A Few More Pics

This is a picture of a group of us who played volleyball the other day at one of the foster homes who sends 3 of their 9 foster girls to our school. The man behind me and to my left (the only guy in the pic) is the house dad and the house mom is the lady on the far right. Such a great family.



Is it hot in this country? A picture is worth 1,000 words.

Seriously, so hot and humid.

A beautiful sunset in a beautiful country.

When we went to a cultural dinner and show with some friends.

Emily and I at the night market enjoying a chocolate coated apple piece. I says "apple" on it ... I am thankful for the label because I wouldn't be surprised if they chocolate coated fish or pork or something! lol.

The roomies after church at a Vietnamese place . . . mmmm.

So, all my pics are of fun things we do . . . but please keep in mind that we work a lot more than we play! I'll try to get more pics of us working so you believe me, haha.

Random

I live in a very random country.

We went to a buffet the other night. I felt like I was at the Flying W Ranch as we were in this open but covered eating area where we sat on picnic tables and had little tin grills at each table where they would bring fiery coal to heat our tin grills and grill our meat while we had tin kettles of scorching water to fill the sides of the grill to boil veggies and such. So, the smell of campfire smoke and tables made me felt at home. Random.
Also, in the midst of the buffet where there are dead crawling things to grill, a million types of tofu, vegetables and fruits I couldn’t identify along with vegetable jello . . . there was pizza (granted it was spicy and had shrimp so it still counted as Thai food) and there were French fries in the middle of the buffet. Random.
A lovely assortment of doughnuts for dessert. Random.
There was a Thai band playing on stage (not similar to Wrangler music though – we’re no longer feeling like we are at the Flying W), we are sitting next to a big screen where Thai soap operas are being projected and granted if I did speak Thai fluently, I still couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the music. I was intrigued by the soap operas. My friend made a true statement that the Buddhist culture (which Thailand is 98% Buddhist) teaches to hide a lot of emotion and suppress it. So, when Thai’s act and have to show emotion – a lot of them overdo it and it makes me laugh out loud. Hilarious. But this is our entertainment at the buffet. Random.
Even though this is an all you can eat buffet, if you don’t eat all your food, they weigh it and charge you extra. Random.
We are walking to our cars and as we come up on the stage where 1 Thai guy was playing his guitar, I realize I recognize the song – he is singing a Greenday song in English. Random.
When you go to your car, there is a man who is paid to stand there and shine a flashlight on your vehicle so you can see where to put your key. Courteous, but still Random.

Other randomness? I have a new student in my class. She just showed up the other day. She is from one of the children’s homes. I didn’t know that she was my student until I cranked my neck while singing the National Anthem to see who this unidentified child was that was lined up in the 4th grade line and I had about 2 minutes before going to class to figure out if I was supposed to teach this child or not. Long story short – she is a new student and now is my 9th child. I am trying to get over the fact that I loved that I had 8 students 4 boys and 4 girls – the perfect number to divide in 4 groups or 2 groups or boys vs girls. I was getting used to counting 8 heads and making sure my head was still on at the end of the day. However, I quickly got over my selfishness after meeting Poompui. My new student who doesn’t speak a lick of English. Haha. She fits into our class well. She has the best big-teeth smile and sports her pigtails like she was born with them. She is beautiful. She also loves to hug me. I love hugs but there is a downside. Why is this a downside you may ask? Her height puts her exactly at eye level with my belly. Apparently my pudgy middle intrigues her and she’s turned my stomach into her new toy. While I have to get over my pride and my hurt of having a child constantly poke, prod, squish and jiggle my stomach, I have to laugh. I have to laugh at this child who finds one of my biggest insecurities to be her new fun activity. I have to laugh over the fact that I’m here in the middle of the hottest country (in my opinion at least) - - - by the way, some one should tell the authorities that the air conditioner is broken in this country - - - and I am teaching for the first time in my life and teaching children who struggle to know what I’m blabbing about. I have to laugh at the quirkiness of my 9 students – Arm, Bless, Boonyoung, Dao, Git, Pang, Poompui, Quan and Ying. I have to laugh as nothing usually goes as planned whether it be in school or just in life here in Thailand. I have to laugh at everything random that comes my way. I laugh a lot here and this makes me smile. I’m so glad our God has a sense of humor. I know I’m here for many reasons, but today I am enjoying the laughter of the randomness.

