Some Exciting New Developments

1) I've started studying muay thai. I go to this training camp that's basically in somebody's backyard and former champions strap on a bunch of pads and let us kick them. It's AWESOME.

2) Tomorrow night, I'm going to Laos with my roommate, Katie. We're headed to Vientiane and we've decided to travel low-budget, which means we'll be on a bus for at least a good 14 hours, most of which we'll hopefully be asleep for.

Is anybody else in total disbelief that it's December?

Thanksgiving, Thai-style

a.k.a. my first thanksgiving with chili sauce and fireworks





and while, sadly, there is no turkey in nan, we still had quite a feast.

Just how does one celebrate a birthday in Thailand?

I know you're all wondering this. So allow me to walk you through my birthday.

With school finished and a month off ahead of us, my roommates and I went to Chiang Mai the day before my birthday. That night, I was presented with a gift that allowed me to start my birthday off right - a Starbucks gift card! Considering that the prices in Starbucks here are comparable to home and that I can spend as much in one Starbucks trip as I do on a week's worth of dinners, this was very much appreciated. I opted for the skim iced latte with sugar-free vanilla syrup and an apple walnut muffin, both of which were HEAVENLY.



Katie came with me. You can't tell from the picture, but we're sitting on the outdoor 3rd story of the Starbucks. Yes, there's a Starbucks in Chiang Mai that's 3 stories tall.

Then Katie and I got Thai massages. When you get a Thai massage, they give you fishermen's pants and a shirt to wear and then they sort of do yoga to your body for you. Despite that terrible description, they're actually enjoyable. We were very happy and relaxed after.





Then we met up with Steph, my other roommate, for lunch. Note our matching $4 fake Ray-Ban aviators.



I got a chicken cheeseburger and a pineapple shake. After a brief nap, we went to Central Airport Plaza, a mall that was so Western, I felt like I was in the Garden State Plaza. Steph and Kate hit up the gym while I got my hair did. Note my hairdresser's impossibly trendy Asian hair.



After copious amounts of Auntie Anne's, we went back to the guesthouse and got ready to go out. We had a delicious Italian dinner (with mozzarella and pesto!), got an after-dinner drink, and then hit up Warm Up, a bar where all the cool kids hang out. We randomly ran into the Chiang Mai PiA fellows and met up with Chad, another Nan English teacher who was in Chiang Mai for the weekend. At one point in the night, Chad and I were getting a beer at the bar when he suggested we could drink it by doing "that thing with the straw", to which I replied, "A STRAWPEDO!!!" That's right, MHC participants, I strawpedoed a beer on my birthday, and while it wasn't Moosehead, I thought of you all while I did it.

Our last stop of the night was a place called Chiang Mai Land. We took a tuk tuk to get there. This is a tuk tuk.



This is me calling Meg from the back of the tuk tuk to Chiang Mai Land.



Chiang Mai Land felt like being back in Nan because we were literally the only farang there. After listening to the live band play a bunch of Thai pop songs, they suddenly started playing "Happy Birthday" in English! Turns out my friend had talked to somebody and had convinced them to play "Happy Birthday" for me. After getting serenaded in English by a Thai pop band, I figured there was nothing that could possibly top that, and we called it a night soon after.

And that is how I celebrated my 23rd birthday in Thailand.


Update on today: I am at the Internet cafe, wearing jeans at 1 pm and not sweating. Hooray for the end of rainy season and the start of cold season! Plans for the night - dinner at Aj. Ari's garden house, where we might fish like we did the last time we visited.

Back in Radio Contact

i'm back in nan, and as of today, back in the classroom. there's much to update after a month of traveling, but that will have to wait until things settle down a bit. in the meantime, some of you have seen this picture of me on my bicycle in my front yard. for those of you who haven't, here it is.



and here is my favorite picture from my vacation.



that's right, ladies and gentlemen. after being in thailand only a day, madre was biking in nan traffic like a pro.

stay tuned for more funny stories/pictures from my vacation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

it's official. I have survived my first term of teaching! Today is day one of what is essentially my summer vacation.

