From a few days ago...
I am in Malacca, Malaysia and really loving it. Amazing mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian people. You can imagine how well I'm eating. This is not a typical day but today this is a little bit of what happened...
-washed some clothes in the shower with shampoo because i couldn't find detergent!
-walked up a hill to see a Chinese cemetery and struck up a conversation with two older Chinese men. These men then took us to see the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia which was followed by drinking lots of beer (before we had even had lunch. Keep in mind these are like over 60 year olds and my friend hates beer). Then Indian food which was served on a banana leaf and we devoured with our hands.
-a power nap was much needed but first we chatted with an Australian couple staying in our guest house
-walked to the Strait of Malacca (pirates!) and was harassed by some Malay teenagers. Actually felt unsafe and it was quite horrible.
-Went to the mall to try on clothes that are cheap and fit us! I bought lots although I am unsure of what is cool or not cool. But I am defo cool in Asia.
-Walked around and accidentally ended up on top of a hill for one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen. The sun is so much bigger near the equator.
-Went to the Chinese market, ate some Malay food, had a shower and am now hanging at a cafe that is about to start some live music. Possibly in Chinese.
And right now that is my life. I will go to bed in a huge 16 bed dorm room! No AC so good thing I'm used to this heat.
But even with all that I am excited to be home soon. And after being in Chinatowns in Malaysia I think China will be INSANE. I have no real words to describe what i think it'll be like.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
I should be applying for jobs right now
You know when you have something you should be doing...but instead you do everything else. That's me right now. I am supposed to be applying for summer jobs and starting my final evaluations this weekend. I have listened to new music, read the news, swept the floor, listened to old music, looked at jobs in California (why?), stared at the wall, taken out the trash twice and now writing in my blog. When I write things on my resume or cover letter like "I am a motivated hard worker who is up for any challenge" I feel like I am lying. In a job I am like that, most of the time, but not so much in my personal life. I am being hard on myself though because I have applied for two jobs this morning and written a few other important emails. This is not the reason for writing this entry....
The reason is IT RAINED LAST NIGHT! WHAT! The last two nights it has been heat lightning but rain was not expected. I drove home in a downpour and got thoroughly soaked since my rain jacket is neatly stored away until the rainy season (when it is then kept in my motorbike at all times). Crazy weather. Today it is so pleasant and actually overcast which is rare. And just a measly 30 degrees outside.
Last night was also my official Goodbye Party at Patanadek. I still have 2 more weeks of teaching so it was a little bit awkward but our student teachers have to go back to graduate so we celebrated early in order to include them. I ate spaghetti and my friend Rachel made a delicious chocolate dessert! Nice things were said and I received a picture -- of me. Hmmm, what to do with a beautifully framed picture of myself? As it was given to me someone said it was beautiful and they re-touched it. How you can say someone looks beautiful and also tell them you re-touched the picture in the same sentence is beyond my understanding. I figured my skin was probably made whiter but on closer examination we realized some of the freckles on my face disappeared. I guess they weren't beautiful enough! Silly things.
I'm not feeling too sad about leaving but I did get a little teary talking to my co-teacher Nooch. I love working with her and I will truly miss her in the classroom. It's a special bond when someone sees you at your worst and your best. She's been there from the beginning and seen lessons go horribly and lessons go wonderfully. She's been so helpful and she is not afraid to give me a look that means I need to do something better. I appreciate her way of constructive criticism since most Thais refuse to say anything remotely bad-to your face that is-and I relish in criticism so it's difficult to always hear you're excellent when it's probably not true. Also, as a teacher you can ALWAYS improve. Anyways, Nooch is fantastic and she is someone I feel awkwardly close to because we have shared so much although I would never think to call her on the weekends or hang out outside of work. It is the best co-teacher I could've asked for.
The highlight of last night was having a great conversation with a fellow teacher. To think we've been teaching at the same school for 10 months and just last night we connected and easily talked for a few hours. You know when just one question just opens the floodgates with someone and you just can't help but share your ideas/thoughts/life concepts with them? That was last night and it was fantastic. Why do these things always happen when you're about to leave a place?! But it was the perfect conversation for me to have because it made me remember that I don't have these deep and probing conversations often anymore. I miss that.
Alison moves into the house in 20 minutes. 10 more days of teaching. Sarah arrives in Thailand in 14 days. 2 more weekends in KK. 5 days to finish my 20 evaluations. But now I'll just go and eat some lunch.
Thank you for reading this blog and giving me a reason to not to all the things on my to do list :)
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Bring It On Hercules
Check out my new claim to fame and be envious:
http://cheapcharlies-kk.com/quiz/
For the past month, the foreign crowd (aka my foreign crowd) has been frequenting a bar that I had judged for the past year and a half. It was judged because it is one of the bars where the older foreign men hang out with a few Thai women. There is quite a divide between this older foreign men and us youngsters. But the divide has been bridged and it is thanks to the aforementioned bar.
Cheap! Charlies is now the place to be on a Tuesday night in KK because of their fabulous Quiz Night. On the website you can read some of the questions...they are quite difficult. It is an all out team effort of random knowledge and guesses the help us respectably squeeze by each week. (I will say it is quite an advantage to have actually lived through events rather than learning about them in history class.) The battle of the ages ended last Tuesday when Bring It On Hercules edged out the Khon Kaen Klan by 2 1/2 points. It was an unexpected surprise and one of the proudest moments in my last two years. On the website you can also see the Snowball prize (answering a random question individually) was won by my friend Naomi. I reckon she's quite clever (that was my British English sentence for the day-translation=She's smart). I expect to find a trivia night in the Cities that can compare.
http://cheapcharlies-kk.com/quiz/
For the past month, the foreign crowd (aka my foreign crowd) has been frequenting a bar that I had judged for the past year and a half. It was judged because it is one of the bars where the older foreign men hang out with a few Thai women. There is quite a divide between this older foreign men and us youngsters. But the divide has been bridged and it is thanks to the aforementioned bar.