A Few Pics

I have so many more pictures and will post more soon. I haven't taken a ton of pictures of the kids at the school because I am trying to be careful to make sure they see me as their teacher and not just as a friend who takes pictures of them all of the time. However, there should be upcoming opportunities where picture taking will be appropriate :-).

Joel and Marvel threw a surprise bday barty for Kalena. These are the 3 girls I live with. From left: Emily, Sarah and Misty.

At the 4th of July bash. Apparently I am very fond of Ronald McDonald. Not sure if it's his red hair, his makeup or his unique style of dressing. One will never know ;).

Eating . . . at Jerusalem Falafel in the middle of Chiang Mai. Haha.

Test driving our friends moped as we were trying to decide whether to purchase mopeds or a car. I think we have decided on a car but the moped is pretty fun . . . but then seeing how people drive here, it would be a bit scary.


Daniel is not dead, don't worry. Actually, I am taking his glasses off first before I turn him to his side in case he starts vomiting (hypothetically). At orientation, we had an all day First Aid and CPR training. I'm a pro now. I better not say that because if something does happen and I don't know what to do, I'll have to be held accountable to my "I'm a pro" statement. Scratch that, pretend I didn't say that.


This is not an inappropriate picture. The toilet seat is down. We are doing our laundry by hand. We generally do our laundry outside but we were desperate this particular evening so we decided the bathroom was a good as place as any.

I like this picture of Misty, Sarah and I. Sad that Emily isn't in it but she wasn't here yet :-(.

A Day in the Life Of . . .

I woke up this morning to my alarm (so thankful it was to that sound and not the chanting of the monks – still not used to the fact that I sometimes awaken with the sound of men’s voices chanting something unrecognizable to me as they walk through our neighborhood but sometimes it throws me off because it sounds like they are on my balcony – that would be awkward!). Anyway – I had the intention of doing my laundry this morning before church but selfishly was excited when I looked outside to see it raining because it means that laundry is not possible and I can lay back down and steel some time on the phone with my mom – one of my favorite things to do. It also gives me a chance to do a bit more writing as I often have to fight for time to write blog posts. I thought maybe I’d share what one of my days looks like - I picked Friday of this past week because it was truly such an awesome day!

