one week left!

well i leave in one week, wow. time flies so fast.

today was my last day of teaching :/ tomorrow we have school but no teaching, just songkran festivals all day. we are all wearing "traditional thai clothing" to school and are apparently going to get really soaked, because well thats part of what songkran is all about :) so tomorrow will be a big water fight with the kids and teachers- fun fun! and we are also doing some traditional ceremonial things too. there is a special drink that you drink during songkran- its like a plant juice. supposedly really healthy. they were making it today in the kitchen.

then after school tomorrow i get on the long 14 hour+ bus ride to southern thailand for songkran.

this last weekend i went to Hua Hin for a 10k race. it's called the Preserve Hua Hin Heavy Half-Marathon and Quarter Marathon. and yeah now i know why they have the "heavy" in there. there is a HUGE hill, like almost a mountain that you have to run down at the start (it is about a mile straight steep downhill on pavement- cars cannot drive up it) and then you have to finish the race right at the top of the hill, so you have to run UP it. so the whole race i was just trying to imagine how i would get up that hill. i was like flailing down the hill, my legs were out of control, it was so steep! i knew my legs were gonna hurt, and they really do. there are no hills around most of thailand so i have not been running any hills. the way up was hell too, i thought my legs were gonna fall off, it was so hard to keep them moving and not walk up the hill, but i made it!

i got 3rd place and was MUCH slower than the previous race, but this was the hilliest 10k i have ever seen or imagined. it was super hot out too. i got a trophy and 1,200 baht for getting 3rd place, so thats kinda fun. the trip was a lot of fun and we made lots of friends on the bus. i went with my thai friend Nig. we took a free bus there organized by the race from bangkok (a 4 hour drive). and then we ended up getting a free hotel room too. and then we got free lunch and breakfast. all in all the trip cost me like -25 dollars. i made money off of it, ha.

at the race i met some really cool and really good runners. there were people from all around the world, but i liked talking to the kenyans the most. a lot of the people there thought i was a professional runner and that i had just came to thailand for this race or something and that i had sponsors, and some were even telling me that they would be watching me on the olympics because they thought for sure i was on the team usa. they were surprised that i just taught english and ran for fun.

the rest of the weekend (monday was a holiday too) involved shopping, and hanging out with Nig and her sister. it was a good weekend.

my last week of thailand will be very interesting with songkran and the political craziness going on at the moment here.