And what an exciting note the first term ended on. First, this weekend was opening weekend of Nan's famous boat races. There was a giant fair along the river with bounce houses, cotton candy, and really cheap shoe places where I bought 2 pairs of Converses (1 high-top, 1 low) for about US$12 total. And the races were pretty exciting too, though we weren't sure what color our village was wearing so we didn't know who to root for. I'm going to try to upload a video at some point.

Then Monday was a school day, but I received not one but TWO packages - one from AV and one from MGalla. Here's a blurry picture where my head looks unusually large that proves that AV's copious stamp licking was not in vain.



In MGalla's package was a wonderful note, complete with hellos from Willie and Melahn, and a glorious gift.



In case you can't tell, that is a pin of Zac Efron, the star of High School Musical and High School Musical 2: Sing It All or Nothing!. Pins are actually pretty common here. A lot of people wear pins in the same spot as I've got mine in my photo. They are always pins of the princess. I'm considering wearing my pin and convincing as many people as possible that Zac Efron is the prince of America.


Then, on Tuesday, 5/1 threw me a surprise birthday party!! It was wonderful. Luckily, 5th graders are terrible at keeping secrets, so I came prepared with my camera.



They decorated the entire blackboard.



And they gave me presents.



LOTS of presents.



Then, Aj. Wandee told them to give me a hug and they ambushed me.



Last, here's me as drawn by Yim.



It's a pretty accurate representation, don't you think?

October is going to be glorious.

As writing my Princeton in Asia 3-month report forced me to accept, I have now been in Thailand for almost 4 months! That means that I have been teaching for almost 4 months, which means the first term is winding down and entering exam period. And THAT means one thing - VACATION. In Thailand, students, and therefore teachers, get a break between the 1st and 2nd term. According to the schedule I was given in June, students would take their exams October 1st - 5th, we would grade them and go over the answers October 8th - 10th, and the 10th would be my last day. We didn't really understand why students would come to school after they had finished exams, but because I only have to make an exam for 5/1, I wasn't about to complain. However, I should have realized that, like most everything here, that was merely a first draft. Here's how my week has shaped up and how my October will really be.

Monday: found out I have to give 5/1 their exam this week, not next week, despite the fact that I also started a new topic with them that day. also found out that I'm finished with the first term as soon as I'm finished grading the exam and writing their report cards

Tuesday - Today: scramble to put together a final exam

Tomorrow: give 5/1 their exam

Friday: party in 5/1

Weekend: grade 5/1's exam, watch the opening weekend of Nan's infamous boat races on the river (Each village has a boat that they built - the big boats can carry up to 60 people! it's like a crew race except with way more people and dragon heads on the front of the boats. and hopefully less spandex. I promise I'll take lots of pictures)

Monday - Tuesday: finish grading, write report cards, help clean up the English Resource Center (where my desk is) while Steph and Katie finish giving/grading their exams

Wedneday, October 3: probably head to Chiang Mai to drink Starbucks and watch movies in English

Friday, October 5: my birthday! celebrate in Chiang Mai with my roommates

Sunday, October 7: MADRE ARRIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!! jakfdjlfkadlfjdafkjdk

Monday, October 8 - Sunday, October 21st: tour Thailand with madre. places to visit - Nan, Chiang Mai, Pai, Mae Hong Son, Phuket (!), Bangkok, etc.

Monday, October 22nd - Tuesday, October 23rd: hang out in BKK. repeat Starbucks and movies in English.

Wednesday, October 24th - Tuesday, October 30: HANG OUT IN SINGAPORE WITH KIRAN!! and kendall will be there at the same time too! A200 reunion, international style.

Wednesday, October 31st - travel back to Nan

Thursday, November 1st - Back to school to begin term 2.


So, all in all, that involves at most 2 days of work in the entire month of October, neither of which I will spend in the classroom.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

TERESA IS COMING TO THAILAND FOR CHRISTMAS!

TERESA IS COMING TO THAILAND FOR CHRISTMAS!

TERESA IS COMING TO THAILAND FOR CHRISTMAS!