Friday, July 17, 2009

6:40 – wake up exhausted but encouraged that yesterday was the best teaching day by far and excited to tackle today
7:20 – grab all my stuff (including my full cup of coffee) when I hear a roommate shout “they’re here” and run out the door to catch our morning ride (we get picked up by our neighbor Chot who lives down the street and is the house dad of a 9-girl foster home, he brings 3 of his girls with him).
7:21 – play “don’t spill the coffee” game as Chot goes over the endless speedbumps in our neighborhood and decide that chugging the coffee is the best option as I’d like not to stain all my clothes and scald my leg just yet this morning.
7:25 – pick up 8 more kids (making a total of 16 people in this “station wagon”) from another foster home.
7:26 – smile and reply to all the “good morning teachers” that are screamed in our direction
7:35 – say “kop khun kha” to Chot and get out of the car and make my way to my classroom as my kids come up to me and grab the things in my hands and take them for me (model servants! =).
7:36 – go to our morning staff prayer meeting as we sing songs (we sing in English as the Thai teachers sing in Thai) and then do consecutive prayer (sounds so cool when we all pray out loud at the same time in 2 different languages)
7:45 – watch the kids play outside until assembly and play the “don’t blink” game with Anne from 2nd grade who hunts me down because I taught her the game yesterday and now she wants to play it every free time we have, hehe.
8:15 - watch the kids in morning assembly as they sing the Thai national anthem
8:30 – head to the teachers’ “lounge” as I have until 10:00 to lesson plan while I see some house parents come in for the parents meeting and wonder which parents take care of which of my kids from my class
10:00 – hand held bell rung to let the kids know it’s snack time
10:15 – watch the principal take pictures with the kids and their house parents and see how many kids are assigned to one house parent and have mixed emotions as I am thankful that the kids have a safe place but wonder how much one on one attention that each kid gets (which I really don’t know the answer to so I’d prefer not to assume anything because the house parents in my eyes are heroes)
10:30 – work on an “about me” project with the kids as they take the answers to the questions they wrote yesterday and decorate them so we can laminate them and hang them up in the classroom
10:40 – wonder what is so hard about using pencil first and then marker . . . when I was kid, I didn’t want to mess with pencil either – but the kids need to learn to take their time, right?
10:41 – hide the markers and colored pencils so that students are forced to use just pencil and pretend that the comments mumbled in Thai are “you’re right, teacher, we should do what you say” as opposed to potentially “our teacher is mean and stupid.”
11:00 – break out the markers allowing the kids to like me again
11:15 – bust out the foam numbers to keep one of my students entertained because he finishes every assignment way before the other students (it’s partly because he’s a hyper boy and not as meticulous about coloring and making things perfect like some of the other students)
11:16 – start giving my student long math problems, watch him solve them on the floor with the foam numbers, give him high fives as he gets every problem right and watch him laugh and grin from ear to ear every time he solves a problem and am thankful for his enthusiasm for learning (just have to keep all his energy focused on learning instead of disturbing the class, haha)
11:50 – finish projects, tell them all what a good job they did and head to lunch – remind kids to wash their hands
11:51 – eat lunch (noodles, some type of vegetables and some type of meat and not too much spicy sauce because the lunch ladies can see my albino non-Asian self coming and know that I can’t handle the heat ;) with the other teachers and kids.
12:20 – watch the kids play
12:40 – break up the 4th grade class in 2 groups and take 1 group for 45 minutes while Kruh Nida (the 4th grade Thai teacher) takes the other group and we work on learning things that each group needs more work on. Letter bingo is involved.
1:30 – fun reading, read the whole class a Bearenstine Bears book . . . so fun
2:15 – switch teaching groups
3:00 – give all kids a Starburst (thanks to my care package from my fam J) for participating so well
3:01 – realize these children have never eaten a starburst
3:02 – laugh as the kids eat this thing their teacher says is a “Starburst” – wish I had pictures of some of their faces, they were not sure what to make of it. Lol
3:15 – school is over
3:20 – jump in the car with 11 sweaty children and head home
3:40 – entertain a few of the foster children (taught them the dot game) as their house dad makes some repairs around our house and explains how to take care of some of the things that apparently he thought we were neglecting
5:00 - Emily and I head to the club house about a 10 minute walk away as Misty and Sarah have their language lesson. Write about the snake story on my blog and smile.
7:00 – walk home ready for dinner
7:08 – walk by the foster home as it is on the way to our home and see that our roommate Sarah and Ying (one of my 4th grade students) are in a heated ping pong match
7:10 – sit down with the kids, watch ping pong, play the “don’t blink game,” laugh hysterically
8:00 – with weird fruit in hand (as gifted by the family), make a plan to come play volleyball Sunday night with all 9 kids
8:05 – use our 2 burner gas stove and make a delicious pasta dish
8:30 – fat, dumb and happy J
8:45 – take a shower with no heated water and smile that cold water is the perfect temperate to shower with in this ridiculous heat
9:00 – gather around the table with roommates and watch a movie as we make flash cards to help ourselves remember our Thai vocabulary
11:30 – go to bed and thank God for such an awesome day.

