Drumroll...

I'm almost positive I've decided to go to Eastern Washington (I know, big surprise)!!! UW didn't accept me, which makes an easy decision even easier. EWU offered me another fellowship, which would let me pay in-state tuition (out-of-state tuition is $11,000 more per year, ridiculous). I applied for two GSAs that would waive the tution, so I'm still waiting to hear back about those. Jonathan Johnson--the prof who's been emailing me--had a lot more encouraging things to say about the GSAs...they are definitely rooting for me.

I can't believe how quickly the end of my time in Thailand is approaching! Our April vacation flew by. Last weekend, Isaac and I went with our friend Kong to Chinatown, walked around, saw some temples, ate dim sum, almost got caught up in the biggest clash between the red shirts and the government that they've had yet (21 people killed and somewhere around 800 injured--it was already getting intense while we were there, and we missed the big hullabaloo by about half an hour), escaped on motorcycles, survived.

On Sunday we had a cell group "outreach" which took about ten of us on a van ride to the beach. We took a ferry to Ko Larn, probably the closest decent beach to Bangkok. It wasn't stunning, but it was super fun to swim and play on the beach.

Last night we (Isaac, Tai, Kwang, Rung, and Awn) got back from a 3-night stay in Roi Et (province about 7 hours away) with May Awn and Rung's families. The first two nights we stayed in a small town with May Awn's parents. They live right on the river and have rice paddies that are sooooo beautiful. We took a drive to "play water" in Mukdahaan, a neighboring province (that's just across the river from Laos). That was super crazy. It's like a mardi gras water fight.... Everyone is on the side of the street or in the back of trucks with water guns or dumping buckets of water on each other. The kids have a great time with it, but so do the teenagers and adults, who get drunk and dance in the streets and smear powder on everyone's faces. It was fun for a while, but sitting in the back of our truck while everyone targets you for being farang and sometimes dumps bucket after bucket of ice water on you before putting their powdery hands all over your face gets a little tiring.

The third night we stayed at Rung's mom's house in a bigger city. It was sweet to see what real Thailand is like and to see people relaxed with their families. There were a lot of cultural things that would probably make good details for poems, but I'm still pretty tired from the whole trip and trying to get in the teaching mindset again, so that might have to come later.