I might weep tears of joy in the Internet cafe.

In honor of what will be an extremely momentous occasion, I have created a photo montage (you know you love photo montages) of what our time together will be like, in case you're having a hard time picturing it.

Because every day has an assigned color, we will match. No sweatshirts necessary, though.



On Mondays, we will wear yellow.



By December, the rainy season will be over, so there will be no need for obnoxious orange ponchos.



Nor umbrellas and sad faces.



We will probably go to a beach, where it will be sunny, and where, unlike Nan, tank tops are acceptable and not considered impolite.



However, the beach might be very expensive, so we can probably only afford to pay for one bed. Annvale will be there sleeping the dream in spirit.



We will watch Elf on my laptop.



We might wear pretty dresses and we will almost definitely make silly faces.



And there will definitely be a lot of hugging.



Watch out, Thailand! Here comes trouble...



...with a capital T.

I just needed some nails.

I have to tell this story because it is such a ridiculous example of what my life is like here and the way things are done here.

I wanted a couple of nails to hang stuff up in my room. I checked a few of the stores that usually sell everything and anything I could possibly want, but alas, no nails. So I decide to ask Aj. Wandee, my 5/1 co-teacher who is one of the best English speakers at the school, about it at lunch one day. I ask her if she knows where I could get nails. She doesn’t know the word “nail” so I mime hammering a nail into a wall. She knows the word “hammer” so she understands and translates the word “nail” into Thai to herself. However, I don’t know the word for “nail” in Thai, so at this point, I just have to hope we are talking about the same thing. She asks me why I need them. I tell her I wanted to hang something up in my room. Aj. Wandee is not from Nan so she doesn’t know where to go to get nails. I tell her not to worry about it, never mind, but now she knows I need something and it is not Thai to know that you need something and not help you. She tells me she will ask a teacher that lives in Nan. This teacher, of course, does not speak a word of English and he is sitting at a different table. She asks him in Thai from our table where I can buy nails. He tells her from his table in Thai. She tells me in English and then repeats it back to the Thai teacher in Thai to make sure she said it correctly. They are still yelling across the lunchroom at this point and now everyone is staring. It turns out she told me the wrong way to go, so she tries to tell me again. I still don’t understand where she is telling me to go, so she and I spend a few minutes trying to use stores I know (mind you, no stores here have English signs so she can’t really use their names because I don’t know their names because I can’t read the signs that tell me what their names are) to tell me where to go.

Then the director (basically the principal but without all the work and a lot more of being a figurehead), who sits at my lunch table and barely speaks English, chimes in and asks Aj. Wandee in Thai to ask me how many nails I need. I sort of understand this because I know the Thai word for “how many”. I hadn’t really thought about that, but now’s not really the time to do so, so I just pick a number. Aj. Wandee asks me how many nails I need and I tell her I only need a few, like 4, and I say “4” to the director in Thai. However, the director also likes to pretend he can speak English and I’m not really in any position to tell him he doesn’t, so I also say “4” to him in English so that he thinks that I think that he speaks English. He asks Aj. Wandee why I need them, she asks me, I tell her to hang things up in my room, and she tells him that. He tells Aj. Wandee in Thai that because I only need a few, I can just get them from the janitor. She tells me this in English. Minor problem – the janitor does not speak English and he hates me because he controls the copy machine and I make him make a lot of copies. If I need to, I can again mime hammering some nails, but this still won’t guarantee he will understand me or that he will give me nails. Luckily, Aj. Wandee tells me she will ask the janitor for nails. Ok, good, problem solved, now that every teacher in the lunchroom is staring at me and aware of the fact that I want some nails, I’ve got the assurance that I’ll get some. I go back to eating my lunch.

Two minutes later, the director asks Aj. Wandee something in Thai, and she turns to me and asks me if my walls are cement or wood. I know my walls aren’t wood but I don’t know if they are cement – I’ve never really paid close attention to my walls and I’ve only used tape to hang things up in my room. Explaining this will take too long, so I just play dumb and say I don’t know to Aj. Wandee in English and then in Thai and English to the director. He sort of laughs and says something to Aj. Wandee in Thai. She tells me she will ask the janitor for both kinds of nails. Ok, good, I’m covered no matter what the hell my walls are made of. I go back to eating my lunch.

