 I
have much catching up to do with my journal.
I apologize for getting behind. Since my last entry – let me
remember – first there was Biketoberfest in the middle of October.
This is a very large gathering of motorcycles in Daytona Beach from
all over the world.  It was a lot of fun to ride with my host father on his
motorcycle with his friends and see all of the bikes.
I had my picture taken sitting on a very expensive custom
“chopper”. I would like
to take this bike home with me to Thailand.
My
host family’s cat, Astro seems to really want to be in my room at night.
He makes a lot of strange noises for me to let him in.
He stays for a while and then makes the same noises to let him out.
He also likes to sit on the back of my chair with me.
We
have gone to several places around Daytona Beach.
We had a great time at the Kennedy Space Center with Andy Perez and
my exchange sister Natascha. The
rockets are quite large and we got some good pictures of the three of us
in space capsules. I also
rode in a flight simulator that was fun.
We saw some big alligators on the way to the Space Center.
I
also spent a weekend with the Lawrence family in Jacksonville. Their daughter, Joy, is an outbound student staying with my
family in Thailand. I got to
go to the zoo and ride some horses.
Thanksgiving
in America means having a lot of food and family getting together.
My host family had all their children over for Thanksgiving.
There were a lot of people there.
We deep fried some turkeys, which I have never seen done before.
It was fun and also very good.
I especially liked playing with and holding my host dad’s
granddaughter, Jillian. She
is eight months old and very cute.
The
Rotary trip to Disney was great fun.
I enjoyed being with all the other exchange students and seeing all
there was at Disney. Epcot
was very interesting. I got
very wet on one of the rides and liked the cold weather that we do not get
in Thailand. The trip to Disney was a highlight and I thank the members of
Rotary who worked on this trip.
I
got to decorate my first Christmas tree – that was a lot of fun. My host dad bought me a Christmas tree for my room that has
lights that change color. He
is going to send this tree back to Thailand for me, so that I can put it
up every Christmas. We got to
see how people put lights up on their houses and yards.
I have never seen this before.
I told my host dad that I would like to do this at my home in
Thailand. He bought me a lot
of lights to take back with me so that I can do this.
He told me that once I do
this, that others will want to do this also and that I should set up a
business of importing and selling these lights – this is a good idea.
Christmas
was fun with the exchange of presents and the food and the people coming
to the house. I also went to
some Christmas parties with my host parents that were fun.
Always a lot of food.
The
language has become more natural now.
There are still phrases that people use in America that I need to
have explained, but I am feeling comfortable communicating.
School is ok – it was hard at first with not knowing anybody and
the different ways that school is in America.
I have 4 classes each day at our high school. My history teacher spoke very fast and this was the most
difficult class. English was
ok – except for having to read The Crucible.
This is not an easy book to read.
I enjoyed my art class the most.
Today,
January 5 we start our second semester of school – I really wish that we
could stay on vacation. It is
hard to believe that half of the year has finished.
My
host dad plans to take us to Vermont to see snow.
I really want to do this. I
have never seen snow. This
will be fun. We plan to do
this at the end of January. My
host mom will go to visit my host brother, Scott who joined the Air Force
after Thanksgiving.
This
last Saturday we went to Blue Springs State Park and rented canoes to see
the manatees. This was great
fun. We saw lots of manatees,
gar fish, alligators and turtles. My
arms were sore from paddling the canoe and my host Dad tried to tip the
canoe over on us once.
I
am also looking forward to the trip to the Keys with the Rotary Exchange
students in February.
I
promise to write more later.
|
Maneenaree "Kaew"
Suttirak
