My Secret Diary - Written by a Thai Teenager

Homepage > My Secret Diary > Part 10 (One Month Later: Christmas)

Sunday 24th December 2000:

I had to stay home and study my books for mid-term exam tomorrow, that was really boring. I was in my bedroom all day reading my books for tomorrow. I can't even touch the phone, my parents will complain for sure.

Monday 25th December 2000:

Hooray! Hooray! Everyone will say this because today is Christmas Day but I won't. I can only say "just my luck that my mid-term exam is on the same day with Xmas". I didn't see anything in my school showing me it's Christmas day today. It was the same as every day nothing different only serious feeling from mid-term exam that everyone showed.

At lunch time, we were so happy because it's only one more subject (that subject is Buddhism) to do and then we can go home. I didn't read the book for that subject because I read it enough from yesterday. For all 3 hours lunch time break, we spent most of time playing cards in our classroom.

After Buddhism exam finished, we all went back home. No one stay at school because the teacher told everyone to go home after exam to study books for tomorrow. I went straight back home and fell down asleep on my bed in my bedroom. My mum woke me up for dinner. I went to take a shower after dinner then I went back up to my bedroom to study my books. Now I know that Christmas Day is a day, nothing special for me. It's only a hard day for me. At my old school, they sang Christmas songs and played games.

Tuesday 26th December 2000:

I didn't want to get up from my bed because it's very comfortable sleeping in my bed. The weather is fantastic, it was cold today really cold. (Well, maybe you wouldn't think it was cold as it was 25 Celsius.) I went to take a shower. The water was really cold so I had to turn on the hot tap. After I finished taking a shower, I went out from the bathroom and ahh.... god I want to get back to take a shower again because it was so cold out there. I quickly got dressed and went to school with my schoolbag full of books to read.

I arrived at school a bit late, my friends had already started revising for today's exam. I quickly went in and joined them. The bell rang, we went down to the playground for assembly.

When the first subject started, I found out that I had to sit next to the teacher. That was terrible because I can't copy my friends (all my exams are multiple choice). I do'nt usually copy my friends but I do sometimes when I can't really think but most of the time I guess by myself.

At lunch time, we quickly went down to eat and came back up to play cards. When the time was near, I started to revise myself. When the time came, I couldn't really do it all, also I couldn't copy my friends so I needed to guess myself. When the exam finished, we didn't go straight back home. We went to one of our friend's house to revise for tomorrow's exam. They helped me a lot. We revised ourselves and before we went back home we did the game Q & A. If you can answer all 10 questions you can go home but if you can't you got to go back and read the books again. I didn't pass it until the fifth time. At least, I was not the last who passed it!!!

Wednesday 27th December 2000:

It was like yesterday that I didn't want to get up from my bed but I had no choice because today is the last day for exam!!! And I got to go to school early to revise with my friends English subject for today as well. First subject is English. Before I went in the classroom, my friend gave me a piece of paper.

Me: Why did you give it to me for?
My friend: For you to write down the answers for me, please Gor.
Me: Ok, Ok but don't trust me 100% because I am not good at grammar exam. Ok?
My friend: You still better than me! I don't wanna fail the subject. If I fail it, my grade will go down hill for sure.
Me: Ok, I know. I understand what you feel.
My friend: Thanks Gor
Me: But remember that don't let the teacher know. Be careful.
My friend: Can I send it to other people?
Me: Yes, but you have to be very very careful, ok?
My friend: Ok.

When I finished the English subject, I wrote it down and went to hand in my answer sheet to the teacher then I went out from the class pretending that I went to study my books. I gave the paper to him quietly and he quickly copied it. When he finished, he went to give the answer sheet to the teacher and gave that paper to other people. I felt scared that the teacher will know this but at last the teacher didn't know. I found out later that the paper went to the nearby classroom as well. They are so good to do that without letting the teacher know.

Three hours for lunch break, we didn't need to study book for next (last) subject because we did it yesterday already. So we just played around in the classroom. We played football, we kicked to hit each other. It was really fun and hurt.