Two minutes later, Aj. Wandee asks me if I have a hammer. I don’t have a hammer but I know from hanging things up in my room at school that I can just use a high-heeled shoe. Therefore, the correct answer to this question is to just lie and say yes. I, however, despite the number of times my roommates have warned me that I give far too much information for my own good, do not lie and explain that I don’t but I can use my shoe. She looks at me for a minute and then tells me she will also ask the janitor for a hammer. I give up on explaining about my shoe anymore and just thank her. Ok, good, problem solved, when I see Aj. Wandee later that afternoon in class, I can get cement nails, wood nails, and a hammer.

That afternoon, in a class without Aj. Wandee, a different teacher interrupts me mid-sentence and pulls me out into the hallway. She gives me a hammer and about 10 nails of various shapes and sizes. She points to one kind and says, “Wood.” and then points to the other kind and says, “Cement.” This means that somebody explained to her that I needed both kinds of nails. This could have been Aj. Wandee or the story could have traveled through 4 more people to get to her. I thank her and go back into class, where the kids are rolling around on the floor and yelling at each other in Thai and wondering why the hell I’m now carrying a hammer.

Therefore, in order to just find out where I could buy some nails, I caused a scene at lunch, probably convinced many teachers that I was dumb because I didn’t know what my walls were made out of, interrupted 42 students from learning, and involved no less than 3 teachers, the janitor, and the director, thereby unintentionally traveling all the way up to the highest level of authority in the school.

Terrible View

Sunset from my porch:

My Best Decision Yet

My kids can be pretty creative about describing words they don't know with words they do. For instance, my kids wanted to know the word for "rattle" as in "rattlesnake", so they told me "snake tail bell." I usually take those moments as an opportunity to teach new vocabulary. One day, after a rousing rendition of the Hokey Pokey in 5/1, my kids had all the names of the body parts fresh on their minds. I'm pretty sure that's why Champ felt it was ok to come up to me and share this nice little tidbit about his friend, Poop-pup. (Yes, Poop-pup. I have a kid in 5/1 whose nickname is Poop-pup.) Anyway, Champ walked up to me and said, "Poop-pup's bottom go boom." because he didn't know the word for fart. And while I think it is important for my kids to know as many English words as possible, in that moment I decided that teaching 5th-grade boys the word "fart" was not really necessary, which I'm pretty sure was my best decision yet.

It's Ajarn Kirsten, Miss Marathon if You're Nasty

So when we were at PiA orientation, they warned us about making one student the “tall poppy” – the tallest flower that gets cut down by the lawnmower first. They told us how Asian culture is generally communal and not about standing out in a crowd.
I have yet to find that to be true. Between the number of English competitions we have helped our students prepare for (by listening to the same speeches or stories about 4138419 times) and the number of assemblies we have attended at school, showing what you are good at and performing to the best of your ability in order to win is perfectly acceptable. And Steph and I found out that the same rule applies to aerobics when (as I mentioned in a previous post, declinations are considered rude) we got roped into agreeing to participate in an aerobics competition/mini-marathon for the Queen’s birthday without having the slightest clue what it actually was. The only information we were provided was what day it was (Sunday, August 12) where to go (a department store parking lot), what time to be there (5:30 pm), and what color to wear (light blue – the Queen’s color). As luck would have it, Steph found out on the morning of the competition that she couldn’t get a bus ticket back to Nan from Chiang Mai, and I was left as the lone farang to compete. I was more nervous than I was on my first day of teaching, but I put on my blue shirt and headed to the parking lot.
Turns out an aerobics competition/ mini-marathon is when you wear a number (mine was 039) and do aerobics for 2 – 3 hours straight in the rain while people watch and judges decide who deserves prizes. It also turns out that when you’re the only farang competing in an aerobics mini-marathon, people stare at you even more than usual and stand 3 feet in front of you videotaping you, the people handing out water are too shy to approach you, you realize how much English your instructor has been using for your benefit, and you’re a shoe-in for the Miss Marathon prize. And that’s how, on August 12th, I became Miss Marathon, complete with a 500 baht prize. And now strangers come up to me on the street and ask, “You go aerobics?”

