I went to the bathroom and just sat in the air conditioning and then ate breakfast until 9:10. People didn’t start showing up for class until 9:15. I was the first one there.

Chemistry - I have class with Preston and Travis. We walked in, and the girls on the front row started giggling about the boys. I’m not even joking. So our attendance policy is strict in there. If we miss more than 3 classes, we get a 0 on our final. A ZERO on our FINAL! Seriously.
Oh, here’s the funny part. Class is canceled next Wednesday. Yay! Wait, class is canceled because we have to meet at school at 6:45 am to go to the Bankadi campus because Princess Sirindhorn (who SIIT is named for, as I understand) is going to be dedicating the campus, or something. That’s pretty cool, except for the 6:45 part. Attendance is required, and we have to find an attendance sheet once we get to the school to sign in. Finding an attendance sheet amongst tons of students at 6:45 a.m. so that we won’t lose points on our grade sounds disasterous to me. I mean, it should be a cool day, but that’s pretty early.
Oh, so class is canceled on Wednesday. We have to make up class on Friday afternoon. I’m so confused.

Overall, school is going to be just fine.  I’m making friends. I got on a bus yesterday, and everyone in the surrounding seats turned around to start talking to me. That was pretty surprising. They wanted to know where I’m from and things like that. I also walked into the bathroom before chemistry class and this girl said “Hey! Are you in Chemistry too?” and I’m shocked because I’ve not been to chemistry yet. I hadn’t even walked in the room to put my stuff down, but I tell her that I am and we start talking a lot. It turns out that the bathrooms are a great place to meet other girls.

Thai Lessons with Kru Goi (Teacher Goi) - I’m taking Thai lessons from Goi for 2 hours on Tuesday with Preston. It’s so much fun. She’s so cool about it. She made us little worksheets and prepares lessons for us. She’s going to teach us lots of things that we’ll need to say and then later on she’s going to teach us to read and write! She taught us some simple conversations to introduce ourselves and make simple small talk.  We practiced the conversations over and over again and would add more as we went along. it was a lot of fun. Something crazy - I have been told by 4 or 5 different people that when I say something in Thai that I do not have an American accent. I’m pretty excited about that.

It’s time for me to go. Hu maa. Bai gin khao. (I’m very hungry. I’m going to go eat.)

If I don’t have much of a chance to post on here, it’s because I mainly have internet at school. So here’s a quick recap of this weekend.

Saturday - Big orientation meeting at Andy and Jen’s house. We covered culture and religion. There was really not much else to do after that, so Stephanie and I went back to our room and just hung out.

Sunday - Muang Thai Church in Bangkok was great. It’s a small congregation and they give us headsets to listen to someone translating the sermon for us. That’s usually pretty funny. The service is about 2 hours and in Thai. Afterwards we have Sunday School which is taught by Michal Ruth. Each week someone brings a snack and an encouragement to each person in the room. Kelsey brought fun mystery food and little note cards with a great bible verse and compliments and encouragement for each person. After Sunday School is lunch time, and we head out to the street to get sticky rice, fried chicken, and the best cha yen I’ve ever had. Cha yen is tea with milk (cha being tea and yen being milk), and the woman pours tea into a bag over ice and then adds milk, so we’re drinking this wonderfully sweet cha yen out of a plastic bag with a straw. It’s pretty funny. We were supposed to go to JJ’s market after that, but it poured rain and thunder stormed for awhile, so we went to the mall instead. This was once again the giant mall next to the 3 other giant malls. I ended up buying some earrings and a journal. Late that night we left the mall and took a shuttle van from Victory Monument, a huge monument in Bangkok for veterans of war, back to Thammasat University.

Monday - Monday was amazing! After a long team meeting, Stephanie and I met up with Louise (who lives in VKP with us) and took the shuttle van to the Thammasat Campus in the Old City area of Bangkok. That’s where we met up with Uh-oh and walked to Wat Pho. We stopped by the Grand Palace on the way, but we’re saving that for another day. We took pictures of it though.

See the monks? Well, women aren’t allowed to touch monks; it’s a sin for them and a sin for the monks. Well, while I don’t believe it’s a sin for me to touch them, I still should not touch them. That’s easier said than done when I’m walking down a very crowded sidewalk that happens to be full of monks. They may be wearing bright orange, but they’re easy to bump into. I have yet to touch one though; I was being careful.

Once we got to Wat Pho (pronounced Wat Po), we were taking pictures of everything. The most amazing part of Wat Pho, and my reason for going, is the giant Reclining Buddha. He’s 15 meters tall and 46 meters long and covered in gold leaf. It was absolutely amazing!

After taking tons of pictures of and with the Reclining Buddha, we explored the Wat. The temples’ architecture is positively amazing, and there were golden statues of Buddha everywhere we went. I couldn’t believe that we were really there! Everything became fair game for funny pictures.

At the end of the day we took a Tuk-Tuk back to Thammasat to catch the vans home. Then it was straight back to the market for great food (Stephanie and I had chocolate banana crepes) and some shopping.

Today was my first Thai lesson with Koi (pronounced Goi). Preston and I met with her for 2 hours. She taught us simple conversations and had us practice them over and over again, adding more questions each time and then using different vocabulary. It was great fun, and now I have a lot to practice. Tonight is our first Grapejam (bible study at the Grapevine). I’m really excited to see how many people show up and how things go.

Personal Updates:
It’s hot, so at any given moment I’m probably feeling gross.
I love the food and we haven’t started working out yet due to a lack of structured schedules still. Thus, we feel like blobs. My health in relation to the food, however, is still good.
Shopping is fun, but I may be too big for things. Last night I bought 3 shirts at the market. I had to return my favorite one because when I tried it on it was way too tight. The other two shirts better not shrink. They were like 2 dollars though.

You can find all of my pictures right here!

And with that, I leave you with this lovely good bye - the lion thing at Wat Pho.

Don’t you just love our “We love the King” shirts? Since he has been reigning for 60 years, the celebrations have been crazy. Everyone has been wearing yellow, his color. We bought these shirts so no one will know that we are farang, or foreigners. Yeah, we’re so Thai…

The picture was taken with Maria’s camera. How cool is it that?