Cheap! Charlies is now the place to be on a Tuesday night in KK because of their fabulous Quiz Night. On the website you can read some of the questions...they are quite difficult. It is an all out team effort of random knowledge and guesses the help us respectably squeeze by each week. (I will say it is quite an advantage to have actually lived through events rather than learning about them in history class.) The battle of the ages ended last Tuesday when Bring It On Hercules edged out the Khon Kaen Klan by 2 1/2 points. It was an unexpected surprise and one of the proudest moments in my last two years. On the website you can also see the Snowball prize (answering a random question individually) was won by my friend Naomi. I reckon she's quite clever (that was my British English sentence for the day-translation=She's smart). I expect to find a trivia night in the Cities that can compare.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
My December Vacation
So far 2009 has been good to me. I hope it's been the same for you. Pictures first...
December Pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/c3mc6t
January Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102710&l=d8b4a&id=512610984
The end of December I had a fantastic two weeks in Northern Thailand and then down to the beach for New Year's. A friend who was in PiA last year is working for an NGO (if you're interested, The Life Skills Development Foundation) in Chiang Mai. She invited me to work with them for a few days around Christmas. I jumped at the chance to actually volunteer my time! It's something I really miss doing here as there's not much to do other than teach English in KK. Honestly, the last thing I want to do after teaching English all week is to do it on my weekend as well. I was excited to have an opportunity that didn't involve teaching English!
We were north of Chiang Mai in a small town called Bang Maphaa (also known as Soppong in the guidebooks). The first day was a training day for teachers in the area. My friend Kirsten and I taught the first lesson of the day about active learning. Most of the teachers seemed to understand just a little bit of English and so we had a translator for our session. We had about 15-20 teachers who we pretended were elementary aged. We then did a complete lesson about hand washing. The point was to show how to teach a lesson by using active learning which is really just showing the teachers that a lecture style is not the best or only way to deliver a good lesson. I am not sure how it went but the teachers seemed to have fun and Kirsten and I had fun. It felt good to be able to pass on some knowledge and I hope some of the teachers came away at least having a new thought in their head about teaching.
The next few days we spent outside of this village at a school that has many children from different hill tribes in Thailand. It's somewhat of a boarding school because of this. From what I understood, most of the students live in group houses together because their home villages are so far away. The students then work in teams to take care of the school. Each team has a different responsibility which together runs the entire school community. I'm trying to remember all of the team tasks since we had to write a brochure for them. They had a team that prepared meals, another that maintained the water supply, the agriculture team, and a few other things. It was a very forward thinking idea for this school and it seemed to work well. Although it is still an extremely poor, education and money wise.
Our job was to build the school a playground and re-design 2 kindergarten classrooms. There were about 15 people from the NGO plus a bus load of University students from Chiang Mai. We had about two days to finish all of this, which in true Thai way, we didn't know about until after the two days. We also didn't know their was going to be two classrooms and they also misinformed us on which classroom was KG1 and which was KG2, which makes a difference. The classroom should be different if you have 4 year olds in it or 5-6 year olds in it. Mai ben rai. We figured it out.
It was a challenge but so rewarding when we finished. I don't have any before pictures because it was SO dirty that we didn't want to touch anything while we were cleaning it out. My first impression of the classroom before we started to work: piles of dirt on toys, broken and dangerous cabinets, completely unorganized toys, many things were not age-appropriate, a huge TV hid the white board, nothing interactive to allow the kids to explore and learn on their own, and dirt and mold all over their bedding. It was appalling and then sad to know that the school was doing the best they could. I felt guilty about teaching where I do when I could be helping a more needy school. I struggle with this a lot but I also want to be happy. I have justified my choice of schools by realizing that the rich kids deserve a good education too. Anyways, we worked hard for the two days. We cleaned, we organized, we designed, we re-designed, we cleaned some more, we threw things away, we made new things, phew! We were tired. The teacher of our classroom was around and I think we even motivated her to clean up her papers. The most frustrating part was finding items that had been donated but were not being used. Brand new books and toys that were stuffed into a forgotten corner. It was hard to believe that they do have the tools but they are not being utilized.
The classroom still being designed and cleaned.
I hope that they liked what we did to the classroom and have kept the changes we made. Kirsten believes she overheard the Thai teacher saying the room was "half beautiful". In Thailand, everything needs to be beautiful. I am still annoyed at that because I think it was a good classroom where it was easier to learn and engage in learning. You don't need bows and paper butterflies to help teach kids. I guess I should say in my opinion you don't need to "beautify" the classroom in that way to educate but maybe that's because that's what I know. Sigh, I'm still learning about Thai culture and how I react to it. It was a great experience no matter what and I'm so happy I spent my Christmas doing something like that.
To ring in the New Year we headed down to Koh Chang, an island southeast of Bangkok. We had 5 of us girls and had a fantastic time. We stayed up late every night, woke up early to drag ourselves to the beach where we'd fall asleep again and then do it again the next night. Looking back I am not sure how I did 5 days of that. It must've been the excitement of being just another tourist! It took dedication to ring in 2009. We didn't do much and it was perfect. I missed my kids and teaching but could've spent a few more days on the beach. But there will be more time for that soon.
