My First Day of School!

My first day of school was one of the scariest things I have ever had to do.  I was told that I ould have to introduce myself, so I assumed that I would be introducing myself to a few teachers, the principal, maybe a few students.  Apparently I was wrong.  Their idea of introducing myself involved me standing up on a podium, in front of the entire school.  That wouldn't have been so bad if I was in Canada, where the schools are generally small.  Nope, I had the pleasure of introducing myself to a crowd of over three thousand students.  I am not a big fan of public speaking, and this was one of the scariest things of my life!

My host Rotary Club-The Rotary Club of Sritapee was there and they introduced me and gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers, and luckily I wasn't the only student that had to speak.  Namwan my host sister also had to give a goodbye speech because she was off to America.  There were lots of pictures taken of me, and in just about all of them I found myself squinting because of the sun.  It was bright, which helped me so that I didn't have to stare at the 3000 pairs of eyes staring right back at me. 

My first day of school was filled with many "firsts".  I got to wear my first school uniform, my first public speech, and my first 8 hour school day.  That was the longest school day ever! I was so tired after it, I went home ate and slept.  It was quite fun.  The students here can have 8 or 9 classes a day, but lunch is considered a period.  My schedual for the first day involved a Health class, two math classes, Thai language. lunch, physics for two periods and then a socials class.  It was a long day. 

This is me givingmy speech to the school.  Sadly I don't ave a picture of the kids, but i will try to get one asap.  The outfit I am wearing is one of my school uniforms.  This is the one that I wear Tuesday-Friday.  Or sometimes I will wear the other one as well. 

So these are some of the members of my host Rotary Club.  The lady who is at the microphone is the Presidant, the lady in the pink on my right (far end) is one of the teachers at the school.  The two other ladies on my right are members of the Rotary Club.  Then there is myself and Namwarn, and the lady on the end on my left is my host mom.  They were introducing us and talking about where we came from, and what we had been doing.  It was less nerve wracking because I had already finished my speech.

The Rotary President giving Namwarn and myself our bouquets of flowers.  I am somewhat behind her but before this picture I was in front.  Haha.  The flowers were delivered to us on gold cups, it was pretty cool.  The big metal structure that is behind us is the flagpole, if anyone was really wondering.