Around Nan

i posted some pictures of temples, or wats, around nan. they're one of nan's main attractions. you can check them out here:
http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?
aid=2045157&l=836da&id=1102188

Fun with Statues a.k.a. My Vacation in Ko Samet

So Buddha is very kind and decided that his people should celebrate the start of Lent on Monday and Tuesday, and because there is no such thing as separation of church and state here, we got July 30th and 31st off from school! In honor of this momentous occasion, we took Friday off (my first real grown-up job vacation day!) and headed to the beach. The rainy season ruled out Phuket and any other beaches in the West of Thailand, so we decided to head to Ko Samet, an island not far from Bangkok.

Getting to Ko Samet was no small feat. We left Nan at 7.45 pm Thursday night on the overnight bus to Bangkok, which took about 9-10 hours. Thanks to having a single seat and the blanket, pillow, and air conditioning they provided, I got a pretty good night’s sleep. Then from the Bangkok bus station, we hopped on a bus to Rayong, which took about 3 ½ hours. Then we took a songthaew (think converted pick up truck with 2 bench seats along the sides and a roof) to Ban Phe, which took about half an hour. When we got to Ban Phe, we realized we had just missed the ferry, so we chartered a speed boat to take us to Ko Samet, which took about 10 minutes. And at at our island paradise, where we were instantly overcharged by the songthaew drivers and forced to pay a national park fee for being foreigners.

Unlike most other places in Thailand, Ko Samet has bungalows rather than guesthouses. So we had a whole little bungalow with a private bathroom about 100 meters from the beach for only 600 baht a night for the 3 of us (34 baht = 1 dollar). It was a wonderful weekend filled with American food, lots of reading, cable TV, and a very special night where we found a bar that sold microwave popcorn. The beach where we were staying had white sand, was as warm as bathwater, and was pretty much paradise on Earth.

On our return trip, we spent a night in Bangkok to break up the traveling. Bangkok is awesome. They have a sky train and more American food and movies in English. I ate Subway and Starbucks and ice cream that was basically Cold Stone and saw Harry Potter 5. The movie theater was similar to home except when we had to stand up before the movie started for the king’s song and a little video montage of his life.

I’ve found a better place to post pictures, so if you want to check out pictures of my vacation, click here. If the view of the beach doesn’t make you all want to come visit me, I don’t know what will.

blogger isn't letting me post this link, so sorry but you will have to copy and paste this to see it.
http://princeton.facebook.com/album.php?
aid=2044134&l=60904&id=1102188

Little things

so there are a bunch of interesting/funny things about my life that i don't know how to group together in a rational post, so here they are in list form.

1. only teachers wear shoes inside of school buildings. the kids all stop and take their shoes off before they go inside. however, it is also acceptable for me to take my shoes off in my office in the english resource room. in fact, it is more acceptable for me to be barefoot in my office than it is for me to wear flip flops.

2. almost everywhere else, i take my shoes off before i enter a building, even the copy shop where i make copies or the internet cafe.

3. thai people clap for a much, much shorter period of time than american people. if something really amazing happens, they clap maybe 10 times before stopping.

4. the ants here are insane. they are normal ants until you try to kill them, and then they freak out and run faster than i have ever seen any ant run. they are also very smart. i once dropped an m & m, and by the time i bent down to pick it up, they had swarmed it.

5. everyone here is very comfortable using a microphone. in fact, they tried to get me to use a microphone in class. i politely declined, which i did just by not using it. see #7 for more on declining.

6. nodding your head also means no. i am scared to think about all the things i have done after people have told me no by nodding their head at me.