January was laid back in comparison to all the traveling in December. I went to Chiang Mai for a long weekend to have a reunion with my New Year's travel buddies as a couple of them are heading back home (California and Australia) soon. If I was staying another year in Thailand I would be in Chiang Mai in a heartbeat. It's like living in Thailand but with an easy escape to tourists and foreign things. I ate delicious falafel with a bunch of foreigners and then went out dancing in a Thai club. It's lovely to have those options.
I've been feeling my time in Thailand coming to an end. The PiAers at KKU are leaving in the next few weeks as they have their last week of teaching this week. The goodbyes and thoughts of goodbyes are starting and that is always a sad time. As for me, I have about 5 weeks of teaching left. Then I have plans to travel. Here's my calendar of events so far...
March 13-last day of school
March 14-KG3 Graduation (tear tear)
March 15-27-traveling Thailand with my friend Sarah who's coming to visit from the states!
March 27-29 Patanadek Staff Trip to Pattaya.
April 1st-one way ticket to Kuala Lumpur with my friend and KK PiAer Alison
We'll be traveling in Malaysia for as long as we want and eventually making our way up through the South and eventually back to KK for Songkran which is from April 11-18. Songkran is the Thai New Year that involves ice cold water, drinking, closed restaurants and lots of accidents. I promise to be safe and will probably hide in my house after a day of it.
Mid-April-Finally get to Northern Laos and take in Vientiane and Luang Prabang
May 1-back to KK to pack up my things and say goodbye as I prepare to leave Thailand
May 4-Goodbye Thailand, Hello China! 25 days of exploring China.
May 28-FLY HOME!
May 29 onward-work for the summer and hope that a job in Turkey works out.
That will be my life for the next few months. Although home is still 4 months away it seems so close! But now that I've officially bought my ticket home and just want to be there. I'm excited to be able to just be me. Things in Thailand annoy me more than before just because I know I soon won't have to worry about things. For instance, yesterday I was walking to meet friends at the lake and a group of young Thais were in front of me. They proceeded to turn and stare at me multiple times as I leisurely walked. And try to half smile but also half "what?" them. I just don't get it. I don't know what they're thinking. Age doesn't matter, gender doesn't matter, people just stare. I know those of you who have been to China are laughing because I think it'll be worse there but as a tourist I'm in a different mindset. It's annoying to be living your normal life and to just be stared at and watched at all times. Ok, there was my vent for this entry. Oh to walk in unnoticed to a store. To be able to shop without someone hovering over me. To be able to go in a restaurant and not have to think in another language or to see people be afraid to come over and talk to me. But, as I was just telling my mom, it'll be weird to not be noticed! I'm afraid I'll walk into Target and wait around for someone to help me and then touch my white skin and tell me I'm beautiful. I'm only partly kidding.
At the end of the day though I think about Thailand and the US like this---soon I'll be in the US and no one will tell me I'm beautiful but no one will tell me I'm fat either. I think I can accept that.
December Pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/c3mc6t
January Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102710&l=d8b4a&id=512610984
The end of December I had a fantastic two weeks in Northern Thailand and then down to the beach for New Year's. A friend who was in PiA last year is working for an NGO (if you're interested, The Life Skills Development Foundation) in Chiang Mai. She invited me to work with them for a few days around Christmas. I jumped at the chance to actually volunteer my time! It's something I really miss doing here as there's not much to do other than teach English in KK. Honestly, the last thing I want to do after teaching English all week is to do it on my weekend as well. I was excited to have an opportunity that didn't involve teaching English!
We were north of Chiang Mai in a small town called Bang Maphaa (also known as Soppong in the guidebooks). The first day was a training day for teachers in the area. My friend Kirsten and I taught the first lesson of the day about active learning. Most of the teachers seemed to understand just a little bit of English and so we had a translator for our session. We had about 15-20 teachers who we pretended were elementary aged. We then did a complete lesson about hand washing. The point was to show how to teach a lesson by using active learning which is really just showing the teachers that a lecture style is not the best or only way to deliver a good lesson. I am not sure how it went but the teachers seemed to have fun and Kirsten and I had fun. It felt good to be able to pass on some knowledge and I hope some of the teachers came away at least having a new thought in their head about teaching.
The next few days we spent outside of this village at a school that has many children from different hill tribes in Thailand. It's somewhat of a boarding school because of this. From what I understood, most of the students live in group houses together because their home villages are so far away. The students then work in teams to take care of the school. Each team has a different responsibility which together runs the entire school community. I'm trying to remember all of the team tasks since we had to write a brochure for them. They had a team that prepared meals, another that maintained the water supply, the agriculture team, and a few other things. It was a very forward thinking idea for this school and it seemed to work well. Although it is still an extremely poor, education and money wise.
Our job was to build the school a playground and re-design 2 kindergarten classrooms. There were about 15 people from the NGO plus a bus load of University students from Chiang Mai. We had about two days to finish all of this, which in true Thai way, we didn't know about until after the two days. We also didn't know their was going to be two classrooms and they also misinformed us on which classroom was KG1 and which was KG2, which makes a difference. The classroom should be different if you have 4 year olds in it or 5-6 year olds in it. Mai ben rai. We figured it out.
It was a challenge but so rewarding when we finished. I don't have any before pictures because it was SO dirty that we didn't want to touch anything while we were cleaning it out. My first impression of the classroom before we started to work: piles of dirt on toys, broken and dangerous cabinets, completely unorganized toys, many things were not age-appropriate, a huge TV hid the white board, nothing interactive to allow the kids to explore and learn on their own, and dirt and mold all over their bedding. It was appalling and then sad to know that the school was doing the best they could. I felt guilty about teaching where I do when I could be helping a more needy school. I struggle with this a lot but I also want to be happy. I have justified my choice of schools by realizing that the rich kids deserve a good education too. Anyways, we worked hard for the two days. We cleaned, we organized, we designed, we re-designed, we cleaned some more, we threw things away, we made new things, phew! We were tired. The teacher of our classroom was around and I think we even motivated her to clean up her papers. The most frustrating part was finding items that had been donated but were not being used. Brand new books and toys that were stuffed into a forgotten corner. It was hard to believe that they do have the tools but they are not being utilized.
