Smells like teen spirit.

Well talk about hard work paying off. This thursday and friday we have no classes for the Sport Carnival. The students in the whole school use the last period before the end of the day and after school to practice for this event. The students are divided into 6 house colors: red, yellow, blue, pink, green and purple. The M6 students organize pretty much everything. Each color has a dance, music, theme which are all created by the students. The whole sports carnival was a 2-day event. The beginning of the day started with a dance by each color then sports competitions. They had volleyball, basketball, soccer, bocce ball, badminton and many more.

Matt and I were on the yellow team. And luckily the yellow team won for best dance! It was a lot of fun and even better because we had two days off from sschool! Pictures are on my website and they are pretty exciting to see!

swine flu mask proliferation!

Swine flu. Beware! It's quite a feat to try to enunciate english words through a bright green cloth over your mouth strapped to your face. Each classroom in the EP program has been given boxes of masks with the regulation that EVERY student MUST wear their mask in the classroom otherwise the air conditioner will be turned off. Not only do the students have to wear these masks, that are now colorfully decorated and drawn on, but the teachers also must wear these masks. I never did think that one day I would have my own personal surgical mask without an MD degree. Interesting.

But it is quite a culture shock to walk into a classroom where you can only see the eyes of each students peering out at you behind a green or white mask. Apparently the flu has become increasingly prevalent in the central Thailand area. But lucky for me I'm healthy as a horse and plan to keep it that way! I'll try and get some pictures of my classes soon to post!

July 4th Weekend

It is nice to have a long weekend for July 4th. Even though it was for Buddhist Lent and not US Independence Day, but all the same I suppose because we got a 5 day weekend. Also, Matt got here on Thursday! So we got to relax on Ko Samet for our long weekend! We took a 3 hours bus to Ban Phe which then we took a ferry about an hour to the island. The part of the island we were staying didn't have a dock so a tinier boat had to come pick us up from the ferry and drive us to the shore. Surprisingly, the area of the island there are lots of Thai's and barely any foreigners.

It did rain all day on Monday but Tuesday's weather was amazing. We made friends with one of the only foreign bartender's from Holland who ran The Baywatch Bar. He made a killer Long Island Iced Tea. We sadly came back on Wednesday afternoon, spent a little time in Bangkok and headed back to Suphanburi. All in all not a bad way to spend the holiday!

Oh those Thai crazies, they are out there.

I was all set for a relaxing weekend, with Friday off from school, to lay on an island 3 hrs South of Bangkok with my friend Glyn. I head out Friday morning get into Bangkok on time.. things are running smoothly enough for me to stop and eat some delicious American food before I head to the bus station. As I cross the street to the bus Station an attendant from one of the buses pulling out runs off the bus and asks where I'm heading. I say "wangchan, Rayong provience". He agrees shaking his head "yes, yes, here, here" I repeat.. "rayong? going to rayong?" he assures me that this is the bus to Wangchan, Rayong. Hesitantly, I get on the bus.. it can't be that easy.

Glyn tells me that it is a 3 hours ride to Wangchan and a 2.5 hour ride to Rayong city. I sit in the front row so the attendant can remember to tell me where to get off since I have never been there before. As 3 hours pass, no signs of wangchan or bus stops approaching. We also seem to be stopping every 5 minutes to pick up and drop off new people. I ask the man again.. "wangchan?" he says he will let me know when we get there. So I tell Glyn that we are definitely going to wangchan but I seem to not be describing what Glyn wants to hear. Finally, at the 5 hour mark, the attendant, who's smiling face I was about to drop kick, lets me off in Rayong city. Not only was I not in Wangchan but I had another 40 minute Songtaew ride into Glyn's town. After which Glyn had told me that we missed the last ferry to ko samet so we couldn't get there this weekend.

When I finally arrived in Wangchan we decided that drinks would be first priority and that the weekend we'll think about later. We hung out with Glyn's Thai friends and decided we would head into Bangkok the next day for the rest of the weekend. Later in the night Big Ass' (Glyn's Thai friend) mother comes back a bit after midnight with her catchings of grosshoppers. She goes into the fields at night and catches them by hand to sell at the market. Apparently they are quite the money maker. She fried some up for us.. and yes.. I ate some. They pretty much taste like whatever you fry them in, so it wasn't too bad. Quite an experience.

The next morning we get to the bus station and I'm actually quite excited that this bus ride will only be 3 hours. We get on the bus and an hour into our ride we hear a loud banging noise. We glance back and two rows back a Thai man is banging his head, hard, against the bus window. He had a charlie mansion look on his face and the attendant came running and wrestled him down. We had to pull the bus over at the local police station. The window was pretty well cracked and we were surprised the man's head wasn't swollen. They got him off the bus and since the window was broken we couldn't use that bus. We had to sit on the side of the road at high noon in the dead heat and wait for another bus to pass us by. We sat for about 2 hours. Which made this bus ride, another 5 hour ride. Of course.

Glyn and I found out later from a Thai woman who spoke some english that this man apparently wanted to break through the window and jump out of the bus?! So at least I didn't get to see that happen. Only in Thailand.

... and we had a good rest of the weekend once we got to Bangkok.

Back in action..