7. thai culture is much more subtle. if you say you are going to the bus station that afternoon, that actually means you are asking the person you are talking to for a ride. if you say you like their necklace, that means that you actually want them to buy it for you. if we eat less at lunch than we normally do (we get served western versions of the thai food the teachers eat for lunch), the director of the school (basically the principal) notices, tells the kitchen staff to make us new food, and has an english teacher ask us if the food is alright. it is more acceptable to lie and make up an excuse than it is to tell someone the real reason why you can't or don't want to do something. my default answer for no is "next time."

8. it turns out that "kir" sounds like the thai word for eyebrow, and "sten" sounds like the thai word for dance. my 5/1 class has taken to teasing me good-naturedly by calling me "ajarn eyebrow dance."

9. i broke up my first fight. 2 sixth-grade boys started fighting by the bathrooms one day. at first, i thought they were horsing around but they got really angry and started fighting for real. they were punching and kicking each other and i wasn't really sure what to do because i didn't want to get punched or kicked. i just yelled "hey!" a bunch of times really loudly and stepped in between them, at which point (luckily) they stopped.

10. all of my students have nicknames because i can't pronounce their thai names. i think their parents pick their nicknames when they are little. their nicknames are words you would not normally think of as names. for example, some of my students are nut, poop-pup, bible, bonus, warm, dos, champ, oat, own, ice, etc. my favorite nickname: god. yes, god. i have a 6th grader whose nickname is god. last week in class, he volunteered to read something, and when he finished, i said "good, god!" i almost laughed out loud. next time he raised his hand, i made sure to call on him so i could say it again.

4th of July, Thai-Style (A month late)

so steph, katie, and i decided that a great way to introduce our kids to american culture was to celebrate the 4th of july with them. and what is the best way to celebrate the 4th of july in thailand, you ask? by having our kids make silly newspaper hats, teaching them "yankee doodle", and feeding them lay's potato chips, oreos, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. nothing says america like trans fat. and yes, interestingly enough, i can get lay's and oreos here, as well as kit kats and raisin bran and skippy peanut butter and various other american foods.

anyway, 4th of july fell on a wednesday this year, and i only teach 3 classes on wednesdays - kindergarten and 5/1. there was literally no hope in trying to explain the 4th of july to 5 year olds who don't speak english, so the 4th of july celebration only took place in 5/1. 5/1 is my favorite class because i see them 7 hours a week and they are so smart and sweet. they are also my smallest class (other than kindergarten) at 32 students. i took pictures of them in their paper hats.









and here is a photo of the whole class. this is in the 5/1 classroom. note the picture of the king above the blackboard. they are crazy about the king here and his picture is everywhere. also note that i taught them about new jersey, as you can see from what i've written on the blackboard, because there is no way anyone can learn about america without learning about new jersey.



and here is a horrible picture of me, but it's with the class, so i thought it would be cute to post.



and later that night, in grownup land, we celebrated 4th of july with beer, corn, and baked beans. and we celebrated with other americans! much to our surprise, despite the stares we draw everywhere we go and the cries of "farang! farang!" (thai word for foreigner) we hear everywhere we go, we are not the only white people in nan. there are about 10-15 foreign teachers here, as steph and katie found out by following a white guy around until he sat down and then pouncing on him for information. he was kind enough to pass their phone numbers to some other americans, and they came over for fourth of july. unfortunately, with only our small bathroom sinks and a rice cooker full of baked bean remnants, clean up required a bit of creative thinking. here's steph demonstrating an alternate use of the bidet hose thing in our bathrooms (thais don't use toilet paper).



however, the clean up was worth it because we had a great time, and our new friends invited us out that friday. turns out the cool thing for foreigners to do on friday nights is go to a bar called verrachun, where they play live music. we met some more people, checked out the entire night scene in nan (3 bars), and finished up the night at some sketchy, sketchy discotheque where i danced with a ladyboy. our new friends also knew a guy who lives with a thai woman, owns his own glass-blowing business, and has potluck barbecues at his house almost every saturday with the farang in nan. turns out he also has a ping pong table and a pool table and that his girlfriend is a delicious cook. we had a fun night, and there started our social life in nan. we now have a community of people to hang out with and a place to go on friday and saturday nights.