The classroom still being designed and cleaned.
I hope that they liked what we did to the classroom and have kept the changes we made. Kirsten believes she overheard the Thai teacher saying the room was "half beautiful". In Thailand, everything needs to be beautiful. I am still annoyed at that because I think it was a good classroom where it was easier to learn and engage in learning. You don't need bows and paper butterflies to help teach kids. I guess I should say in my opinion you don't need to "beautify" the classroom in that way to educate but maybe that's because that's what I know. Sigh, I'm still learning about Thai culture and how I react to it. It was a great experience no matter what and I'm so happy I spent my Christmas doing something like that.
To ring in the New Year we headed down to Koh Chang, an island southeast of Bangkok. We had 5 of us girls and had a fantastic time. We stayed up late every night, woke up early to drag ourselves to the beach where we'd fall asleep again and then do it again the next night. Looking back I am not sure how I did 5 days of that. It must've been the excitement of being just another tourist! It took dedication to ring in 2009. We didn't do much and it was perfect. I missed my kids and teaching but could've spent a few more days on the beach. But there will be more time for that soon.
January was laid back in comparison to all the traveling in December. I went to Chiang Mai for a long weekend to have a reunion with my New Year's travel buddies as a couple of them are heading back home (California and Australia) soon. If I was staying another year in Thailand I would be in Chiang Mai in a heartbeat. It's like living in Thailand but with an easy escape to tourists and foreign things. I ate delicious falafel with a bunch of foreigners and then went out dancing in a Thai club. It's lovely to have those options.
I've been feeling my time in Thailand coming to an end. The PiAers at KKU are leaving in the next few weeks as they have their last week of teaching this week. The goodbyes and thoughts of goodbyes are starting and that is always a sad time. As for me, I have about 5 weeks of teaching left. Then I have plans to travel. Here's my calendar of events so far...
March 13-last day of school
March 14-KG3 Graduation (tear tear)
March 15-27-traveling Thailand with my friend Sarah who's coming to visit from the states!
March 27-29 Patanadek Staff Trip to Pattaya.
April 1st-one way ticket to Kuala Lumpur with my friend and KK PiAer Alison
We'll be traveling in Malaysia for as long as we want and eventually making our way up through the South and eventually back to KK for Songkran which is from April 11-18. Songkran is the Thai New Year that involves ice cold water, drinking, closed restaurants and lots of accidents. I promise to be safe and will probably hide in my house after a day of it.
Mid-April-Finally get to Northern Laos and take in Vientiane and Luang Prabang
May 1-back to KK to pack up my things and say goodbye as I prepare to leave Thailand
May 4-Goodbye Thailand, Hello China! 25 days of exploring China.
May 28-FLY HOME!
May 29 onward-work for the summer and hope that a job in Turkey works out.
That will be my life for the next few months. Although home is still 4 months away it seems so close! But now that I've officially bought my ticket home and just want to be there. I'm excited to be able to just be me. Things in Thailand annoy me more than before just because I know I soon won't have to worry about things. For instance, yesterday I was walking to meet friends at the lake and a group of young Thais were in front of me. They proceeded to turn and stare at me multiple times as I leisurely walked. And try to half smile but also half "what?" them. I just don't get it. I don't know what they're thinking. Age doesn't matter, gender doesn't matter, people just stare. I know those of you who have been to China are laughing because I think it'll be worse there but as a tourist I'm in a different mindset. It's annoying to be living your normal life and to just be stared at and watched at all times. Ok, there was my vent for this entry. Oh to walk in unnoticed to a store. To be able to shop without someone hovering over me. To be able to go in a restaurant and not have to think in another language or to see people be afraid to come over and talk to me. But, as I was just telling my mom, it'll be weird to not be noticed! I'm afraid I'll walk into Target and wait around for someone to help me and then touch my white skin and tell me I'm beautiful. I'm only partly kidding.
At the end of the day though I think about Thailand and the US like this---soon I'll be in the US and no one will tell me I'm beautiful but no one will tell me I'm fat either. I think I can accept that.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
One Seriously Long Update
I realize this blog has been a little lifeless for the past 6 months. It’s on my list of things to do every weekend. Really, every single weekend I write it down. And when was the last time it happened…September. The only other thing that has been on my to do list that long is “make a dentist appointment”. I’ll let you know when I get to that.
First things first, links to pictures, because we all know a picture is worth a thousand words.
So many things to catch up on. So I’ll start at the beginning and try to be brief. I’ll try a timeline.
Sept. 12-14
Beam and I went to Khorat to meet our friend Bow. If you remember, Bow, Beam and I all traveled to Cambodia together last March. It was soo great to see her! Bow has been living in Dubai and traveling around the world as a flight attendant for Emirates Airlines. Us three talked for hours and then somehow convinced Bow to come back to Khon Kaen with us. They ended up coming to school with me for a day and speaking English with all the kids. We had so much fun.
End of Sept.
My two week vacation took me to Turkey and Greece. It was bittersweet to leave on this trip. I was so excited to go there and see mom but when I came back Jordan and Joey would be back in the US. I was sad to see them go but know that they were very ready to get back home. I also had to say goodbye to our student teacher who was moving to a new school AND return my Mickey Mouse motorbike. It was a whirlwind.
