Meet Teay

I've been pretty sparse on updates recently. Part of that is just me having less new stuff to talk about on here, but also recently I've had my attention diverted elsewhere...

This is Teay (pronounced quite like the name Tia in the US). Teay is a friend of Scott's wife Pim, and I first met her at a party at their house. She is also a teacher, and has been teaching pre-school at Nampung's school Sartit, as well as private lessons. Towards the end of the summer school break, we started seeing quite a lot of each other.

This weekend was Teay's last in Uttaradit before going to Bangkok to study for her Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education. So, we spent most of the weekend together traveling around. Saturday we went to Phitsanulok by bus so we could watch the 2nd Chronicles of Narnia movie. Movies there are dubbed in Thai, with no English subtitles. My Thai is slowly getting better, but I still follow the movies mostly from context with the words that I do recognize mixed in. Teay's English is quite good -- way better than my Thai -- but we're both getting good practice talking to each other.

On Sunday, we went to Si Satchanalai with a Thai friend of mine named Ben. Ben is going to move to Singapore and work for a British company, so this summer I've helped him practice up on English and build some conversational confidence before he goes to work. He lives near Si Sat (place names are commonly abbreviated in conversation like that, Phitsanulok becomes P-lok, Uttaradit to U-Dit, etc.) and offered to take us on a tour of the old city.

Sunday evening, Teay's cousin was having a wedding reception in Uttaradit, so we also went to that before she had to catch the train to Bangkok.

So now it's been 2 days without my girlfriend and I'm missing her already! Fortunately we can keep in touch with phones and online chat, and we already have some ideas for times when we can visit each other. She is very smart and great with her students, so I know she'll do well at University.

HERE is a photo gallery from this weekend.