ketchup.

soooooo
the retreat was pretty great. it probably would've been better if we weren't all tired when we got there.
we spent pretty much all of tuesday evening/wednesday morning meditating. they woke us up at 5 to start again, and i think we'd stopped around 9 the night before.
the temple was quite nice, and the rooms we stayed in were much nicer than anyone expected.

wednesday we didn't have any planned activities.
i did, though. i went to meet my supervisor for my service placement. the site i'm working at is called the healing family foundation. basically, people with developmental disabilities (the "artists") go there and learn a craft (weaving) as well as other skills, like speaking english and cleaning up and such, and they use the weaving to make money rather than standing on the streets looking miserable to get money.

thursday and friday we had classes, and friday night we went out. we went to the friday night market, which was pretty awesome. i got some pictures of food stuff (we got these soy dessert things that basically consisted of.. soy, sugar, and coconut, and we got this banana in a pancake, so i have pictures of that being made, too.)
then we went to a bar.. that was extremely crowded.. with some of the actual international students (the ones here for 4 years..) we saw a baby elephant walking down the road (people were walking it and charging to feed it..), and while we were at the bar, people would come to our table and try to sell us things.. an extremely tiny old woman was selling flower bracelets, kids were selling peanuts, etc..

today we're going to a concert, so i'll hopefully have pictures of that later.

on monday, we're going to a village for our first home stay, so i probably won't be able to update again (after monday) until at least that saturday.

oh and here are a couple more pictures of the dorm/out my window/the dogs at the dorm.

aaand
my extremely awkward picture that i think i talked about in the last entry: