I made it 2 months!

This is probably going to be a short entry (yet somehow when I say that it always ends up being a novel) as not much happened this past week/weekend. We had our first 5 day week in 3 weeks and it made me remember how long the weeks can be. Time is very weird here: some days seem like they take forever and some seem to fly by and last week felt so long but when you look at my time here as a whole it's been 2 months already! I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder--can you believe it? Two months?!

We've had some interesting food experiences at school the last few weeks. I'm not sure why they eat some of the things they eat, but they really just shouldn't. We got to lunch one day and it looked fine and well; we were scooping our bowls full and came to the meat tray. On it were cubes of gelatinized pig's blood (we decided not to get those cuz they were in the soup a couple weeks ago and we aren't really fans.) I thought I'd never have to eat blood cubes again (my senora made them for us in Spain--sick) but lo and behold the Thais love their blood too! So, we bypassed the Type AB+ and started scooping what appeared to be pork and onions. Well we chewed the 'onions' and they were kinda chewy--well really chewy--so we just came to the conclusion that they were probably tentacles or seafood and kept on eating (they tasted okay..harmless enough). You know you've been here too long when tentacles are an okay thing to munch on. Then Michelle sat down and revealed the truth: the onions were not onions nor were they tentacles, they were strips of pig skin. Right as she said that Emily picked up a piece by one of the hairs that was still attached to its dermal layers and we almost all lost it right there. Let's just say we didn't eat much that day.

Other than the culinary adventures, not much else happened this week. We went to see Avatar this weekend which was an awesome awesome movie. It is visually stunning and the story was pretty great too. We've memorized some of the commercials before the movie and still get goosebumps during the King's anthem (oh yea and we're huge fans of the cheesy popcorn!). Sunday we watched movies, including The Beach with Leo. It was filmed on Ko Phi Phi Ley which is the island next to Ko Phi Phi Don (where we are staying for part of our holiday break.) After seeing the movie I can't wait to get down there. We leave Christmas night on a 13 hr overnight bus ($15) and will spend the 26-28 at my friend Jenny's dad's house on Phuket. He is picking us up from the bus station and taking us up to their mountain home overlooking the ocean--wow, I wish I had that. It is so nice of them to offer their home to us and it sounds like they are really excited to have us come down. Then the 29-2 we'll be on Ko Phi Phi in a hostel/bungalow setup and head back home on the overnight bus on the 2nd. It's gonna be so relaxing and so so so beautiful--Phi Phi is supposed to have the best beaches in Thailand!

Thais don't really get Christmas

We're all kind of in limbo about Christmas this year. They don't celebrate it here like we do, but we see trees/holiday decorations everywhere. We came to the conclusion that it's sort of a status thing that shows to visitors that they are Westernized (or westernizing). At school we got to decorate a couple of trees which was nice and there is a Christmas performance day on the 24th. It's weird though, because they ask us for help in explaining how we do things at home and whatnot, but then still kind of ignore us and do it their way. Little things like the Christmas tree: we said we should put the lights up, then the garlands, then the ornaments (which just makes sense anyhow) and they just went ahead and did it how they wanted it so they could get it up fast to show it off to the parents. They they asked us to come up with a Christmas skit for the older kids to do to show the meaning of Christmas, because they said last year it wasn't that meaningful, and it ended up that the kids wrote a script about a Christmas party and doing drugs/saying no to drugs and Dr. A was all for it. How drugs have anything to do with Christmas is beyond me and it kind of ruins the holiday spirit for all of us when they get us excited to help and then just do what they want in the end--sorry I don't mean to be a downer, because it's really nice to have some of home here in Thailand, but it's hard sometimes when you're so used to tradition and have that tradition get changed up.

Some lighter things:

Like I said we are helping with Matayum's (7th-12th grade) performances for the Christmas show and the other day katie, emily and I had to try to teach 50 kids how to sing Let it Snow and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We were able to laugh off our embarassment as the kids began to belt out 'ret it sanow' and 'ludolph the led nos-ed leindeer.' Can't wait for that video.
It's really great though when randomly throughout the day you'll hear a chorus of little voices echoing across the courtyard as different grades practice their Christmas carols.

On Christmas Eve they are throwing a party/gift exchange which will be fun! It may be kind of awkward though as the way they do the gift exchange sounds kinda weird. From what we understand we all have to buy a gift with a 200b minimum (no not maximum like you would think, but minimum) for an undisclosed person. Then at the party you draw a name and hand the person our gift, so they know who it is from and what you got them. Last year they said someone bought a rice cooker and got a pillow in return. Considering we really have no idea what Thais want, this could be kinda humorous! (I hope I draw an American haha) We've been trying to make up for some of the things at school by watching Christmas movies at Soi 18 and I plan on doing a lot of activities/projects with the kids this week, if nothing else, to make it fun for me :) I also have my room decorated with some ornaments (courtesy of Mom!) and have a box/stocking sitting under my Christmas 'tree' waiting to be opened on Christmas morning. I say 'tree' because it's actually this cool little plastic tree which gel window cling decorations that I could decorate it with. It's perfect for Thailand and I may just leave it up all year.

Another long weekend? We'll take it!

Bang Phli and Ko Si Chang (12/11-12/13) So we only had 2 days of teaching last week and it was really really great. I wish it were like that every week. This week's special occasion was Constitution Day when the Thailand stopped being an absolute monarch. Friday we got up after catching up on some much needed sleep and headed out to Big C to catch a Sohngtow. The plan for the day? The crocodile farm. We got in a Sohngtow that was headed for Bang Na and realized we really had no idea where we were going...but for 15 baht I guess I'll go anywhere. We got dropped off and had to take a 10b (total) tuk tuk ride for the 4 of us to the farm. We didn't end up going in as they tried charging us the 300 baht tourist admission fee rather than the 80 baht local fee. Now I'll never quite understand the rationale between charging foreigners more, but when it's blatantly over 3 times as much to get in some where I draw the line. We explained to the lady (in broken Thai) that we are teachers from Samut Prakan, etc but she wouldn't budge. So we said forget it and hopped in a cab to Bang Poo Seaside Resort. I'm hoping when we get our work permits we'll have better luck with entrance fees, because I don't feel like getting ripped off when I'm getting my salary taxed by the Thai gov't just like every Thai citizen is.

Anyway we pulled up to Bang Poo and let me tell you the word Resort is used in the lightest of senses here. It's very talked about destination in Samut Prakan and we got there only to find a cement walking pier covered in Asians and Sea gulls with nothing but a restaurant at the end. Hmmm, we weren't really sure what the appeal was. We decided to venture onto the Queen's Nature Path since it was right there as well. Nature Path is also used verrrrry lightly in this context. It was a tar walking path along the water which was nice, but there wasn't much to see except some birds in the water on one side and a stagnant, muddied drainage ditch on the other. Now, in this ditch were the some of the most horrifying little creatures I've ever encountered. They were sort of fish, sort of lizards. They could swim like fish/eels, but were able to use their front fins and long tail/body to slip and slide and scooch about on land. After some research I discovered it's called a mudskipper...Pretty sure it's the missing link in evolution.

After 'sightseeing' throughout Samut Prakan we headed back to Bang Phli and stumbled across a market along the canal behind Big C. It was kinda of closing down when we saw it, but it looks like a cool place to explore more in the future though. The best part was probably having to pay a whopping 1 baht to enter the market after walking across two rickety boats that they had tied together over the canal serving as a bridge. That night Katie, Emily, Josie and I went to Soi 35 and cooked some delicous homemade grilled cheese/tomato sandwiches and vegged out.

SATURDAY
Josie and I got up early and made the trek to Ekamai bus station to catch a bus to Sri Racha (where we would catch a ferry to the island of Ko Si Chang). To get the taxi we both got on a motorbike taxi on our street which was pretty hilarious. The drive wore josie's backpack on his front with her purse in the basket up front and I sandwiched her in while wearing my bag. 3 people on a motorbike definitely wouldn't fly back home, but makes for an exciting excursion. We hopped on a bus and shortly thereafter we realized we were on quite possibly the worst/oldest working bus in Thailand. There were ripped seats and it made stops like every 2 min which turned the 2 hr bus ride into a 4 hr trip. Additionally they didn't tell us when our stop was so after we passed through the town we thought we were supposed to stop at we asked where our stop was. They looked at us and pointed backward. Sweet--they pulled over the bus and let us off at the side of the road and kept telling us 'tuk tuk, tuk tuk.' So, Josie and I played human frogger, dodging cars to cross the highway, and came across a tuk tuk that took us to Ko Loi (the jetty/island where the ferry would pick us up) where we sat down and had some fresh crab over the water until our ferry arrived. It came and we realized all Thai 'politeness' goes out the window when boarding a ferry. People were pushing and throwing elbows trying to get on the ferry that they all had tickets for and knew there would be room for them on. Really?

Josie and I got a tuk tuk (which only have 3 wheels on the island and are basically motorcycles with trailers on the back) at the pier after battling to get off the boat and had him take us on a tour of the various bungalows on the island 'til we found one we wanted. We went to one on the other side of the island called Tham Pang Bungalows which were the only bungalows on the main beach of the island. We pulled up and a lady on the side of the road where the bungalows were said she was out of the cheaper rooms for two people but that she could offer us a room for 4 people for 1000 baht. We said absolutely not and she went down to 800-we didn't feel like searching all over the island and agreed. After paying her and getting our key we went in and realized what we did was just really sketchy (we didn't check in or anything and paid some strange lady kind of a lot of money). STUPID. We figured oh well, we're here, let's go to the beach and relax.

Josie went to buy some water at what we discovered was the front desk where a woman was just finishing telling a guy who just got there that she had a room available for 450 baht/night. We stopped in our tracks and began a little battle with the desk. You told us you had no rooms available at that price. "Oh someone just call and cancel so now we have." Oh really cuz we got here about 3 minutes ago and no one told us. "Oh they just call." Well we weren't notified and we specified we wanted a cheaper room. It went on like this for a few minutes until we finally just said we felt we were being taken advantage of wanted or money back and we would stay somewhere else. One of the male workers goes "okay okay 700 baht." I looked at him and said 600 baht or we go. They finally agreed so we ended up getting a room for 4 (2 big beds) with bathroom (well it had a scooper pooper not a flusher, but still not a squatty potty- i'll get into the types of toilets in a later blog) for 400 less than we were initially quoted. I'm still just not used to this price changing thing, but sometimes I guess it does work to your advantage.

We went down to the beach and got some chairs and just sat by the water and watched the sunset right in front of us over the gulf. The waters around Ko Si Chang are crystal clear and blue; so crazy that only 2 hours from BKK there is such a drastic change. After sunset we headed over to Pan & David which is a really famous restaurant on the island specializing in all sorts of food. It was kinda pricy for Thai standards, but well worth it- the food was great! We headed to bed early which apparently we needed to do cuz we slept for like 11 hours. Not much is better than waking up to the sound of water, putting on your swimsuit and heading down to the beach for the entire day. We got lunch at the restaurant on the beach and just laid in the sun and played in the water all day. It was some much needed tropical R/R to help remind us that we can do this for a year!

A school fair to remember

Dec 10 is another date that has been anticipated since we got to Satit Bangna: the School Fair. Basically it's an exhibition of different school departments showing off the kids' work with booths and games/activities and food as well as performances by the kids. All in all it seemed somewhat like a way for the school to make a TON of money, but I had a great time watching my kids on stage/helping out in the booth.

HIGHLIGHTS

The Question Tree.

This was literally the bane of our existence for the week. What started out as a posterboard tree with different English questions for kids to answer, earning them points which in turn would earn them prizes, turned into a production of the century (and as usual it was done w/ the least amount of common sense possible). It ended up that Dr. A and Oil fashioned a tree w/ a bamboo pole and real tree branches. Attached to the branches by strings were over 300 colored paper leaves (well 600 as there were 2 per string). Each color meant a category of question, which was a great idea, but the best idea was hanging all of the strings onto the tree before any questions were put in the leaves. That's okay though because we got to print out all the different questions (and then reprint them because they decided it was important that the questions were in the same color ink as their category-ie orange leaves had orange printed text) and place the questions inside the leaves and staple them shut so the kids could open them and the question would fall out. All fine and dandy when you get to do it 300 times and then realize that the stapled questions rip when you open the leaves as they are attached to the staples. They also had 3 different levels of ?'s for the various age groups and wanted us to scatter the levels throughout the tree and write which level was which on the outside of each leaf. After a 5-6 minute 'discussion' with them we finally convinced them that it made a whole lot more sense to put the lower levels on the bottom and the higher levels on top so we didn't have to search the tree for questions. They finally agreed after restating our plan and making it seem like they came up with it. We had some great laughs making that tree.

The best was when Dr. A thought our questions were too hard (ie Name a dinosaur or Name an endangered species) and printed off some of her own 'easier' questions. Some of which read: Name the 7 colors of the spectrum or There are 2 types of animals, what are they? (and she wanted the kids to say vertebrate and invertebrate)!! Wow, sometimes we wonder. Anyway, the kids seemed to like it, even though most of them had to be given the answers to the questions, and that's what counts!

Performances:

The best was watching all the kids perform whether it be singing, playing instruments, skits or dancing. Some of my favorites were 1st grade dancing to Barbie Girl, 4th grade doing the Macarena and 7th grade dancing to some hamster song. It was also so great watching the babies from Anuban (where the kids younger than 1st grade go (ages 2-6)) on stage dancing and singing. Some of the kids were dancing in homemade dog costumes while others were all punk rocked out. One little kid dance had some kids shaking it like they were on fire, while kids in the back were yawning and rubbing their eyes, while another kid was crying hysterically until someone took him off stage. There was some really great talent too (there's a saxophonist at our school who is amazing). I really did feel like a proud parent when my kids got on stage and then came up to me after all excited. 'Teacher teacher you see me you see me?' w/ plenty of high fives to follow. My P5/P6 were all really shy on stage which is funny, because when I had them practice what they were supposed to do in class they would be bouncing off the walls singing and shouting at the top of their lungs. The M3's (9th grade) were really embarassed too, because Rally made them all do a dance to Miley Cyrus.

Our Booth:

The EP and Foreign Language Booth turned out to be a pretty good time. We had a bunch of activities that kids could pay to do/they were required to do at least 4 activities before leaving the booth go get credit for being there-so bizarre. These were: Eco bracelets (where each bead means something different about the environment), Chinese charms w/ Ann and Cherry, Crossword (aka Scrabble which they are obsessed with), the question tree and the English Clinic (kids literally paid to ask English teachers questions like "how do you say..." or "what does...mean?" which they can do any day of the week--however, it was funny because the sign printed off representing this booth read Englsih Clinic!). The best station though was Josie and my station where kids came and made Christmas and New Year's cards. Some kids got really into and I'm sure it's because of the amazing sample cards Josie and I made before the fair :)

Overall the fair was great and kind of tiring. It was nice to see the kids in their element and having fun being kids rather than students (although sometimes I think they forget they are students in class) and I got to meet a few of the parents of my students. They were really welcoming and interested in their child's progress and very excited to meet me. I also found out that Minie, Bam and Pun (3 of my students) are all brother and sister--what great family names. I'm not gonna lie though, I was a little sad that I put all that effort into my Future Boats and it was just hung in the back of the booth along with other future boats even though they made it seem like our future boats were going to be the only future boats.

Chiangin' Out

Chiang Mai (Dec 5-7)

Friday after school Josie and I battled BKK traffic to get to Mo Chit bus station (you know it only took us 3 hours to get there) SO MUCH TRAFFIC. We met up w/ Jenny and hopped on our 10 hr. overnight bus to Chiang Mai. It wasn't horrible as I brought my big pillow from my bed--yes I was that guy, but it's the only way to go. They also played Waterworld in Thai which made the movie even worse than it is, but it was something to watch while falling asleep.

We got in about 7-8 after a fairly uneventful night (about 1 am we pulled into a bus station to pick up people and roof of the bus hit the ceiling of the station which was frightening to wake up to, but after a few minutes of scraping our way back out and quick roof inspection we were off). We met up with Leora and Reuven and headed to our guest house. After walking back and forth along the same road like 5 times we finally found where we needed to go: A Little Bird Guesthouse. The place was amazing and only cost 90baht a night (<$3). It's only been open 2 months and is run by a few amazingly nice and helpful young Thais. We couldn't check in until afternoon so they gave us a map and we headed out on a walking tour of the city.

Chiang Mai is so different than BKK and I really really liked it. It's well-kept/clean and just has a more relaxed/chilled out feel. It's definitely big, but doesn't have sky scrapers and crazy traffic/horns everywhere you look. We walked around for a while and saw some really cool temples from as far back as the 1300s. After a couple hours we decided we needed some good ol' fashioned Thai massages, so off we headed to the Chaing Mai Women's Prison. I kid you not we got massaged by some rough and tumble convict Asian ladies! They are all due to be released w/in 6 months and the prison teaches them a vocation so they can find work after their sentence. We were all too scared to ask them what they had done, esp. after we felt how they could throw us around. Thai massages aren't exactly relaxing throughout the entire massage. I did fall asleep during the head massage, but there were times when I actually thought my lady was going to snap me in half. At one point she had my foot backward over my shoulder and next to my face while another time she stepped on my legs while holding my hands and arched my back so I looked like the carved out figurehead they had on the fronts of ships back in the day. After twisting me around without telling me what she was about to do she would go "You okay meessta?" 'Uh yea, sure great. I stretch like this everyday' :)

After massages we got lunch in a cool garden restaurant and headed out to more temples (well we were actually trying to go home, but got lost and stumbled upon some others--worth it though). We checked into the hostel, where our Irish friend Alan and some other friends from the program were staying, and showered up before dinner. Of the 10 beds in the dorm-style room at the hostel, our friends took up 9 of them (poor Abigail from Wales). We also laugh when we go somewhere that is so inexpensive and find accomodations that may be better than our own at school. Needless to say the soft beds and hot shower were well-appreciated.

We got some dinner at a Mexican restaurant which was not quite as good at home, but still on par w/ Taco Bell or something like that. That night we had some drinks and played some games at the Little Bird and headed out to the night bazaar. Unfortunately we left too late and the bazaar was going to close so we went to some little bar which closed it's gates behind us once we entered. We found out later that because of the king's birthday the bars weren't allowed to serve until after midnight, so we were actually in our own version of a speak easy. Pretty fun though cuz it was just our group holding down the place. After that we headed over to Mike's Burgers which was an outdoor burger joint where they grilled up the burgers right in front of you complete with chili cheese fries and all the fixins=AWESOME

Day 2 found us up at a reasonable time and off in a Sohngtow (basically a pickup truck w/ benches in the back and a roof) to Doi Suthep. We got breakfast at a little place and I passed up eggs/bacon for Pat Thai--wow I must be getting acclimated. Doi Suthep is a pretty famous mountain in the area and we rode all the way up to the top to see the wat. They tried to get us to buy a ticket (there was a sign that said foreigners had to pay) but Leora and I walked past and ignored the men following us asking for money. It's pretty frustrating that they blatantly charge foreigners a higher price to enter most sites, esp since we are teachers in Thailand paying taxes. Hopefully once we get our work permits we'll be able to start getting our due discount. After the temple and some delicious street food we drove down the mountain to the Monthanthan Waterfalls. It was a beautiful hike along a series of waterfalls literally in the deep jungle; the water was clear and really cold and the bamboo/brush were reallllly thick. Josie and Leora stumbled upon a snake and I thought Josie's blood curdling scream and sprint back down the mountain were actually the result of someone being murdered.
At night we went to the Sunday Walking Street which was actually an endless street of vendors and food (cheap, delicous food). The weirdest things I ate were crab sausage and an omelette in a banana leaf filled with bee eggs. Not sure why I did that, but why not right? Later we went to the Reggae bar where our hostel owners were and watched/danced to a live band and saw some fire dancers. Then we headed off the Spicy, the afterhours hotspot of Chiang Mai. It is actually a really fun dance club-there was this crazy lady there who was way too old to be at this club but was challenging everyone to dance offs which was hysterical. We slept in late the next morning and got some food/visited some of Chiang Mai's many used bookstores before hopping on an uncomfortable bus back to BKK.

Doing My Part

December 3rd finally came after weeks of discussion: it was time for the Pattaya Beach Cleanup 2009. About 250 students/teachers boarded 5 buses (in matching P.B. Cleanup shirts) at about 8 am for the 2 hour journey where we met students and teachers from a bunch of local area schools. Josie and I got the best bus by far. We had M1 (grade 7), so they were too old to want to play travel games which is awesome (cuz Ryan and Katie had to entertain a bunch of little kids for the whole ride) and we got the best teachers. We had two of our favorite Thai teachers, Pay and Yok and the 2 Chinese teachers, Ann and Cherry. The 6 of us sat in this VIP section on the bottom floor of the bus and just hung out/slept/talked for the ride.

It turned out it was a pretty big deal--there was a huge stage and tons of tents/displays. We got off the bus to find no beach, however. Shocking that we would have a beach cleanup without a beach. The kids were let loose on the sea wall/rocks that were along the boardwalk to start cleaning up while a few others headed around the bend to a 'beach' which was actually a filthy little sand trap where boats pulled in to tie up. We all just did the ol' head shake and laugh and proceeded to enjoy the sun and being by the water. Why we were cleaning up an area that people clearly don't swim in is beyond me, but the kids had a great time and ended up picking up a lot of trash. It was funny watching everyone run around with latex gloves and trash bags trying not to get splashed by waves as they pulled in everything from dead fish to tires to used condoms to bottles to...well you get the picture!

After a 'hearty' lunch we drove over to Pattaya's floating market. It's been really cool to see these types of markets in a bunch of different cities to be able to compare them. This one is really touristy but laid out in a cool way with boardwalks/huts over the water. It also had sections devoted to all the regions in Thailand so you could see crafts/products from all over.

All in all the day turned out to be a good time (and a great excuse not to teach). Still looking back I'm not sure how much we helped the environment when we drove 2 hours each way to the beach, gave each kid a shirt that came wrapped indivually in plastic, ate styrofoam box lunches and only cleaned for 45 minutes. Still, it's the thought that counts right? :)

"You Make Future Boat"

Here's a little anecdote from last week that I forgot to mention.

So it's last friday (day after Thanksgiving) and we're all a little tired from the feast the night before. We're hanging out in the office (I was actually napping on the floor as I didn't have first period) when Sandra, a Burmese English teacher came to the door. We told her to come in and she said she just got done talking to Dr. Absorn and that she was told to come to us for help in making Future Boats. Yes, that's what she kept saying over and over and over. "You help make future boat. You make future boat"

Excuse me? You want us to make a boat? "Yes a boat" For what? "For school fair, Dec 10" Ohhhh? We have a school fair on the 10th and we had no idea we were supposed to make a boat, let alone one from the future and really had no idea what the heck that entails. Do we make a future boat out of wood or metal or plastic or paper? Is it supposed to float? Where are we launching the boats?

"Dr. Absorn want you to make 1 boat Math, 1 boat Science. So two future boats." So we have to make 2 boats and they have to be for Math and Science? "Yes 2 boat. I make 1 boat for my crass." Oh okay sure we can do that. 2 boats by the 10th. Thanks Sandra. After she left we all looked at eachother blankly (much the same way we had been staring at Sandra for the last 10 min trying to figure out what she was saying). After debating for a while we concluded she was talking about a Feature Board for the different subjects; something to display the kids' work/what they've been doing this semester for the Fair. At least we hope that's what it means (we still have yet to see the board to make these features on) or else we might not be able to set sail next week.

Cultural confusion: (Burmese English) Future Boat
Translation: (American English) Feature Board

Paper Turkeys and Monkey-Covered Ruins

This past week was pretty awesome as I was able to spend a lot of teaching time on Thanksgiving. The kids have NO idea what Thanksgiving is and don’t really care about it, but they liked all the activities (and I liked not having to make lesson plans!) We made paper turkeys (which they all thought were chickens), colored cornucopias and did some turkey day word searches…awesome. I think my favorite thing was trying to explain Thanksgiving with diagrams & hand gestures:
‘The Pilgrims (insert drawing of pilgrim) came to America by boat (insert paddling motion). They were cold (shiver) and starving (eating motion). The Indians (place hand in feather position on head while tapping your hand on an o-shaped mouth) brought them corn and turkeys (use cornucopia and turkey activities to demonstrate). The Pilgrims said Thank You (long and drawn out: Thaaaankkkk Yooouuuu) and now Americans eat a lot of food (eating motion while patting belly) and say Thank You on Thanksgiving (‘what holiday is this class?’) That’s right, Thanksgiving.’

On Thanksgiving the 7 of us Americans went to Soi 35 (the house Michelle and Katie) live in for a feast. Well we had spaghetti instead of turkey, but Michelle made an amazing homemade tomato/vegetable sauce for it! We also had lettuce salad w/ homemade dressing, garlic mashed potatoes (which Ryan F made in a rice cooker), CHEESE and crackers and apple cider (well the apple cider was actually like 80% pomegranate juice, but mai pen rai). We sat around listening to music, reminiscing about past thanksgivings, wishing we had stuffing/gravy/turkey/ cranberries/pumpkin pie, etc, but it was really great. After some cards, we had dessert which was awesome: cinnamon fried apple slices (kind of like a cobbler) and whipped cream!

Friday night we went to the mall and saw New Moon (I can’t really believe I’m admitting I paid to see it, but any movie in English on a big screen is worth it to me). We came home and went to bed cuz we were getting up early for a couple days of travelling!

Josie, Emily and I left Soi 18 at 6:30am on Saturday to get a cab. Well there were no cabs, so we had to walk over 30 min to the main road to get one to HomePro to catch a bus. Well we pulled up and the bus was pulling away, but thankfully we found a miniwan that would take us to the BTS (sky train) station to take us to the metro to take us to the train station. Yes all of that to get a train. We were running a little behind schedule and had to sprint from the subway through the train station to catch our train to Ayutthaya-thankfully Leora and Jenny were waiting for us with tickets so we could get on in time. Well worth it too cuz it only cost 20b or (60 cents for the train)

The train ride was a little over an hour and pretty nice to see the countryside. When we got to Ayutthaya we had to take a ferry across the river as the main city is located on an island. Leora didn’t want to stay in a hostel (as she had a crappy one the night before in BKK) so she paid for a hotel room for the 5 of us to share-pretty great deal! After checking/ sneaking in we all hopped in a tuk tuk and made our way to the ruins.

Ayutthaya was the capitol of Thailand before BKK for 417 years. It was ransacked by the Burmese, but has some really amazing ruins. We got lunch from some street people (and some street sweets too) and headed in to one of the sites. The first one we saw was a huge area that is famous for a Buddha head that looks like it is growing in a tree. We walked across the street and saw another one and started making our way around the historical parks.

Josie, Emily and I decided to keep going and spent the afternoon exploring. Our tuk tuk driver took us off-roading and we thought for sure we were going to fly out the back. We saw some really awesome sites including a 13m tall Buddha, an elephant show, a market and spent some time lounging in a park by some ruins. It’s so crazy to think what a city like this would have looked like in its heyday (at one point there were supposedly 1 million people living there and much of the city was covered in gold). We ran into some friends from orientation and they joined our group as we went on a sunset longboat cruise around the island, seeing some more temples, the local way of life and a ton of monitor lizards sliding in and out of the water. At first we thought they were snakes, but then saw their legs. They are actually 5-6 ft long and really gnarly looking-definitely would not want to swim with them. After the boat we spent sometime in the night market and had some dinner/drinks by the river. It was really relaxing after being in the sun ALL day-definitely need to invest in some sunscreen.

Saturday we woke up early and almost missed the train again (good thing the trains are late!) and made our way an hour north to Lopburi. We even had time to get some Roti Sai Mai which is a renowned food they eat in Ayutthaya. It’s basically these little flour/dough tortilla things that you wrap around this spun sugar that looks liked colored hair. It’s really good, but REALLY sweet. In Lopburi, we visited the famous monkey temple which is actually a temple (and surrounding city) covered in macaques that jump and swing and eat sugary treats (no seriously we ran across several of them drinking coke and eating cotton candy). They will steal from you, so you have to have all your things in bags and will come grab treats right out of your hands. As some people put it, it felt like we were in Jumanji, as packs of monkeys are running through the streets, jumping on buildings, taking things from people. So bizarre. It also happened to be the annual monkey festival there that day, so there were a TON of people and a big celebration going on at the temple grounds. There were even a bunch of men who parachuted into the temple from a helicopter which we didn’t really understand what the correlation was, but it was cool anyway.

After a long and tasty lunch we headed back to the train station for BKK. While waiting a bird decided it would be a good idea to poop on my hand. What a jerk.

The Longest Reclining Buddha and Flocky Chou

It was a pretty standard week at school and I'm becoming more and more amazed at how the days can go now. Granted while I'm at school it can seem like forever, but looking back it's like 'whoa, another week gone by.'

I wrote and administered my first (two) exams this week which was definitely a different experience. I have never made an exam before so it kind of made me realize that I'm not sure exactly how qualified I am for this position :) It all went pretty smoothly with only a few questions from the students during exam time. My 5th grade math class ranged from 11-15.5/17 which I was happily surprised about. Unlike the US, Thai students only need a 50% in order to 'pass' so all my kids passed with plenty of wiggle room! This could bode well for me as those students who don't pass their finals have to stay after extra days and retake the test until they pass (aka I have to stay at school for longer than I have to). My 6th graders got between 12-15/16 on their math test so I feel like I'm actually doing alright.

I tried not to make the tests too easy, but included a balance of what we learned in class and tried to include the points that I had really stressed in the units. I still don't understand how some teachers teach a unit and then give an exam that has hardly anything to do with what they taught and/or have it focus on the nit-picky things from the readings. I guess it's nice to have the ability to create something that I feel actually tests what the kids know.

Friday was another night spent at home playing cards (Josie and I taught the other teachers how to play Golf and we also played Rummy with Gift (one of the teachers' girlfriends) They also taught us a game called Sluff which is pretty much a ghetto version of P&A, but we went with it. The Thai teachers are really great and we're learning a good amount from them. It's pretty hard to have conversations flat out, but they are trying and so are we.

Saturday we were going to go into BKK but decided against it cuz we had to get up for an outing with Dr. Absorn early on Sunday. So, Ryan, Josie and I went on a mini-trip around Bang Phli (where we live) and saw some of the wats (temples). We looked online and realized one of the wats houses the Longest Reclining Buddha statue in the world (even bigger than the one in BKK which most people think is the longest). It's pretty crazy that a 5 min cab ride from our dorm took us to such a remarkable site, called Wat Bang Phli Yai Klang. It has a HUGE golden buddha that stretches for over 150 meters. The reclining position he's in doesn't represent sleeping, but represents Buddha entering Nirvana, or the highest form of enlightened life in the Buddhist religion.

You are also able to climb inside the statue, as it's 4 stories tall, and see a ton of different muraled art which varies depending on which part of the body you were in (Hell-feet, Earth-torso, Heaven-head) and there was a shrine on the 4th story that surrounds Buddha's heart. It was a huge golden heart, complete with veins and arteries, that people were praying to. It's really cool to come into these places that represent something so different from what I'm used to and observe people going about their own rituals.

We walked the short distance from Yai Klang to Wat Bang Phli Yai Nai which is a site we've passed many times during taxi rides and always wondered what it was. Unbeknownst to us it houses one of 3 Buddha images in the Sukothai style (a former Thai Empire) that survived Burmese ransacking/fighting during many battles between the two countries. Outside the temple we indulged in some great street pat thai and made our way back to the dorms where we enjoyed our day off.

Sunday the wan came and got us at 8am for an excursion to the Ancient City and Pattaya. The ancient city or Muang Boran is a really bizarre concept, but a very cool place. It's set up on 240 acres of land and is basically a giant outdoor historical museum. Sprawled out around the grounds are scaled down versions of historical sites that are very important to Thai history as a way to preserve the nation's culture and provide a place for Thai people and foreigners to go and observe architectural sites they may otherwise never see. The city has about 60% replicated structures, 25% original building designs/memorials and 15% actual sites that were bought and transported to the Ancient City for preservation purposes.

It's hard to imagine how big some of these sites actually are considering the scaled down models are still big enough for a person to walk around in. One cool site was the grand palace from Ayutthaya (the capitol before BKK) which was completely destroyed by the Burmese but was reconstructed at this site based on old paintings and architectural representations from the past. It served as a reception hall for Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Thailand back in the day. We saw some Thai dancers, climbed a man made mountain and ate lunch in a network of huts that were all built on the water and connected by wooden walkways. My food was extreeeeemely spicy and I was reprimanded for blowing my nose in my napkin in my chair with my head away from the table. I don't get it--they have rules about nose blowing when snot is literally descending from one's nostrils at warp speed, but they use a super soaker instead of toilet paper...

After the Ancient City all 11 of us piled into the wan and made our way to Pattaya (to be honest we didn't know we were going to Pattaya until Friday afternoon and still had absolutely NO clue why we were being taken there). After almost 2 hours crammed in the little wehicle we arrived in Pattaya--still clueless. Oil and Dr. A got out of the wan and hopped in some random pick up truck and left us. She then called and told Ryan that we were going to get dropped off at the mall we were in front of and to just take a walk on the beach. We had no direction as to what time we would be going back, if we should eat dinner, how far we should walk, etc, but we just took it with the inevitable grain of salt that seems to occur in these situations and made our way to the ocean for the first time since we've been here!

Ryan, Josie and I walked along the beach for a while which was amazing. The beach itself isn't that nice (really crowed with umbrellas and chairs) but it was great to be by the water. Pattaya itself actually isn't very nice. It was once that utter sex/sin capitol of Asia in its heyday and still has a large reputation as being such a place. Everywhere you look there are dirty old ex-pats walking around with Thai women half their age (or more); some of them are even seen at ATMS withdrawing some serious bahtage. It's really kind of a seedy place, but I'm glad we ended up going and were able to see something else.

We still have no idea why we went to Pattaya other than we think it was so Dr. A could meet some people from the City Hall to work out the details of the Beach Cleaning Project we are doing with our school on Dec. 3. Why they can't just tell us is beyond me :) We ate at Burger King because we could and even witnessed a male beauty pageant in the mall. Before our 2+ hour trip home, I went to get dessert from Mr. Donut and asked the lady for one called the Flocky Chou-Josie and I couldn't figure out why she was laughing so hard. What? Flah-kee-chow! 'No no eet's Frrrooww-kee-cheeew' OHHHH sorry I missed that one ;)

A week of English Competitions and Blood Tests

So this week as a whole was fairly uneventful which was just fine with me. It feels like I haven't stopped moving since we landed in October, so it was nice to have a week to just hang out in old Bang Phli!

The week at school went as normal with the kids still finding ways to stretch a unit on multiplying decimals that should take 2 days into one that has lasted 2 weeks (I'm having a test next week whether or not they are ready!) Thursday was the day of the English Competition which was held at our school and featured 7 different English language competitions in which kids from around the area competed. We've known about this day since at least when we first got to school, but they somehow managed to find a way to prepare everything for it the DAY before! Dr. Absorn called us into her office Wednesday and was like "okay we have to make up the tests for the multi skills competition and you two have to find reading passages and you need to type this out and you need to think of spelling words etc etc. Oh, BY THIS AFTERNOON!'' We all just shrugged our shoulders and did as we were told knowing full well this is was yet another episode of Thai 'planning ahead.'

The day came and the kids who were competing were all pretty excited. Unfortunately I didn't get to judge the skit competition, but instead had Multi-Skill. This consisted of a written/multiple choice test, a picture dictation section (we read directions and the kids had to draw what we said) and a one-on-one interview. It turned out to be awesome as it took most of the day so I didn't have to teach any of my classes! WOOOOO I walked in to the room as the kids were taking their tests and one of the Thai teachers handed me one; I thought it was to look at, but she was actually asking me to take the test so they could have an answer sheet haha. So, hopefully my answers were right, because my answers determined how the kids did :) Shocker they didn't have the answers beforehand. Some of the grammar and reading analysis questions were actually kinda hard--most kids got like 20/60. Ploy, one of my 6th graders, won the whole multiskill competition! No, it wasn't because I rigged it, but because she is actually really really good at English.

4:30 came around and we were packing up to go home after a good day, but that all came to a crashing halt when Teacher Oil and Sandra (a filipino teacher) came in to our office and told us we had to get our physicals and blood tests for our work visas. We said okay and they then told us the van would pick us up at 5:30p--so in 1 hour. Thank you so much for letting us know so far in advance! So we all trekked home and waited for the wan which was 25 min late and once we were in the van, Josie asked if we everyone needed our passports. The wan pulled to the side of the road where we sat for 15 min while Teacher Oil called Teacher Ann who called a different teacher to find out that yes, indeed we did need our passports. Screech, the wan turned around and we got everyone's documents and 200b (oh yea we had to pay for the bloodwork too). We were all a little tense going to the hospital as we didn't really know why we had to get blood drawn and were a sort of concerned maybe they were taking us to have our organs harvested...I digress.

We pulled up and to our joy, found the hospital to be extremely nice/clean with a well dressed, english speaking staff. The physical consisted of checking our breathing and asking if we had any number of crazy diseases and then having our blood drawn ('so sorry, rittle pain reetle pain' said the nurse as she poked my (v)wein) Found out the blood test was to determine if we had Syphilis or the HIV...well, surprise surprise I don't have either! So bizarre the things they need and/or find really important and then the other things that they just don't care about.

Friday rolled around and the best part of the day had to be 4 of us leaving school early with Teacher Oil to go fix our wireless router. After careful inspection and a couple phone calls she determined that it was old and had stopped working. Hmmmm--I sat down with the router's manual and 5 minutes later we had a wireless signal. Yup, after 4 weeks of waiting all we needed was the instruction manual (insert huge 'sigh') Look on the brightside: WE HAVE INTERNET!!! That night we just sat upstairs on the porch and played card games and hung out. Pee-Pen introduced me to a new dish, Pat-See-Eew, which is my new favorite (like pat thai with big noodles) and of course I got my Kai Dow too (fried egg).

Saturday I got up early and went to school (I know Saturday right?), but we get paid extra baht to come in and read aloud to 3 different age groups twice a semester (next week a different American teacher will do it). It was actually really fun to just read to them and not have to worry about a lesson. They got really into it too which made it fun. After that Ryan and I got lunch at a new place we've been trying (to mix it up a bit) and then met up with Emily and Josie to get a cab to head to Central Bangna (a HUGE mall). We just kind of wandered around, enjoying the a/c and a familiar environment. We also may or may not have eaten at McDonald's--so good. we spent the day there and saw the movie, 2012, which turned out to be way better than we expected (esp cuz it was in English with Thai subtitles). After 30 min of previews an image of the king was put up on the screen and the entire audience stood up; confused, we did too. A 3-4 minute mini-movie played showing the King and his greatness and how under him the Thai people could do great things. It was pretty cool, but also so different than anything that we would do at home. It ended with Long Live The King, then the movie about the world ending began.

Sunday was a quiet day doing laundry (I didn't think I could dislike it any more until I had to do it by hand--the slow painful agony) and going to the pool. Yes, THE POOL! So great to hang outside and be able to cool off if we got too hot. The pool itself was pretty darn warm, but it still felt awesome. Josie and I watched some Nip/Tuck (we're almost done with Season 1) and hit the sack early. It was so great to spend time in our neighborhood this weekend. It's cool as some of the locals are recognizing us, some even knowing our names--and better yet, our smoothie orders!

Bangkok Dangerous

(Nov 6-8) So even though I don't have the typical 9-5 I've come to live for the weekends. Who'd of thunk that teaching could take so much out of you (I guess I feel bad for acting up in class when I did back in the day, because I know how much work it is now...)

Anyway, Friday we left school, went home and packed up for a weekend in BKK. In order to get to Bangkok we had to take a cab from Soi 18 to Home Pro (a mix b/w Sam's Club and Home Depot) where we hopped on the orange bus 132. I use the word 'hopped' lightly for as we noticed the bus coming up we had to literally jump onto to it as it was pulling away and Josie was almost run over. The bus took us to the end of the sky train line (well we actually had to ask where to get off because we had no idea) at a place call On Nut--loved that name although it's pronounced ahnoot. On Nut took us to Nana where we left Ryan (he was staying at a hostel with a bunch of people from our program) and Josie and I met up with our friend Jenny to get to our place.

6 of us from orientation got 2 rooms at the Unico Leela Hotel which was seemingly smack dab in the middle of the Middle East aka it was heavily populated by Arabic muslims which definitely made the cultural scene in our 'hood a little different than your average Bangkok. The hotel was great though and we spent Friday night just hanging out and waiting for the rest of the crew to get in town. Jenny, Josie and I went to a British pub for dinner and for 99b ($3) we got a pint and an all you could eat BBQ (complete with Potato Salad and Cole Slaw!!) which was like stumbling upon heaven. This weekend was kind of dedicated to being American and was much needed after being immersed in Thai culture for the last few weeks. After dinner we just hung out, watched tv (a luxury for us as we don't have one) and caught up with people as they got in, exchanging stories about our kids and where we live. It was really funny as we realized how much we sounded like teachers. We all ended up all crashing in one room (floor, couch, bed wherever there was room) because we usually have to sleep alone in a strange place so it was great to have familiar faces all in one place!

The next day we woke up and headed out to the Chatuchak weekend market which was insane. It is set on 35 acres and is full of anything you could imagine--clothes, food, electronics, etc. There were some crazy animals for sale too (ie chipmunks, flying squirrels, sea creatures, etc). It was kind of awesome and sad at the same time as there would be laundry baskets filled pretty much to the brim with puppies and kittens and rabbits. I wanted to bring a puppy back, but I ended up just getting a polo cuz I need more school clothes; for less than $2.30 I think I got a pretty good deal. My friend Reuven and I even got the our lunches at the Thai price, because we noticed the numbers in Thai on the back of the menu didn't match the western numbers on the front (aka they were charging westerners more). So, we felt pretty cool that we knew to ask for the better price. Ah, the little things.

After the market we were DRENCHED in sweat and headed straight to the hotel pool which was freezing, but so nice. Kinda funny to think we were in a pool in the middle of downtown Bangkok (not really where you imagine yourself swimming outdoors). After the pool we came to the conclusion that our feet hurt and we went in search of the cheapest massage place we could find. We ended up choosing one a few Sois down from our hotel and I don't think I've ever made a better decision in my life. We went in thinking we were paying for a 1-hour foot massage, but it turned out to be a feet, legs, hands, arms, neck, shoulders and back massage. I haven't been that relaxed in a looooong time. They had us in these amazing chairs with soft music and aromatherapy smells filling the air (I actually dozed off for a bit). I did laugh a couple times as the lady was poking my feet with some rock thing while flapping my toes around like little snap peas. After the massage was done they brought us hot tea and we contemplated whether we really wanted to leave :) It was probably the best $9 I've ever spent (yes, we splurged and spent $9 including tip, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and make some big purchases haha).

Relaxed and ready for the evening we continued our American weekend with a trip to Charley Browns (a tex-mex restaurant that got us to come in with the promise of a free pitcher of margaritas with our dinner). What's better in the blistering heat than some margaritas, chips and salsa and quesadillas? When you're in Thailand...not a whole lot! Despues de cena we went back to the hotel and hung out for a bit and then went to meet up with the rest of the CIEE crew at a club called Route 66. It was on this street called RCA which is just a street filled with gigantic clubs. A lot of cities have clubs built vertically with each floor having a different theme, but these clubs were all stretched out horizontally. For example, Route 66 had 4 or 5 different clubs each with a different vibe (live music, karaoke, club music, etc) It was a blast and really fun to get to see people from orientation that we hadn't seen for a couple weeks.

The next morning we slept in and went to eat at a cafe that featured one of the foods we'd all been missing dearly: SANDWICHES! We all got some form of sandwich whether it was a club or grilled cheese and were able to say we were the happiest americans in Thailand at that moment. Shortly after breakfast we went back and hung out that hotel for a little bit before parting our separate ways--teaching calls!

BACON BACON BACON!

(Nov 2-6) It's weird to think that only 2 weeks of teaching have gone by, because some days it feels like I've been here for 2 years. Each day gets a little better and a little easier (depending on how the kids decide to act), but I'm kinda getting the hang of it all.

Some frustrations include, but are not limited to:

-We still have no internet at the dorms which we were told we were going to have (and some do have) the first day, but like most things in Thailand it takes multiple times of asking/telling/reminding, etc before anything gets done. So we'll keep at it.

-People here are very passive aggressive, so if something is wrong or someone has something to tell you, it will go through like 4-5 people before anyone lets you know (instead of coming straight to you and being direct)

-Two of the other american teachers were in Laos renewing a visa and some complications arose, so they missed Mon-Wed of school. This meant the the 5 of us other teachers had to cover all of their classes during the week in addition to ours. So, I was teaching about 6 classes a day, sometimes in a row. I am more than willing to help and know they would do the same for me, but there are like 5 other non-native english speaking teachers at our school who they didn't even bother to ask to help lighten our load.

