In which we finally have a home in Lamphun

So there has been some excitement since the fire, although thankfully nothing so terrifying or hospital-visit-inducing. We had somewhat of a Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) orientation, although since none of us knew what age group we would be teaching it was kind of pointless. Also, we don't have to turn in any of the work from it until July 1. Which makes it really hard to care knowing it's continued irrelevance to any of our classrooms.
On the other hand, we did learn some useful resources for teaching, between rubistar and pinterest education and things like that. And the couple that ran the workshop were really sweet and funny so it wasn't as boring as we all feared. That took two days, and we basically just hung around Lampang and explored in the evenings.
One of our number went home a couple of days ago. I pulled my shoulder and my back trying to help her one night and spent one of the orientation days a little loopy. I got impromptu acupuncture from Maaw Pet! She saw that I was in pain and asked if I wanted acupuncture... since I've never had it done, of course I said yes. So she just pulled me out into the hallway, sat me down, and reached into her bag for a little packet of needles she had on hand and started finding knots and shoving in needles. There was a little pinch from them and then it felt amazing. She left them in place for about 15-20 minutes and then took them back out. The circulation definitely improved and I got sleepy and relaxed and just wanted to take a nap. Maaw Pet mentioned not having her long needles, and now I really want to find both a local thai massage place and a local acupuncture place. It felt so crazy good and my muscles were looser afterwards. Yay Eastern medicine!
Yesterday was our orientation field trip day. We visited a local temple and then went to the Royal Elephant Conservation. I got to see elephants painting pictures of elephants! It was especially interesting to note that they always paint elephants from the side or behind, never from the front. We also got to see them do other tricks like pulling logs around, balancing on them, playing catch, shaking hands (trunks?), so many things. They're so gentle for being so humongous it's really captivating to watch. And they're so beautiful in person! I am an elephant fan for life now. I found out I can pay a few thousand baht and go to mahamout school (because I can't just go work or volunteer, sadly)... I think I just might go for a 2 or 3 day course. I wish I had three thousand bucks to shell out for the 30 day mahamout school, but alas.
I finally got some art paper! I spent the past week looking for art stores on our walks to no avail. But at the elephant conservation, they make paper. It's elephant poo-paper, and I whole-heartedly approve. They recycle elephant poo for biogas and Elephant poo doesn't smell and it's all fibrous so it's perfect. They just let it dry, squish it up in some water, and spread it on a silkscreen to dry. I bought four different sheets in a few colors (they dye it before it is squished) and I'm planning an elephant oil pastel piece that I want to send to the people that took care of me at the hospital.
I also bought more clothes, in the form of a pair of pants that I already absolutely love. I'll try to post pics with blog soon, syncing everything up and then making sure it all Wi-Fis is a pain in the ass. Signal here is notsomuch. Tried skyping my awesome sister today for it to just freeze in the most flattering facial expressions. By most I mean not in the least. But we could talk sort of okay.

Ben, Charlayna, Allison and I have now found ourselves safe in Lamphun at the Chakkam Khanathon School. It's a huge government school of about 2,000 students, so I'll have 19 different classes of about 45 each.


Wat.

I'm a little terrified when I see it that way, but I'm also really looking forward to it. I have 7th and 10th grades, normal kids. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get more advanced kids like Ben or Allison but on the other hand I can play a lot of simple vocab and conversation games. I hope that these kids will have a lot of fun while they're learning, because who doesn't want that?
We got to Lamphun around 2-3ish today and came straight to our apartments. We have our own little half-furnished studios on the bottom floor of a place called How To Hotel. It's a few minutes walking distance from the school. We have restaurants and a 7-11 close by so we really won't want for much.
The school looks small but there are 6 different buildings for all the kids, and I'm sure it will be a clusterfuck when the kids are actually there. I'll be in building 5 and travel between floors for classes. I'm spending all this week just having syllabus days, basically. Lots of meet and greets and icebreakers and figuring out exactly how much english they know and feel like sharing.
On that note, it's past my old lady teacher bedtime, I've got to be up around 6. Praying that there is a coffee shop that opens before 930, which has been all we've found.