We passed our last subject easily because we had already revised it yesterday. After that I went to play Counter Strike game in the internet shop not far from school. I played for one hour but my friends played longer. I went to my old school to help Richard teaching.

After finished teaching and all students went back home. I went to my old school to visit my teacher. Richard showed me the pictures that he took on Christmas Day at this school. Everyone smiling and seemed to be very happy. I thought that's why lots of people here were very happy when I needed to work hard studying my books for the exam.

Saturday 30th December 2000:

School closed but I had to get up early to go to my grandmum's house (my father side). My parents said that I must go there because I haven't been there for very long time. I don't like going there. It's very boring, I got nothing to do there also I have to look after my younger cousins. They are so naughty, can't sit still.

I was there all day until about 9.30 p.m. They had a little party for New Year which is a bit early for it. I went back home at about 10.00 p.m. I went straight to take a shower and then go straight to bed. I was really tired today.

Sunday 31st December 2000:

I woke up late at about 11.00 o'clock. I saw a note that my mum wrote it for me, she said "go to grandmum's house this evening to visit her. I will go there as well". Then I went to take a shower and do my housework. When I finished, I went to Srinai school to work on my web site. I worked there until about 4.00 o'clock and then I went out to Seacon with Richard to watch a movie. We watched "The Replacements". It was really fun, I really liked it. After that I went to my grandmum's house (my mum side) to visit her like my mum's order. When I was there, they were celebrating for New Year. I went to ask my mum if she will stay here tonight. She said no and she said that I have to stay. I said hello to all of them who were celebrating, I knew most of them (most of them are younger than my dad, I call them brother). They were drinking and smoking, that made me feel uncomfortable because I can't do those things here (drinking and smoking). So I went in the house to say hello to my grandmum. She gave me 500 baht for New Year present. I saw her tears when she gave it to me then I went to tell my mum. My mum said that grandmum was really happy to see me because she hasn't seen me for a long time. Then I went in the house to chat to her for a while and I asked her to come outside to chat with the neighbours. I had something to eat. Then I went inside because I can't sit there when they all were drinking and smoking, it made me want to do it. After a while, I went out and asked my mum that can I have a bottle of beer? She said "only one today, ok?" I said "ok, thank you krub". Then I went to take a beer from my cousin's shop and drink it.

When my grandmum had gone to bed, I asked my dad for whisky. He said ok but don't let grandmum know. So I sat there and drank with my dad and my neighbours. We counted down for New Year there and then when the time came, we all said to everyone "Happy New Year". Then we sat down and drank again. Not long after we counted down, my parents went back home but I didn't go with them. I will sleep here tonight. I still sat there chatting with them and drank until 4.00 a.m. Before I went to bed, I saw some of the monks were walking out for their alms round.

Monday 1st January 2001:

I woke up at about noon. I went to brush my teeth then I went out to buy noodles to eat (I was still in the same clothes as yesterday). After I finished eating, I went to sit down for a while. Then I said goodbye to my grandmum and went back home. On the way back home, I passed Imperial World Shopping Mall. I walked through it and saw some nice jeans so I bought it with that money grandmum gave me. It's cost 350 baht. Then I went out from Imperial and went straight back home before I bought something else. When I arrived home, I went to take a shower and went up to my bedroom to have a little nap before I went to Srinai. I woke up like 4.30 p.m. then I came down to get dressed to go to Srinai. I went there to work.

Tuesday 2nd January 2001:

I stayed home nearly all day getting ready for scout camp tomorrow. In the late afternoon, I went to Ton's house to sleep there. I was at Ton's house not for long then another of Ton's friend came. His name is "O". I knew him because I have had lunch with him and Ton at school. We played on Internet and also played Counter Strike game. We went to bed at about 1.00 a.m.

