Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been doing a lot. Last weekend my school took us all to a beautiful national park, which included, among other things, a one-hundred foot waterfall. I walked right up underneath it, and it was, obviously, amazing.

This past week has been a blur. I feel pretty well adjusted and in a good swing as far as family and school goes. I've been going to a gym with friends after school, which has been a good way to do something more personal, rather than diving right back in to the family situation after school. I've also, as a result, been in a much better state for dealing with the fam afterwards.

Friday we went rock climbing with school. And it wasn't like normal school trips where you only get to do the cool thing once because there's so many people. We all got to do many climbs and by the end I was fairly sore and scratched up.

Today, Saturday, some of us students went about an hour outside of town to go bamboo rafting. It ended up being one of the more exciting parts of the trip so far. The rafts were about three feet wide and twenty feet long. We fit about four people on each one, and steered with the help of two huuuge bamboo poles. We went over many rapids and on more than one occassion got thrown forward by running in to a rock. The worst time came when my raft hit a huge rock in the middle of the river. The raft had previously hit a submerged rock, which broke the bamboo that was holding the front together. When we hit the new rock, the boat got completely stuck, while water pounded on it and nobody could hardly swim or walk enough to get a good grip on it. Eventually, after breaking the bamboo rod in the middle, we were able to free the raft, which was by that time nearly decimated. We also broke several of the steering sticks, as they got caught in rocks in the river bed and we were carried away. It was an absolute blast, especially without any lifejackets, instructors or contact with anyone. We were pretty much just on our own to get down the river, and thankfully nobody got hurt.

I'm off to enjoy a bit of the Chiang Mai night life.