Every day is an adventure. Some are much more challenging than others – but all are worth it. The Thai teachers teach the kids all day Mondays and Wednesdays and we English speaking teachers teach all day Tuesdays and Thursdays and then we tag team Fridays. Monday nights, right after school we go to Joel and Marvel’s for dinner – they invite the English speaking teachers over and their spouses (for Daniel and Gordon) for fellowship and prayer – such an awesome time and Marvel is an AMAZING cook so I often salivate thinking of Monday nights ;). Tuesdays after school is an all teacher meeting and then I meet with my IFAP (C&MA) group every other Tuesday for bible study and dinner. Wednesday nights after school, we have Thai language classes. Thursday’s after school, we have an all staff bible study at the school. Friday nights are “free” and Saturday mornings are Thai language lessons again. Sunday morning is church. Most of the time on our little free time we do have, we are still doing extra lesson planning, personal language study, getting to the internet connection, grocery shopping, doing laundry by hand, cooking, or taking a nap (usually much needed). Haha. But I love it. It’s crazy busy but having 3 roommates with almost identical schedules helps so we’re all in the same boat.

I know this is where I’m supposed to be right now and I love that.

The Snake Story

I feel like I have so much to write about but then it's also jumbled in my mind and I feel as if it would take me hours to sort through my brain (contrary to popular belief - I do have a brain) to make even the slightest bit of sense. So, I will spare you confusion and instead, write about one of my favorite stories so far teaching here in Thailand.

We have a student with C.P. He walks with a walker and has a missing-teeth smile that can melt your heart. He uses the teachers' bathroom because it's the most accessible to him. One of our English speaking teachers (Daniel) was helping him get to the bathroom. The boy goes into the bathroom and thinks it's necessary to use the 2 bathroom locks even though Daniel is right outside waiting for him to finish. All of a sudden (and I am hearing this in muffled tones as I am lesson planning not far from where the scene is unfolding) the boy yells "Mr. Daniel, Mr. Daniel . . . there is a snake coming at me! Mr. Daniel, HELP!" Daniel is quickly imagining this huge snake coming out of the toilet in pursuit of our sweet student who can't get away quickly enough before his poor little butt becomes a meal for this slithering creature. Of course the bathroom door is locked so Daniel kicks the door open like a hero. He's ready to take action and quickly stops in his tracks and starts chuckling. All I hear is "ummmm . . . that's just a worm buddy." There is a worm on the other side of the bathroom floor about an inch or two long slowly making it's way in the boy's direction. I told the boy's foster father the story that afternoon and he just shook his head, chuckled and said "I am always telling him not to lock the door."

Every time I go to the bathroom and see the broken lock, it makes me think of the "snake" and of that boy and of why I'm here and I just smile.

I love my life! =) Thanks again to all of you who make my life here possible! I couldn't do it without your love and support!

Introducing . . .

MY CLASS!

I am the English Teacher of the 4th Grade Class at Mars Hill (a school run by Hope International Schools). I have 8 students - 4 boys and 4 girls. One girl didn't want to be in the video . . . she was a little camera shy :-). I will post pictures of each later. I love my students. They are totally kids and not always doing exactly what I ask but I guess that's part of being a kid. It's also a challenge when I barely speak Thai and they are trying so hard to tell me something. They are doing really well though with 2 and 1/2 days of ALL English a week!!! They warm my heart and I can't wait to spend the whole year working with them. There will be tough times for sure (I already have had a couple ;) but it will be SO worth it. All the kids from our school come from foster homes or orphanages that they call children's homes (where they have House Parents). All the students have their own unique personalities, backgrounds, etc. I love it, I love it, I love it. Remind me I said that once I come back and say I had a really bad day at school! :-) Okay, with no further ado . . . "Hello America" is a little fuzzy but I took it the first day I taught and I think the light behind doesn't help. There will be MANY more stories/pictures/videos to come of them all. :-)