Wednesday 3rd January 2001:

We woke up very early at about 5.30 a.m. I was really sleepy because I went to bed late last night. I thought I shall go to sleep in the bus. We went to meet other M.3 friends at the City Hall at about 7.00 a.m. Teacher told us to meet at 7.00 o'clock and bus will leave at 7.30 a.m. But really, the bus left at 9.20 a.m. We had to sit there waiting for more than 2 hours. I went on the different bus with Ton. When I was in the bus, I went to sit quickly by the window. The wind was good, it made me more sleepy than I was before. We sat 3 people in 2 seats. I changed to sit in the middle and let my friend which is smaller than me sit by the window. I went to bed on top of my friend's back and he fell down to sleep as well. I didn't sleep that long because the wind blew up to my face a lot and wake me up. Then I went to sleep again but I couldn't. So I woke up to sing a song with my friends. It took about 2 hours to get to the camp. Actually it is a soldier's camp. When we were there, they told us to get down quickly and go to line up in the ground. Me and my friends quickly went there and we were in the same line. Soldiers said the line we were in is our group. I was so lucky to be with lots of my friends but some in my group are from other classes and I didn't really know them.

The soldiers took us to a 2 floor building which is for sleeping. They gave us five minutes to get changed. When we came down, they took us to the small cafeteria to have lunch. The girls sat in the cafeteria but we had to sat outside on the ground. We had fried rice and stew. It was very difficult for me to have that lunch because I had to sit with my back straight and when I ate it, I couldn't bend down to have it I had to take the spoon up to my mouth. When we eat, we talked very loudly. Then the soldiers warned us but we didn't listen. They came to us and took our spoons and told us to have it with our hands. We had no choice so we had to do like they said and we also couldn't argue with them because they will hurt us more than we can hurt them. And also if we argue with them, we wouldn't be able to pass the scout exam. If we didn't pass, then we can't go to learn cadets next year and we have to go to be a soldier in the future. We still talked loudly so they told us to put our hands on our heads and push our hair back. Ahhh my hand is dirty and I had to do like they said. When we finished eating, we tried to wash our hands and hair. But they said that we can't wash it out, just leave it like that all day. Some of my friends did that already, so the soldiers told them to jump down in the dirty pools. Lucky that they didn't see that I had washed my hands! When my friends came back, they were all wet and smelly.

After lunch, we went to practice marching. They practiced us until we couldn't walk properly, my legs really hurt. We went back to have our dinner at the same place we had it before. We were very quiet because we wanted to have our dinner as soon as possible. After we had it, they told us to go back to the building to get changed and come back to meet later for night hike.

I quickly went back to the building because I really wanted to take a shower. But when I was in the bathroom, really it was a really big room with lots of big tubs of water. We had to take a bath together. Everyone wore underwear when we took a bath. We used a small bowl to pour water on our body, it was really cold but we didn't care because our body was so dirty and we were so tired.

We came back down to the ground and got ready for the night hike. First I thought it will be very scary, I was really scared. My friends were more scared than me, they held hands all the way. Really it's nothing to be scared of, it's only dark. Lots of the girls were screaming when they saw the soldier in the dark shade of tree. We walked for really a long way. We went back to our building at about 1.30 a.m. I went to take a bath again with my friends and we came back to sleep.

Thursday 4th January 2001:

Someone turned the light on earlywhich woke me up because the light shined in my eyes. Lots of people had already got up to take a bath. I talked to my friends about whether we will we take a bath or not. We all agreed not to because the weather was so cold and we wanted to use the time to sleep. So we went back to sleep but we didn't sleep for long. The whistle woke me up and the soldiers came up and said 5 minutes to get ready and then go down to meet in the parade ground. I quickly went to wash my face and brushed my teeth. I quickly ran down there with my friends. They told us after this will be morning exercise. They told us to jog for about 5 kms. We were really tired. Then they lead us for the exercises. After we finished exercising, we followed the soldiers back to the camp. When we arrived at the camp, we went straight to the cafeteria. On the way back, the girls went a different way so I didn't see them in the cafeteria. We went in and sat getting ready to eat but most of the people were talking. They told them to be quiet but they still talked loudly so they told us to get down under the table. They said that we can't come up until we stopped talking. We still talked loudly down under the table, then they told us to put the spoon into our mouth. Now the cafeteria is quiet. After a while, they told us to come up from under the table. Before we started eating, we prayed to say thank you to the parents, teachers, chefs, farmers and soldiers. Then we started eating our breakfast. Some of my friends talked while we eating and the soldiers saw it. Then the soldiers took them out and told him to lie down on the floor and eat with their hands.