And then I was on a flight to Istanbul and Mom and I met in the Istanbul airport. Right away we exposed ourselves to Turkey by insisting on taking public transportation to our hostel rather than a taxi. People were helpful if we asked and we were astounded by the beauty around our hostel. We were staying in the Old Town and for me it was amazing. This was my first time in Europe and to me it was like I had stepped into a movie. Old buildings, water, cobblestone streets. I loved it. Something we noticed right away was how COLD it was! This was a big part of Turkey as I didn’t have very many warm clothes and I also wasn’t prepared for the chill in the air. I absolutely fell in love with Turkey and here are some of the reasons and just other things we saw:
-the crowded markets reminded me of Asia
-the people were so friendly. We were asked to sit down for tea so many times. They really mean sit down for some tea and chat. They don’t care if we want to buy something or not, they just want to talk. We left Turkey with so many people’s emails and memories of good conversations.
-the food! Cheese, bread, pitas with French fries inside, Turkish delights, nuts and casseroles. You can buy bread the way you can buy meat on a stick in Thailand. That obviously was good for me. One more thing that deserves to be on its own, Baklava.
-Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkey). We went at the end of Ramazan and we got to experience the lines of people waiting for food at sunset. After Ramazan is Byrum (sp?) where everyone travels to see their family. We saw so many hellos and goodbyes at the bus stations.
-watching people work around the Sea of Marmara. Selling fish sandwiches and people with their fishing poles across the bridge leading from Old Istanbul to New Istanbul. Minus the man who told me I had beautiful teeth…so can I kiss you? Nice try but I said no without hesitating.
-the call to prayer didn’t wake me up in the early morning and was just peaceful to me.
-woman in long coats and hair covered in beautiful scarves.
-mom driving me crazy by wanting to get to know everyone. When I look back it’s a memory of spending at least an hour picking out some clay dishes but at the time (as she’ll surely tell you) I was less than happy. But she did get an amazing piece and had everyone sign their name on the back. It will be something to cherish forever, no thanks to me and my crabbiness!
-the beautiful and FREEZING Goreme in Cappadocia.
-seeing the hot air balloons fly over Cappadocia each morning.
-Hiking through the canyons in Cappadocia in near perfect weather and only the sounds of nature.
-Eating tost (grilled cheese) and watching people go about their daily lives. Men meeting for their afternoon tea. The women are said to gossip at the Turkish bath houses. Watching kids play with BB Guns and then having the boys offer us some Cheetos, and then continue playing.
-Turkish bath-we did it. The whole time I was thinking how excited I was to come back to Thailand and have a Thai massage. It was definitely not the cleanest I’ve ever felt.
-finding out that Turkish men are interested in white women! Turkey may be (on a lesser scale) for women what Thailand is for foreign men. Coming from Thailand this is a jackpot! Mom seemed to be slightly interested in me marrying this one Turkish man because his family owned a carpet shop-that means she could have at least one of the beautiful carpets we saw.
-staying up incredibly late chatting with people in Goreme and Maramaris
-seeing the lake country and Egirdir. It reminded me of MN, but with mountains.
-any problem was never a big problem as there was always someone watching out for us and ready to help. Almost everyone was helpful and overly nice.
And then we sadly boarded a boat to Greece. Of course we were excited to go to Greece but we were not ready to leave Turkey. We were regretting our mindset of “let’s just go to Turkey and Greece, they’re so close!”. On the map it was a good idea, in reality it was not. But, oh well. We were going to the Greek Islands! Our first impression was: TOURISTS! So many on Rhodes. So so many. I think we started talking about when we could leave this island as soon as we got off the catamaran. But things improved vastly from that first impression.
Greece highlights:
-walking around the Rhodes Old Town which was constructed within an old fortress. It was amazing and would have been better if we were the only ones there. How could there be so many people…and in the low season!?
-getting used to the bathrooms. I was used to no shower curtain but I was not used to holding the shower head yourself. I’m still not an expert as the water all over the bathroom floor can attest to.
-the ferry strike! As if we needed excitement like that on our trip! Well, we got it. We really wanted to see Santorini and so we had to be even more creative about how to get there since some of the major ferries were not running. As frustrating as it was it did turn out to be a good thing.
-the special catamaran from Rhodes to Crete. Look at a map right now. Now think about a catamaran. It was special because usually a big ship does this route but the ship was on strike. It was either take the catamaran or not see Santorini. We did it. Luckily neither of us became sick but I think almost every other person on board did. Catamarans do not belong on the open water. We watch a film in Greek just so we’d have something to stare at.
-Crete was lovely and we wished we had more time there. Our favorite place was the little known Sitia where are catamaran docked. Window shopping after dark. Eating gyros and pizza.
-Santorini was where we finally rested! We spent a few days there in an apartment away from people and near horses. It was too cold for the beach as the wind had really picked up. We walked around. We went to the touristy areas and saw the caldera which really is beautiful. There is something serene about the cliffs having white houses built up them. Like in Rhodes though, so many tourists and so much shopping.
-The last stop and the end of the trip in Athens. I never thought I’d care to see any of the Greek ruins but I am so happy we did. It was incredible and spectacular. I still stop and take a breath when I think of what we saw. The Parthenon at sunset. The streets all around were filled with cafes and we sat at one until we were too cold and tired.
And then we were at the airport and on our separate flights. I was ready to get back to Thailand. I missed it. I missed teaching and my kids and was excited to get back to it. It was a great vacation and I’m so happy we got the opportunity to take it. I may find myself back in Turkey next year…only time will tell.