Sometimes we feel a little exploited here for the sheer fact that we speak English natively. Like we have to stand at morning assembly (when the non-native english speakers don't) so that parents of the students can see that the school has american teacher and we have to teach/coach some classes outside of school which is fine, but they present it as an option to us, then without hearing if we can or not go ahead and get students to sign up and then tell us we have to do it. I don't know it'll all be fine it's just hard to deal with this mentality when we are always taught to be straight-to-the-point.


Sorry bout the rant! Now for some lighter stuff

English Day Competition: Like I mentioned earlier we are asked to teach some after school things I've kinda come to enjoy them though, because you get more one-on-one time with the kids and I'm getting to know some pretty well. We are judging an English competition next week where kids from area school compete in different categories (spelling, scrabble, speech, skit, storytelling, quiz, multiskill) and we all are helping in a certain area. I helped with skit on friday which was awesome. It's girls from 4th grade who are acting out a story of poor street sellers who are robbed and so they have no money, so their sick mother dies, but the robber gets hit by a car (aka KARMA--which is huge here because of buddhism). They had already rehearsed it a bunch (and were really good), so I just helped them with pronuncation and how they should act/face the stage...putting that HUMO to work I suppose :)

I try to get my lessons planned the night (if not 2 nights) before the class so that I don't have to stress about what I'm going to do. I'll tell ya I wasn't planning on this whole teaching math/science/health thing, so I've actually had to dig pretty deep into the old thinker to recall some of the info these kids are learning:

4th grade health: right now we're doing muscular and skeletal system so I have a lot of worksheets and word finds and am going to try to download "the head bone's connected to the neck bone, etc." to play along with the kids. I love my 4th graders--they are so smart, good at english and generally excited to learn. However, I did find out I'm responsible for teaching them about drugs, alcohol, disease prevention and self-esteem, so that should be a real treat in the next coming months.

6th grade math: We're working on area, circumference, radius and diameter of circles which I've also had to relearn. We do a lot of practice with measuring different objects in class and they seem to get it pretty well (after a couple lessons). It's amazing how smart these kids are when it comes to math. A few of my students go to an outside math class called KUMON where they learn about higher level math.

The other day Bam, one of my kids, was like 'teacher I want to learn more about algebra' and I was like 'well, maybe after we finish everything in the book we can look more at algebra' while in my head I was like 'absolutely not! I didn't do so hot in algebra in college and will be of noooo help to you!' haha. It's interesting though, because the students (5th and 6th grade) are so good at algebra or multplying/dividing 4- or 5- digit numbers with no work, but its hard for them to grasp measuring radii or that all you have to do when you multiply by 10, 100 or 1000 is move the decimal place 1, 2, or 3 places to the right. I guess it must have part to do with the language barrier, but the great thing about numbers is that they can transcend language. I think part of it is is that these kids are sort of trained to be memorization robots, but when you give them something they have to apply or think about critically it is very difficult for them. So hopefully I'll be good enough to get them to where they should be with the material in the book!

6th grade science: we're learning about organisms and habitats which is taking kind of a long time, but they are starting to get the differences between things and that some species live in some habitats/communities but not others. I think later this week we are going to try a terrarium or at least go down by the river and observe the organisms that live there. It's pretty fun though, because we're doing a lot with biology this semester so we'll be able to head outside and explore once they get the concepts down. The other day we learned about different names for animal groups and they thought gaggle of geese was one of the funniest things they'd ever heard.

3rd grade health: to be honest I don't have curriculum yet for this class, so I'm kind of making it up on the fly. we did the food pyramid last week (which they already knew) so I've gotta think about stuff that isn't too much for them, but be sure that they are still learning good things. I think we'll do stuff with body parts and systems this week.

7th grade/9th grade convo: these classes are pretty stress free as I basically just come in to class with a few questions/topics and we literally just talk. My 7th graders aren't as good at english so I kind of have to pull teeth to get some answers, but I'm helping them to use the correct tenses and sentence structure. My 9th graders rock and I can have pretty much any type of conversation with them (last week we talked about music and movies). I don't know if one girl understood the question, because she started talking about a fish, but i was just happy she was using her English so I just smiled and nodded.

5th grade math: we're learning about multiplying and dividing decimals...without a calculator. let's just say I've had to study up for this one. I prayed they wouldn't have questions, but of course they do and I have to be on my stuff. This is my class of heathens, but they are generally getting better. I'm learning to really teach the ones who listen and find that the ones who don't listen ask for help when they get behind or realize their friends are finishing their work faster and get free time. It was really awesome the other day when the worst kid in the class came up to me and said "teacher you can help me?" and I sat down with him one on one while the class worked and walked him through some exercises. I've never seen a kid so happy when he finally was able to do the problems on his own (and I won't lie it felt pretty good to know that I made that possible!)

In class on friday Mac stood up in class and started singing Beyonce's All my single ladies and like a movie, the rest of the kids got up and started singing the chorus and dancing around the room. It was out of no where and I had to sit down I was laughing so hard. They don't understand some decimals, but they know a song and dance in English.

5th grade science: We're learning about simple circuits and electricity which is kinda cool, but we don't have any hands on resources for the kids which is a bummer. Like I want to do the experiment where you connect a battery to a light bulb and light it up, but instead I have to just print off pictures and draw examples. I'm going to talk to my director about this, because I remember loving science so much when I was little because I got to actually do/test things on my own.

Even funnier than the Beyonce episode, we were talking about circuits and one of the parts is a light bulb. If you ever want to laugh yourself stupid try getting seven 5th grade asians to pronounce the word 'Light Bulb.' I can't even describe what sound comes out, but its something jumbled along the lines of 'right burrrlllrb' (I know I'm a bad person, but some days I just need a little pick me up!)

Even funnier still, we were talking about energy sources on Wed. and food came up as an answer. So, I asked everyone what their favorite food was to kill time and one of the kids goes Bah-Kohn and I was like what? and he goes Bah-Kohn. I had no idea what he was saying so I had him draw it on the board and it turned out it was Bacon, so I told them it was pronounced Baay-Kin and they said Bay-Cone. I was like 'you're getting closer, but its baaay-kiiin' so they go 'baaaaaay-kiiiiin.' I said 'Yes yes! you got it, way to go!' They literally threw their hands in the air and started chanting BACON, BACON, BACON, BACON. I wish I'd had a video camera because I think they cheered the word 1000 times--i had tears rolling down my face it was so funny.

Fireflies and Kratongs: A trip to Ratchaburi

We ate an awesome lunch at school Saturday (oct. 31) and hopped into the wan which began the 2+ hour drive to Ratchaburi where we were going with Oil, Dr. Absorn, Absorn's niece (Beam), Beam's friend (Meow) and the other Americans (katie, ryan, emily, josie). kind of a long and hot ride, but we arrived at Dr. Absorn's sister's house in one piece.

The plan was to stay at a hotel in Ratchaburi and visit an evening market and a morning market, but after eating an amazing snack of fresh fruit Dr. Absorn's brother-in-law offered his home as a place for us to stay. We soon found out the definition of Thai hospitality as the family fed and cared for us as if we were their own. He was really nervous that their home wasn't as nice as the hotel even though it was really nice, had a/c in the bedrooms and was free! Dr. Absorn had 2 nephews (Boom and Bang--awesome) who lived at the house along with her sister, and her brother-in-law's (Yop) sisters and mother. The grandma was serious straight out of a national geographic special on thai people living in rice paddies: she was really old, missing most of her teeth and always smiling. she kinda hobbled around the house and even did some laps arond the living room with her walker.

