If you haven’t heard, we have a new student transfer from Bangkok, Thailand. Her name is Abigail Bloom, she goes by Abby, and she is a 14 year old girl who has just moved here to FHS freshman year. As you all know Thailand isn’t exactly a “few hour drive” for vacation kind of thing. To be exact, Thailand is exactly 8,620 miles away. Abby says “Thailand is different because Thailand is like a city, similar to New York City here, while Farmington is very close and just sorta like a small town”. She had some time to get used to the USA. She moved here in early June, she says “Before we came here to Farmington, we visited about 24% of America.” When she was visiting our country, and soon came to Farmington, she was scared. She says “There were no tall buildings and everything was just so different, I missed and still do miss Thailand”

Abigail is very athletic, she is a runner and a swimmer. She also plays basketball, volleyball, and soccer. Her friends, including myself, would describe her as funny, loving, super kind and thoughtful, and just overall a fun person to be around. She plays Viola and Violin, and she is currently learning to play the piano. Abby went to school at Brookley International in Thailand. She describes it as big, full, and very eventful. She says people were really nice to her personally, but it was a typical school, there were rude people, and only approximately 400 highschool students in total.

When I first met Abby, I wondered, “Why Farmington, Missouri out of everywhere in the US?” I soon learned that Abby, her mother, father and sister moved here because of her grandmother. She and her family haven’t seen her grandmother in 8 years. Lucky for us, she plans on staying all 4 years of highschool! One of her plans for after highschool is to get into a good college, and then pursue her life as either a interior designer of houses, or go into the modeling industry. When it comes to talking about the transition, specifically, she talks about the enormous amount of malls, just a few minutes from her house, the taxi motor bikes, and how the currency is different (currency is a system of money). For example, in Thailand, the currency is baht, while ours is dollars.

Holiday traditions are different everywhere. In Thailand, they even have extra holidays you’ve probably never heard of! Something us Missourians could never get used to is having no snow. That’s right, no snow for Thailand. According to Abby, there’s a holiday called songkran, where the people of Bangkok go around the city, and spray people with water, and it lasts for 2 weeks! And of course, Christmas. Christmas in Thailand is rainy and hot. I personally couldn’t even imagine that, considering it’s usually around the negative degrees and snowy.

There are different cultures, traditions, and people everywhere. I’ve learned so much about Thailand. Not only Thailand, Abby. She’s amazing and I love being her friend. I encourage you to talk to new people and make them feel welcome. By getting to know them, you may gain a new friend, and even knowledge about the world around you.