i'm bad at blogging

ok, so i'm not so good at this blogging thing. but that is because teaching is keeping me ridiculously busy and i found a social life here! but more on that later.

let's travel back in time to my first week here. i spent the week meeting my students one-by-one, shaking their hands, and teaching them introductions in english. ("hello." "hello." "i'm aj. kirsten. what's your name?" my name is ..." "nice to meet you." "nice to meet you, too.") i was sooooo nervous, but i just did that lesson all week, so it wasn't too bad. the only exception is my 5/1 class, top-level fifth graders, who i see 7 hours a week and therefore have to make 7 lesson plans a week for. i don't even remember what i did with them - i think probably a lot of worksheets. the worst class of my first week was my first day with the kindergarteners. one of the kindergarten co-teachers was absent (i have a thai co-teacher in every class to help with classroom management and sometimes to translate instructions into thai), so instead of teaching 2 classes of 25 kindergarteners for half an hour each, i had to teach one class of 50 kindergarteners for an hour. and i was told i wouldn't have to teach them that day, so i had nothing prepared. 5 minutes after that class was supposed to start, my boss threw some alphabet flashcards into my hands, i grabbed some stickers, and she rushed me to the kindergarten classroom. at one point during the class, i sort of looked to the co-teacher for help because i was so unsure of myself, and she just looked back at me, waiting for me to do something. i think that was the first time it hit me that i was actually a teacher, that i was the one who would have to run the show in the classroom everyday, and that the fact that i had never done it before was no excuse. that class was pretty rough, but i think any class where you have to hold the attention of 50 five year olds for an hour is just always going to be hard. luckily, i have not been faced with that situation since then - only, ironically enough, on my first day with the kindergarteners.

it just so happened that a holiday celebrating teachers (they take teachers very seriously here and it is a fairly high profession) fell on the thursday of my first week. so that thursday morning, i attended a teacher appreciation assembly. the whole school attended.


the kids, or really their parents, had made these banana leaf bouquets with flowers and grass and incense, all of which had a symbolism that was lost on me but was supposed to say something about teachers. the only thing i caught was that the grass was sharp like a teacher's mind.




the teachers sat in the front of the auditorium, and the grades were called up one-by-one. the kids basically prostrated themselves in front of the teachers and presented them with the bouquet. and because i was (technically) a teacher, i was presented with many, many bouquets by children who knelt in front of me and bowed so that their head touched the ground.




....this was day 4. that is the only thought that ran through my brain during this whole thing. "this is day 4." it was just so surreal.

then we threw away all the bouquets and went back to work.

and that was my first week of teaching. there is obviously much more to catch everyone up on, but it just started raining here and i need to bike home with my laptop before it gets any worse.

hope all is well back home. love and miss you.

Pic-o-rama

It's Sunday evening here, which means I've officially survived my first week in Nan and my first week of teaching.

I took some pictures of my life here, so here they are:

First, we flew over the North pole to get here!



Second, I had my good luck charm (courtesy of MGalla) with me for the flight.



Here's view of the Chiang Mai Airport.


And here is a view of my house. This is the hallway that connects my room, Katie's room, and Steph's room.


My room has an entryway.



Inside, I have a bed, a desk, a bureau, and a bathroom.




I have unpacked and rearranged since these pictures were taken, but you get the idea.

At the end of the hallway, we have our makeshift kitchen, which is basically the entryway to Steph's room.


See that window in the background of the above picture? On the other side of that window is our deck, where we spend a lot of time hanging out and reading.


Our deck overlooks this:


And this is the view of our front yard:


Except now it's the rainy season (there was our first storm since our arrival, complete with monsoon-like rain, on Friday night), so it looks more like this:


This is what a Thai broom looks like:


This is what Thai aerobics, my new love, looks like:



This is what a Thai sunset looks like, complete with Katie, Ajarn Prakop (our boss), and Steph.


This is what some of my fifth graders look like:


My Internet time is running short. I promise I will post more pictures and give a proper update soon.