The house was sort of like a huge airplane hanger that was redone inside with a huge open common space and rooms on two floors. We ate all our meals on mats on the floor and tried really hard to communicate with everyone. Boom is a junior in high school and spent a year as an exchange student in Milwaukee. Yop was really eager for us to help him practice his english, so I tried my best to talk to him (forced convo is always a little awkward at first.)

Anyway we went to Amphawa which is a really popular evening floating market with Thai people (we were some of the only foreigners there). It was loaded with authentic crafts and amazing food vendors. It's common in Thai culture for elders to pay for a lot of the extras on trips and such so we were kinda spoiled with food: kabobs, squid eggs (actually pretty good), thai shwarma, etc. AWESOME! we even dared to have our food nit noy phet (a little spicy) which is still hot by our standards. That night we went on a long boat ride that turned out to be an hour long (for only 60 baht= today's more bang for your baht deal) which took us around a bunch of canals in the dark. The coolest part was that a bunch of trees were literally covered in fireflies (it looked like some had christmas lights flashing).

When we got back some people showered, but I went on a walk around the property with Boom and Yop and Yop's sister. We sat around talking in a beautiful pavilion that Yop built and just took in the night air. Yop kept asking questions via Boom (to help him speak more) and after about 15 min he asks "are you coming back to Thailand after you leave?" and I told him I thought it would be great to come back and visit and he goes "please know that anytime you are in Thailand you stay here." I'd seriously known this family for less than 6 hours and they already offered their home to me.



We went back inside and had some late nite boiled rice/veggies, despite not being hungry but we had to be polite. Then we went onto the deck and made kratongs to celebrate Loy Kratong--a Thai festival where you make kratongs (basically miniature floats made out of banana tree trunks, banana leaves and various flowers) You put candles and incense on the floats and light them, making a wish and asking the water goddess to wash away your sins. It was a really cool thing to partake in with the Thais and we felt honored they included us. Josie and I made a kratong that may or may not have ridden the short bus to school, but we were proud of it! We launched them into the pond by the pavilion and went to bed shortly after. The whole family gave up their rooms for us to sleep in and they slept in mosquito netting tents in the common room-we felt really bad, but they were so excited to have visitors.

The next morning we woke to a breakfast feast of boiled rice, noodles, veggies, fruit, etc. We all piled into Yop's pick up and Thim's honda (all 11 of us) and went to the floating market at Ratchaburi. We all took turns riding in the back of the truck (some of us got to ride in the cab), but Yop insisted I sat in the cab with him, Boom and Bang. I think he liked that I spoke English to Boom, but nevertheless I didn't complain about the a/c. Ratchaburi wasn't as cool of a market as Amphawa as it was much more touristy with many of the same things for sale in most of the shops. Still cool to see vendors pull up to the canal walks with wares/food to sell.

We then drove to a really awesome temple that was built into/surrounded by a tree. Inside was a golden buddha statue where many people were paying their respects as it was a holiday weekend. The grounds were also covered in Muay Thai (thai boxing) statues-not sure about their purpose. After our excursion we had a great lunch (probably 8-10 different dishes) and said our goodbyes. We waited around for a little bit and tried talking to the grandma which was a hilarious mess as we had no idea was this lady was talking about. Anyway on the way to meet the wan to take us back to BKK Yop turned to me and (via Boom) asked me to come back to his home for Christmas :) I can't get over how amazingly kind these people are and how welcoming; they worked so hard to make our stay memorable.

Teacher! Teacher!

This post takes place between Oct. 28-30 (aka my first few days teaching):

So I woke up the first morning a bit distraught and somehow managed to take a freezing shower which I'm finding to be quite a relief in this heat. We got textbooks for some of our classes but still had no real idea what the heck we were supposed to for our classes.

I'm teaching 19 periods a week in the following subjects (kinda stressful):
3rd grade: health (once a week)
4th grade: health (once a week)
5th grade: math and science (4 times a week each)
6th grade: math and science (4 times a week each)
7th grade: english convo (once a week)
9th grade: english convo (once a week)
club: still have no idea what this is, but I think its some sort of English club? yea things here just get told to us and then we have no idea what they
mean. then they get brought up again and we're still clueless--so when I find out about club I'll let you know.

So we got to school via the wan and were whisked to our offices. josie and I are in an office with Irma (a filipina english teacher-oxymoron?) who is pretty nice. We're on the 4th floor of building 2 where the EP kids are. After setting down our stuff we went to morning assembly which is something from the movies. All the kids sing the national anthem in little rows as the school band plays and students raise the flag in the middle of the courtyard. Then they say some pledge (which we have no inkling as to the meaning) and then there are morning announcements in Thai as well as group exercises (which are really easy, but close to torturous in the morning sun). We all had to introduce ourselves in front of the assembly which was awkward, but apparently they all know me now!

Thankfully Wed. I have my first period free so I could gather my thoughts and ideas for what I was gonna do for my very first teaching lesson. I had 5 classes my 1st day and was completely wiped out after them. I bascially just played intro games and showed them pictures from home. I asked questions about their lives (some could answer some couldn't) and had them make name tags using these name cards I brought from home. Thai kids LOVE stickers so when I broke out stickers for them they went nuts. The charts I bought have a little grid on them for putting stickers when they are good (so now everyday they do something good they say "Teacher Teacher! Sticka! Sticka!")

All my kids call me Teacher or Teacher Na-tan (like how they pronounced it in Spain which is pretty great) or Teacher Nasan or Ajarn (Ajaahn) Nathan or Kruu Nathan, but they mostly just say Teacher Teacher. Thais themselves have crazy/long names so they substitute those with crazy nicknames. Here are some of my favorite student names: Bamboo, Palm, Beam, Peace, Minnie, Earth, Prim, Mook, Win, Champ, Pink, Rally, Oil, Milo...and the list goes on. My 6th grade class has 4 kids: Ploy (the only girl), Tar, Bright and Bam. You think I'm joking, but you can't just make this stuff up.

Most of my kids are pretty good, but as a whole Thai classrooms are soooooooooo different than American ones and the level of English varies immensely from student to student. Students literally just get up and walk around, play on their phones, talk to their neighbors, walk in and out of their classroom or someone else's classroom, go to the bathroom, sleep and basically DON'T DO ANYTHING. They definitely behave more when a Thai teacher is in the room, but still it shocks me how rowdy they are. I for sure came here thinking that classes would not be like this--it sometimes makes me feel like I'm talking to myself or that I'm not getting through to them, but it varies from day to day.

My 5th graders may or may not be the spawns of satan. There are only 7 of them, but there may as well be 700. Some of them have the worst attitudes and some of them clearly don't know english, so it's kinda hard to deal with them. I tried playing games the first couple days, but they don't pay attention, so I learned quickly that worksheets is the way to go. My other kids are fine, but its just a struggle when some can't speak english to engage them and get them to respond, but it's a work in progress so it'll just get easier with time I'm thinking.

We all eat lunch down in the cafeteria in little student sized chairs which is pretty funny. The food is really great though (which is awesome bc its free for us!) Lots of rice, soups, noodles

Friday night we came back from school and unwound on the second floor porch of our dorms with some of the Thai teachers. Michelle and Ryan (2 other american teachers) went to Laos to sort some stuff out with his visa, so the 5 others of us: me, josie, ryan c., emily and katie hung out with some Changs, Leos and Singhas. The other teachers (Pai, Golf, Yok and Noh) took us under their wings and we shared stories and tried teaching eachother words in our languages--pretty funny. One thing lead to another and the next thing we new we were flying down the Soi (lane/road in Thai) in the back of Golf's pick up truck. They took us to a local pub called "Songs for Ear" haha. It was awesome--there was a live Thai band (who actually played Linkin Park for us), great food and we started a dance party with some of the locals.