Hello all :)

First things first... I got a FIRST in my degreeeeee! wooooooo! Extremely extremely happy!!! It's been a good few days since I mfound out and I'm still struggling to believe it! Just waiting for the call that says they've mixed my results up with someone else! But I guess living in the library for the year definitely paid off! I could not be happier!!! :D

Now to Laos....I have now come to the end of my time volunteering in the beautiful Luang Prabang. Although I've really enjoyed it and made the most of it, I do feel a bit disappointed that it was not what I paid an awful lot of money to do! My volunteer with pre-school children project was slightly flawed in the way that there was not a single pre-school child in sight! However... it was an excellent experience and I think coming home and saying that I taught english in Laos, and even better that I taught novice monks to speak english in Laos, sounds amazing and probably a lot better than playing with little kiddies :)

In my 2nd week I got more classes a day! One of my existing classes of the youngest kids (ages 12-19 - I thought they were 6 they look so young!!!) got naughtier and naughtier! They have confirmed for me that I most definitely do not want to be a teacher when I'm older! I found it hard not to kick them under the desks. Another existing class (with the mean girls in that laughed at me) got a lot better! They actually realised that I was worthwile having around and could help them with a thing or two! My favourite moment with that class is probably when they were struggling to pronounce 'Languages'. I thought it would be a good idea to break it down in to syllables to make it a little easier. It was only when I got to the last syllable and had them repeating 'Jizz' very loudly after me that I realised the syllable idea was probably not the best one (if any of you oldies aren't familiar with the word 'jizz'... google it! I don't wish to explain over my U rated blog!). I still had a few girls that laughed at me but they quickly stopped when I made them repeat stuff by themselves and asked them all the questions (that they didn't know the answers too - mwahahahaaaa). One of the classes that I picked up was the beginners novice monks (see the picture attached!) at a temple school. Although I was terrified about teaching the novices because of all the strict rules, I could not be more pleased that I had the pleasure of teaching this little group of cuties!!! It was only a small class (so around 10 of them) and they were so adorable and keen to learn! The reason I was given that class is because the abbot of the temple banned women from teaching there.They had decided to let women back in to teach so I went and joined one of the male volunteers, Max, with teaching! The first thing one of them said when I walked in was "yessssss.... girls!!!!!" haha :) I don't think he's planning on becoming a monk!!!!! They are definitely the cheekiest of all the students. In one of the classes Max was trying to act out emotions so he started by walking in the room angry and furious and they all guessed 'angry'. Next he tried to do calm so strolled in the classroom and one novice shouted 'lady boy' while another shouted 'gay'. haha needless to say he was nicknamed lady boy forthe rest of the trip!!!! They were so polite though and at the end of every lesson they would say "thank you teachers for your teaching...have lovely dreams". But anyway they were so cheeky but amazing to teach... so well behaved and took everything in so quickly! They don't look very happy in the picture as they're supposed to have a very stern, important appearance (as they are considered very superior in society) but they had the cutest smiles! And my favourites at the front had the most adorable dimples! I really am so pleased I got to teach them! AFter teaching I am also a lot more familiar with my verbs, pronouns, tenses and grammar in general!

Soooo... what else have I been doing??? Hmmm I've continued to eat lots of noodles and rice! I also have eaten lots of crepes (the stalls are everywhere here!!!). I also befriended the donut lady who came round and delivered us donuts every day to the resource room when we were lesson planning... she was our life saver <3. Apart from eating.... I have drank lots of Beer Lao (the local beer) and also drank too much LaoLao (the local whiskey) .. maybe too much at times. These activites led to me breaking curfew several times but weheeeeeyyy I didn't get shot! I am still here to tell the tale! I maybe didn't get shot because one night we didn't get back till 6am so the gates were open for the day (does that count as breaking curfew!?). That night/morning was very special actually, Me and one of the other volunteers were walking back about 4-4:30am and the route back was through temple grounds. All the novices were hanging out the windows and whispering 'Sabaidee' to us (you blog fans should know what this means from my last blog ;D) and they started to chant. It is a ritual that they chant every morning at about 4am and every afternoon between 4 and 6. After the morning chant they go and collect food from the locals (this is called aims - pronounced arms) as they are only allowed to eat/own what is donated to them. So the locals all set up in the street to give aims and the monks and novice monks from each temple come with baskets and collect their food for the day (in order of abbot, most senior monk and then most junior novice monk) . It's so amazing to watch and all the cheeky little ones at the back were giving us smiles :) We loved it so much that 2 mornings later we bought loads of biscuit/cracker things and gave aims ourself! It's a very early start but definitely worth it and its a huge tradition in Laos so is a must!

I also went on an elephant trek this week! It was amazing! We rode the elephants, then bathed them and then fed them. Bathing them in the water was like riding a bucking bronco! I was sat on its neck and it would tip its head right under the water and then pull its head out again! It was sooo scary but really fun! It made me so excited to start my elephant conservation work!!!

I also did a village trip which the staff made out to be a really exciting fun trip. It was not at all. Firstly we had about a 45 minute ride on a tuk tuk (the most uncomfortable form of transport everrrrr!!!!) then we arrived at a school of all boys and they split them into 4 groups, assigned a volunteer for each group and told us to just go and make conversation with them. It was honestly the most awkward experience of my life! I had a group of around 15 boys surrounding me (aged about 15-18) who could not speak a word of english! Not even all of them could answer 'what is your name' so when I got to questions like 'How old are you?' 'Do you all have any brothers or sister?' 'Do any of you have pets?' I got blank stares. I did ask 'Do any of you play any sports' and got 1 answer that was 'guitar' so gave up with that one. This went on for about half an hour and they probably said about 10 words between the 15 of them! It was so painfully awkward! ANd then to make things just that little bit more awkward, my sight started to go funny then I lost my vision completely! The last thing I saw was all the boys gormlessly staring at me (now looking a little confused) as I shouted out to one of the volunteers "Alice I can't see anything. Alice help" and the next thing I knew I was being carried in to a class room and lay down on the bench and was being fanned by 2 men, drenched with sweat! No idea what came over me. It took me about 15 minutes to feel ok again though... quite scary! MAybe it was my body reacting to the most awkward experience it's ever been in... who knows! :) BUt we left the school and I had to embarrassingly re-emerge and show my face to loads of school boys who had just seen me pass out! We laughed the whole (long, painful) journey home at how awkward it was for everyone and were in agreement that the village trip was not as exciting as it was made out to be!!!

Sooo this is pretty long so I'll probably stop now! Sorry its a bit of a ramble but trying to do it quickly! I'm currently in Chiang Mai about to start my elephant conservation tomorrow. Eeeee. My phone doesn't appear to be working but text me anyway and there may be the off chance that I get it. I won't have internet/wifi for the next week as we're staying in wooden shacks 'with basic electricity and no hot water' (hmmm) so the chance of having internet access is slim! BUt email me anyway and I look forward to receiving it when I get access :D

I'm nervous as it's a new thing again but excited to work with the elephants and excited to meet all the new volunteers I'll be working with on this! And it dawned on me today that I (the most accident prone person ever) have got myself across several countries for a month now all by myself!!! I'm pretty proud of myself :)

Missing you all loads and talk soon xxx