Middle of October
Beam and her sister were staying at my house while I was gone so when I came home I had instant roommates. There was always something going on and it made me feel like I was in college again. Except that I started teaching again. This semester by schedule is a lot different. I don’t teach as many hours so I have more time to plan, grade, and think! I teach 15 hours this semester. I am mostly with the Whales class and now teaching them homeroom, theme, math and science and phonics. It’s been really nice to have one class and not be constantly changing classrooms and changing kids. I think it’s better for the kids too. Even though it was sad for the Dolphins to have a new teacher and to see myself be replaced as their teacher, it’s much better for everyone. An English girl, Naomi, teaches in the Dolphins class now. I’ve become much closer with the Whales than I was before and I teach them much better now (I think!).
My new roommate, James arrived a couple weeks after I started teaching again. I knew I wasn’t PiA anymore when they all traveled for 5 weeks and I got 2 weeks!! It’s worth it but I’m still jealous of the travel time.
Beam moved in right down the street so when she isn’t working in some faraway destination like Khorat and Pattaya we get to hang out a lot.
Oct. 25
Today was a big day. The October PiA arrived and began staying at James and my house and one of our foreign teachers was married to a Thai man today. A van of us from Patanadek drove to Ubon for the wedding reception. It was a crazy Thai experience because it took nearly 4 hours to drive there, we stayed for about 2-3 hours and then drove home. I guess I’m used to bringing down the house when there’s a big gathering but we left before karaoke had even really gotten going. Out of our control though. The day was also big because it marked the first time I have been sick in Thailand. Whoa. It came as quite a surprise and I was finally thankful to have that jug of Pepto-Bismol. That pink liquid is heaven in bad times.
I feel like this should go down as one of those “One time in Thailand…” One time in Thailand I lived with three boys. I think that that is a feat. Even if one of them was only for 2 nights, another one for a week and the other one I am still living with. I guess in the Eco-House I lived with three boys but I try to erase that from my memory. The three boys in Thailand were much better than the three in Iowa.
Oct. 31 Happy Halloween!
We had a big Halloween celebration at Patanadek. I dressed up as some sort of alien. Naomi was a pirate. Almost all of the kids were a ghost, but not just any old white sheet ghost. A beautiful ghost. A Princess ghost. A ________ ghost. It means you can wear whatever you want, put some dark circles around your eyes and maybe some blood and you’re golden. That wasn’t the end of my celebration of Halloween. A bunch of us foreigners went to a club to dance the night away. Which we did. And 5 hours later Naomi and I had to wake up for a 12 hour work day because it was the Kg.3 Scout Camp!
Nov. 1-Scout Camp
It was a rainy day where the kids spent all day doing different kinds of activities. From what I saw it wasn’t much like Girl and Boy Scouts we have in the states-they didn’t seem to be learning much about the environment and how to survive in it. They participated in lots of things: puzzles, reading a map, solving problems, doing races, riding a zip line, and learning how to line up. T. Nooch was in charge of the Scout Camp and so I helped her oversee everything. We rode on our bicycles to check in with each station and to make sure everything was going alright. Everything went well and we adjusted to the rain. That night, before sleeping over at school, the kids put on a show. Most of their parents came back to school for the show and then left when it was over. I’m sure you can imagine a handful of crying kids and some kids who went home once their parents came. But most of the continued on with the sleepover and said they had a lot of fun. I got to play a special role in the night performance. Every year it is a tradition to have people light the fire. This year there was no fire because of the rain but we used long fluorescent lights and made them look like a fire with paper. The tradition is to have the Zulu people come to light the fire. No one knows who they are or where they come from. As long as you don’t tell my kids you can know the secret, this year…it was Naomi, Mary, T. Jack and I. We wore leopard print costumes, put powder on our faces and made our hair like cave men and women. We ran out and around the fire making noises and trying to be scary. Jack had an aerosol can and matches so most of my time was watching him to make sure he didn’t accidentally light me on fire. Everyone is safe and Zulus will be back next year.
November 4
ELECTION DAY! I was so excited. I am still excited and hope that serious changes will occur. I had told myself that if McCain was elected I wouldn’t be going back to the US anytime soon, now at least that’s a possibility. Where was I when Obama became the President-elect? At Patanadek School in Khon Kaen, Thailand. Filling out evaluations when Alcyn messaged me saying McCain was giving his concession speech.
Nov. 12 Loy Gratong
This is the day where we say thank you to the water that we’ve mistreated all year long. We had a half day at school because that night our school hosts a big carnival for the holiday. Everyone dressed up in traditional Thai outfits. I was a little under-dressed as I think most of the Thai women prepared their hair and make-up for hours. It was quite a site to see. The whole night was a photo shoot that didn’t stop after the kids and their families went home.
The government
I’ll try to explain what’s been happening here but keep in mind I don’t really know either.
The main things…
The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) wants the government ousted. They have been protesting since for a few months and had taken over the government house in Bangkok. This was all known but hadn’t really affected anything. All of a sudden the PAD decides to start their “final battle”. They storm the domestic and international airports in Bangkok and take them over. They want the current Prime Minister to resign and won’t leave until he does. The airports ended up being closed for a week. Luckily, a court ruled that the PM’s party participated in electoral fraud and so the PM had to step down. This had nothing to do with the PAD taking over the airport. This is very brief and you can read more here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1243059.stm
What did it mean for me? Life itself was completely normal but I did know it was something big when Thai people started mentioning it. Thais do not talk about politics so to even hear something about it means it’s big. Everyone kept saying it’ll never last another day, it’ll never go on like this. But it kept going on with little change. Tourists were stranded in Thailand. Thais were stranded abroad. The economy was hit hard since imports/exports were halted. It hurt the economy of neighboring countries as well because Bangkok is the closest international hub for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. People were scared of Thailand and I read on a website that Thailand was the 6th most dangerous country to be in. The US said tourist should not come here unless it’s essential. PiA put Thailand on its travel ban list. And here we were just going about our days like normal. Because for us nothing did happen.
