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.

Move-In Day

So we got picked up from our hotel on Tuesday evening (Oct. 27) and went immediately to Satit Bangna School where we had to introduce ourselves to the school director/staff. The school is really pretty nice (I don't have much to compare it to in Thailand, but I like it) It consists of 4 different white buildings all joined by a huge open courtyard. There is a big olympic size swimming pool, basketball courts, tennis courts (a little beaten up) and a soccer field. Each building has different students (we are building 2 where the English Program kids take their classes).

Our school has 3 different programs: Regular Program (the kids take all their classes in Thai excpect English), English Progressive Program (EPP) (the kids take all their classes in Thai except they take English with a native speaker --aka us) and EP or English program (the kids take all their classes in English except Thai language and Thai history). This leads to a bit of a school heirarchy as the EP pays more tuition than EPP who pays more tuition than RP, but that I'll talk about later; argh, Thai politics/social system.

Dr. Aree is about 80 yrs old and is the school principal. Her english is pretty good and she has a ton of energy for her age/how busy she is. The other Thai teachers are really nice and tried their hardest to welcome us into the school. It was definitely a shock to get out of the van (or Wan) as they call it) and be thrown into a nearly 100% Thai speaking environment, but it's all part of the experience.

After some intros we were taken to the school dorms where we live. It's a big white building with 20 some dorms (each person has their own room and own bathroom). We were all a little taken aback when we moved in. My room is really big, but I'm not sure when the last time someone lived in it was (the calendar in the room says July 2008). It has the smell of a dank, musty swamp and is hot/humid. I have 2 beds, 2 closet armoirs and 3 desks (why so much furniture remains a mystery). Josie has 3 closets and 2 beds...ryan has 3 beds, etc. It makes no sense like many things in Thailand. I also have a bathroom with a wall covered in mold, unswept floors, a toilet seat that is jagged enough to cut through glass (may be an exaggeration, but it definitely is peeling apart) and many marks/dirt on the walls.

Thais also have kind of shoddy toilet systems (aka flushing T.P can cause major issues) so they have these hoses (you know the ones that you have in your sinks at home to wash dishes?) to clean themselves after using the toilet. I'm pretty sure the amount of water pressure that comes out of the hose is somewhere in between a raging, class 5 rapids river and a hose that the fire fighters have to have 3 people holding to put out the fires. Let's just say that I'm pushing my luck flushing the toilet paper. My shower is pretty standard for anywhere but America: a hose with a shower head that you use while standing by the drain about 2.56" from the toilet. I've learned to take pretty quick showers as the flooding of the bathroom floor takes but a few minutes!

We were all pretty overwhelmed I think, but our program director, Dr. Absorn, and our two coordinators Ann and Oil (yes that's her name--I'll get more into Thai nicknames later on) took us to Big C which is like Thailand's WalMart for some shopping and PIZZA! We ate ourselves silly and then bought some essentials to get us through the night and our first few days. I definitely felt a little uncomfortable, hot/sweaty, lonely and many other emotions that first night aka my first night was spent wishing I had a plane ticket home! Still, life has definitely improved since then. Plus I have some friends that live in my room to keep me company: Glen the Gecko chills in my bathroom and does his job eating bugs along with Stacy the Spider whose brother Sid lives on my bedroom ceiling and catches any mosquitos that sneak in. I mean I know it's kind of weird to name these critters that I would normally kill and/or throw out immediately at home, but as long as they just chill out and do their business I'm fine keeping them around.

I was so tired from all the adjustments that I just kinda curled up and slipped into a sweaty slumber... As you can see my first night was one for the record books.