After breakfast, they told us to go to get changed. They said "wear the dirty cloth if you like because you might throw it away after you come back from this adventure hike. My friends and I quickly ran back to get changed because they only gave us 4 minutes to do it. Lucky that I came back before the deadline but some of my friends not so they had to lie down on the ground and roll to left and right.Then we started walking to the big hill. The told us to crouch down and jump up the hills while other groups were walking up there. My legs really hurt but we still had to do it. After we jumped for about 2 kms. up the hill, they said that we can walk now don't need to jump any more. We were really happy to hear that because our legs were really really hurt. On the way up hill, we had to pass all 10 checkpoints. We passed it all, it was really fun. When we were at the top of this hill, we couldn't walk down. They told us to climb down the hill. I did it with one of my friends and we passed it very easily but I was hurt a bit because the rocks fell down on my feet. When everyone came down, we went to have our lunch in the forest. While we were walking, we didn't walk properly. So they told us to go down on all fours and crawl like a dog. So bad because I wore short jeans. I really hurt my knees because there are lot of small rocks there. When they said stop, I looked at my knees, there were some blood bleeding out. We stopped to eat then we started walking again but now everyone walked properly and no-one talked. They took us to the lake. Nearby the lake, there is a small lake with lots of mud. They told us to go to wait in there while we were waiting for other groups. Our clothes were all dirty. When we came back up, they told us to go to the lake and wash our bodies. We quickly ran down, some jumped down there, to wash our body. For about 2 minutes, we heard the whistle so we had to come up. We complained that the time is not enough to wash our body it's not clean yet. The soldier heard that, they told us to lie down on the ground and roll around. Ahhh, now we were dirty again. They told us to stop. Then they lead us to the sea. It was really long way to the sea. I really wanted to take a shower but I can't. When we were at the sea. They let us play in the sea for about 45 minutes, then we walked back.

When we came back, they told us to go to take a bath and come to meet in 30 minutes. I was the first who ran up to the building. I took my towel and ran down to the bathroom and started to pour the water over my body, my friends followed. After I finished, I went down with my friends to meet on the parade ground. I sat and talked for a while then the soldiesr came. They told us to go to the cafeteria. This time we had to eat outside on the ground and the girls sat inside. We were really very quiet so they can let us eat quickly. We were really happy that we had dinner because we were really hungry. When we finished eating, we went to practice the play for camp fire. We played "Cinderella" and they let me play the prince.

We went to the big parade ground where we will have camp fire. The camp fire was really fun, I felt sleepy while other groups were playing and I had to wake up when the soldiers turn on the dancing song. We went out for dance before we all came back to our building to sleep. We went to bed at about 2.30 a.m.

Friday 5th January 2001:

We woke up about 6.30 a.m. My friends and I still didn't take a bath this morning. We wore scout uniform and went down to the parade ground to meet everyone. We went to have our breakfast in the cafeteria. The girls had it other place. This breakfast we can eat it like normal, we can talk loudly, because today is our last day so they let us be comfortable. When we finished eating, they took us to the big room. Lots of people there already. We went to sit down and listen to them say good bye. It was really sad, my tears nearly came out. They were so strict to us before but now I know that really they are so kind.

After it finished, we went to go on the bus and go back home. We went to have our lunch by the sea then we went straight back to our province. We came back to the city hall at about 3.50 p.m. Then we all went back home. I went straight back home with Ton. When we got home, we took our scout shirts off and went up to sleep in my bedroom. We woke up again at about 9.25 p.m. We came down and had our dinner with my parents. Then Ton went back home. I went to take a shower then I went straight back to sleep.