It was awful for Thailand though. No matter what the PAD wanted I think they would not want to do this to their country. Tourism is expected to drop-I’ve read 40%! People working in tourism are expected to be laid off (think of all the English majors that just graduated and found jobs, and the ones that will be graduating in Feb.). I hope that people continue to come to Thailand as it is not an unsafe place and most people have no involvement in the protests. But I admit that even when I was reading the news articles in the UK and US it seemed scary. The Thai news did not make it seem scary. I don’t know which ones were more accurate.
The biggest part of all this for me is….two friends from Drake were coming to visit me and they couldn’t come. I was more than disappointed. I was angry with it all. I was really looking forward to sharing my life with them and then, something they had been planning for months disappeared in a matter of days. It was completely unfair to everyone in Thailand but this hit home for me. Right now we should be traveling together! I try to tell myself there’ll be another time but I’m still angry. Life goes on in Thailand though. There hasn’t been a word about the protests since they ended.
Dec. 4-7
Naomi, Alison and I headed to Khao Yai National Park for the long weekend (King’s Birthday/Father’s Day). We had a fantastic time but not for the reasons I expected. I was excited to hike and be in nature for a few days. We only spent one day at the park because there were SOOO many Thai people there. I knew it was a vacation destination but it was like Bangkok at a National Park. Insane! We made a friend who drove us around the park one day. It was beautiful and I hope to go back sometime when it’s over its capacity. We decided not to do a organized tour because we figured all the animals would be hiding. But next time I hope to see the elephants, barking deer, macaw, other birds I don’t know, and the elusive tiger (so unlikely though).
The three of us just had fun doing whatever. We tried and failed to find a farm (too bad we couldn’t have just flown to Wisconsin and visited the Bergmann’s!). We went shopping at a bonafide outlet mall! The prices were cheaper than at a mall but still expensive for our salaries. The highlight was eating soft serve yogurt with mangoes and strawberries in it. We tried and failed to go to a winery (my third and final phone conversation with the people at the winery me: how do we get there? Winery people: blah blah turn right blah blah me: we have no car. Can we take bus? Winery people: Huh? No car. No way to come. sorry) I’d say our proudest moment was crossing Mitraphab (the 4 lane freeway leading from BKK to Nong Khai) by foot. We did it. I still don’t know how. I finally got a reason to cheer for a European football team-Naomi is from Liverpool so we cheered for them.
All in all, great travel buddies and a place I want to go back to.
And that’s that. Not brief at all. I have no idea how long I’ve been typing but it’s entirely too long. This should be my lesson to keep up with my blog more often. It’s dark outside and I’m hungry. Tonight I’m headed to the lake downtown to watch some break dancing, BMXing and anything else that is going on there. The best and sometimes most annoying part of KK is I never know what’s going to happen. Cheers to that.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Recent KK Happenings
August Pictures
Life around here has been pretty good lately. I hate being that person that only talks about her job but really there's not much else going on. Some big news in the past month has been the surprise departure of my American student. She's back to the States as quickly as she came. I was a little sad to see her go and it was just a preview of what the life of a teacher is like every year. I think this will just go down as "that time I went to a Thai kindergarten for 4 months" in her memoir but I will always remember the good and bad things she brought to the classroom :) I think it'll be great for her to be back in time to start kindergarten in the US.
Just three weeks left of our semester so evaluations are starting. Our last two themes are really fun so I anticipate a couple fun weeks of teaching (Arts and Crafts is one of the themes!) As for evaluations, this time I am happy they're not a page long but now just a paragraph seems too short. I know I'm being too picky but when I look back at the beginning of the school year to where the kids are now I'm so impressed. They have all improved on so many levels. Some of them barely said anything to me for months and now are the kids who hang around me always wanting to know "what are you doing?" or "what's this?". I answer those questions 15-20 times a day on average-if that would annoy you then teaching English to a kindergarten class would not be fun for you. They can speak in full sentences and correct themselves when they say things in the wrong order. Their writing has improved an incredible amount and I'm still impressed when they can spell numbers. I am just amazed at how much these kids can retain. I feel so fulfilled to play a tiny part in their development.
Other than teaching I have been reading, watching movies, eating , playing tennis and other normal things. Some abnormal things took place in the last week. One of the other PiAers (Alison) and I went dancing. Not to a club...to a bona fide class...outdoors. Not just any place outdoors, at the corner of a busy intersection in the parking lot of Babies Genius (side note-you'd think if you were going to be a franchise school teaching English you'd make sure you had a grammatically correct name. You'd think.)
I will try to describe the set-up first. There's about 15-20 Thais on any given night in this parking lot. There's a DJ blasting some Thai music and there is a usually one dance that is being practiced for the night. So the first night we were there it was the Samba. Everyone is practicing independently. There are a few teachers who go around and help the more experienced. There are people dancing with partners (more women than men are in attendance) and people just practicing steps on their own. We usually find someone practicing independently and then copy her steps. Usually someone else will come over and try to help us.
I was a little shy at first since I am someone who just shakes it to a beat rather than think about what I'm doing. And now I was going to learn to dance for the first time with an audience of cars and other gawkers. Luckily, Alison jumped right in and wouldn't let me feel embarrassed for more than 2 minutes. We walked over to someone practicing on her own and started to follow her steps.
