forays into buddhism

unfortunately i know absolutely nothing about buddhism and this program does not teach a whole lot about it, none up to this point in fact. we did, however, have this really cool buddhist ceremony to welcome us to KKU. It was a string tying ceremony that is supposed to call back the spirit that protects you in case it got knocked loose on a long journey. i knew nowhere near enough thai to understand what the monk was saying, but he said some prayers for a long time (while my leg fell asleep and reached a point of numbness that i never would have thought possible because there is a specific way that girls are supposed to sit to make sure that their feet are not pointing towards anyone, its sort of the cheerleader sit but more tucked under) and then he went around and said a prayer to each of us, put some flowers around our neck, and tied a little white string around our wrist. then they handed out more of them and everyone did the same to their homestay families who had come to the ceremony too. it turned into a pretty cool thing because since none of us knew thai we just sort of made up little prayers for the person's life and wished them health or whatever they wanted. it is hard to explain but it was really great and really created this great sense of happiness and family. corny i know but hey. we all ended up with a couple of inches worth of strings around our wrists, now it looks like we all have really thick, really poorly made, off-white bracelets on. i am clearly well on my way to being crunchy. none of us know how long we are supposed to leave them on though. anyway i hope everyone at home is having a great time too, and that you are enjoying any free time that you have, because i have none and, let me tell you, it kinda sucks. well that was a downer ending but yeah. peace.