We've learned the rumba, the samba, the jive, the tango, some line dance and probably others that I can't remember. Some people speak a little bit of English. At least enough for me to understand. A usual encounter is someone teaching Alison and I the basic step of the dance. They add on a little more. Since Alison is a more experienced dancer she picks it up quickly and moves on quickly. They stick with her until she's got the more difficult steps and transitions. And there I am practicing the basics by myself. They come over and help me more with the basic and that's that. We usually count in Thai (which I have aerobics and many Grease practices to thank for having the numbers 1-10 down almost as well as English! Sometimes I prefer to count in Thai because it is so ingrained from counting while practicing Grease dance numbers). So someone teaches me the basics, I practice for awhile. The male teacher comes over and decides I need to dance with a partner. This makes me nervous and no matter how well I know the dance I will for sure mess up. As as teacher, shouldn't I be over all forms of nervousness?! I messs up and he says "no no no" and we keep going until I frustrate him too much.
I have to say I love learning to dance. It's not something that comes naturally but I do like to learn something and have a clear goal to strive for and so this is perfect. And one of our dance partners told me it takes 1 year for most people to learn the dance moves AND make them look beautiful. That made me stop worrying about making it beautiful (probably to the disgust of every Thai person) and just try to learn some moves.
I will take pictures of this soon but for now you will just have to try to understand my late night brain drain. And beware...when I'm home next I might know a few more moves. But probably just a few.
Life around here has been pretty good lately. I hate being that person that only talks about her job but really there's not much else going on. Some big news in the past month has been the surprise departure of my American student. She's back to the States as quickly as she came. I was a little sad to see her go and it was just a preview of what the life of a teacher is like every year. I think this will just go down as "that time I went to a Thai kindergarten for 4 months" in her memoir but I will always remember the good and bad things she brought to the classroom :) I think it'll be great for her to be back in time to start kindergarten in the US.
Just three weeks left of our semester so evaluations are starting. Our last two themes are really fun so I anticipate a couple fun weeks of teaching (Arts and Crafts is one of the themes!) As for evaluations, this time I am happy they're not a page long but now just a paragraph seems too short. I know I'm being too picky but when I look back at the beginning of the school year to where the kids are now I'm so impressed. They have all improved on so many levels. Some of them barely said anything to me for months and now are the kids who hang around me always wanting to know "what are you doing?" or "what's this?". I answer those questions 15-20 times a day on average-if that would annoy you then teaching English to a kindergarten class would not be fun for you. They can speak in full sentences and correct themselves when they say things in the wrong order. Their writing has improved an incredible amount and I'm still impressed when they can spell numbers. I am just amazed at how much these kids can retain. I feel so fulfilled to play a tiny part in their development.
Other than teaching I have been reading, watching movies, eating , playing tennis and other normal things. Some abnormal things took place in the last week. One of the other PiAers (Alison) and I went dancing. Not to a club...to a bona fide class...outdoors. Not just any place outdoors, at the corner of a busy intersection in the parking lot of Babies Genius (side note-you'd think if you were going to be a franchise school teaching English you'd make sure you had a grammatically correct name. You'd think.)
I will try to describe the set-up first. There's about 15-20 Thais on any given night in this parking lot. There's a DJ blasting some Thai music and there is a usually one dance that is being practiced for the night. So the first night we were there it was the Samba. Everyone is practicing independently. There are a few teachers who go around and help the more experienced. There are people dancing with partners (more women than men are in attendance) and people just practicing steps on their own. We usually find someone practicing independently and then copy her steps. Usually someone else will come over and try to help us.
I was a little shy at first since I am someone who just shakes it to a beat rather than think about what I'm doing. And now I was going to learn to dance for the first time with an audience of cars and other gawkers. Luckily, Alison jumped right in and wouldn't let me feel embarrassed for more than 2 minutes. We walked over to someone practicing on her own and started to follow her steps.
We've learned the rumba, the samba, the jive, the tango, some line dance and probably others that I can't remember. Some people speak a little bit of English. At least enough for me to understand. A usual encounter is someone teaching Alison and I the basic step of the dance. They add on a little more. Since Alison is a more experienced dancer she picks it up quickly and moves on quickly. They stick with her until she's got the more difficult steps and transitions. And there I am practicing the basics by myself. They come over and help me more with the basic and that's that. We usually count in Thai (which I have aerobics and many Grease practices to thank for having the numbers 1-10 down almost as well as English! Sometimes I prefer to count in Thai because it is so ingrained from counting while practicing Grease dance numbers). So someone teaches me the basics, I practice for awhile. The male teacher comes over and decides I need to dance with a partner. This makes me nervous and no matter how well I know the dance I will for sure mess up. As as teacher, shouldn't I be over all forms of nervousness?! I messs up and he says "no no no" and we keep going until I frustrate him too much.
I have to say I love learning to dance. It's not something that comes naturally but I do like to learn something and have a clear goal to strive for and so this is perfect. And one of our dance partners told me it takes 1 year for most people to learn the dance moves AND make them look beautiful. That made me stop worrying about making it beautiful (probably to the disgust of every Thai person) and just try to learn some moves.
I will take pictures of this soon but for now you will just have to try to understand my late night brain drain. And beware...when I'm home next I might know a few more moves. But probably just a few.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Patanadek Pictures
Here are some pictures from the last couple of months at my school.
June at Patanadek
July at Patanadek
Enjoy the kids that are such a huge part of my life here!
June at Patanadek
July at Patanadek
Enjoy the kids that are such a huge part of my life here!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