Well it has been a while readers. When I last left, it was Song Kran in April and I was preparing to be homeward bound. Well I've been home and back and then some. Home was great, and even better to see some familiar faces. But as it is never a dull moment in Thailand lots have been going on since I've been back. School started middle of May and brought with it new teachers, new students and new schedule. We are expecting more teachers middle of May which is exciting and we have a new teachers aid Sam from Tazmania and also a new Chinese teacher, SiSi.

June 4th was the first school-related "no classes" day so far this year. It was "teacher day" (wai kru). The gist of this day is that there are no classes and most of the teachers sit on a stage and all the student present their flower/fruit/vegetable arrangements to the teachers on stage. Now let me remind you the school is M1-M6 each class having many classes within the grade. For example: M1/1, M1/2, M1/3, M1/4.. and so on until about M1/10 or so. For each grade. So two people from each class come to present. This is a whoole day event. Morning: M1, M2, M3. Afternoon: M4, M5, M6. After the presentation of flowers, then awards are given. Luckily Brett and I were placed in the back row on stage so it was easy to "disappear" from time to time stage left. We stayed for most of the morning and not much of the afternoon. I did manage to take pictures though so check those out of the website.

Classes this year so far are good. I'm teaching M1/1 & M1/2 in Reading and Writing; M4 in fundamental and traveling around suphanburi (which as far as knowing the town I don't), M5 and M6. I actually enjoy teaching the older students as I thought I might not. But we are reading Matilda in my M5 and M6 classes, which is always interesting. That's all for now, more later.

March & April

School finished after finals on March 13th, so for the rest of March, I spend most of my time in Suphanburi relaxing and saving money, hence the missing blog entries. I felt I'd spare you from the boring details of the small town of Suphanburi. Most of the people from CIEE took backpacking trips before heading home, which will also be my plan for next March-May. Summer school started up April 1st and my last day is today! I'll be missing the last two days of school to head home to the states! I am definitely looking forward to seeing all of my friends and family and enjoying some American food! Yum. 

The only exciting thing that happened for April was the week of April 12-18, which was Protests + Song kran + My 23rd Birthday! On the 11th (Saturday) I headed into Bangkok to meet up with Heather, Glyn and Glyn's friend Alphabet (who went to VMI with Glyn, but now works at the Ministry of Defense in Thailand.. and yes, he's Thai). It was so nice to have someone who has a car in Bangkok and knows the area really well! He took us out to dinner Saturday night right on the river, it was very beautiful.

Sunday, Alphabet was a great host and took us to a wax museum in the morning and in the afternoon Heather and I were planning to get some shopping done. On our way to the shopping area, we were suddenly stuck in traffic, then all the pieces started to come together as to why we were in traffic. Big buses filled with army men in uniform + pedestrians coming out of back streets pulling red shirts over their heads + stopped cars. When we realized protests were starting  all of the cars starting turning around and when we finally got out Alphabet wanted to take us to another part of Bangkok. On our way, we saw army tanks rolling around the streets and protestors coming out of the woodworks. Because Alphabet worked for the government and army he was getting up to date information calls that there was a state of emergency declared, but he told us as long as he doesn't get called in, we won't really have to worry if we avoid it. And he didn't get called in. After shopping, we went back to the hotel to get ready to celebrate my Birthday! Alphabet took us out to dinner then to a hookah bar on a rooftop! It was a great 23rd birthday.

Monday was the start of SongKran festival. It's THE biggest festival in Thailand and very popular. It lasts for 3 days and everything is closed. Everyone is outside throwing water and powder on ANYONE they want. People are selling water guns, bottles of water, powder... and people have blocks of ice sitting in water to throw ice cold water at people. If you are in a tuk-tuk (an open taxi) you are fare game. While Heather and I were walking around our hotel, little children were chasing us down the streets and shooting us with water guns. Monday, the protests were getting worse and Heather was flying out that night so I decided it would be best to head back home. 

Tuesday, in Suphanburi, I went out with some of the village kids and Mr. Wat to enjoy Song Kran. We hopped in the back of a pick-up truck with garbage bins filled with water and buckets.  There was about 10 of us in the back while we drove around the streets of Suphan throwing water at anyone we could. The streets are lined with people standing on the sidewalks throwing water and pick-up after pick-up slowly driving down the streets. 

I was quite the target as I was probably the only farang participating. You would hear "Farang! Farang!" Then all of a sudden 5 kids jump on the back of the truck and start wiping my face with wet powder (like wet clay kind of) and dumping cold water on me. I had a great time though! Wednesday the festival was planned to end, but since the protests had caused a lot of things to be cancelled the government declared extended holiday until Friday. So I had the whole week off from school!

I will post pictures soon!

the month of goodbyes.

February has been filled with goodbye ceremonies, goodbye dinners, and cleaning out desks and houses. Matti was the first of us to leave. He got a job back in Finland and started shortly after he ended here. We had Matti's goodbye ceremony, then later that night had the goodbye dinner for Matti, Marty, Jen and Belinda. The next week was Marty, Jen and Belinda's goodbye ceremony and they left that weekend. Last Friday we had Catie, Kati and Lijuan's goodbye ceremony and last night we had their goodbye dinner. It's only Glendon, Brett and me left as the only fa-rangs (foreigners). Glendon will be leaving after summer school and then Brett and I will be anxiously waiting for the new arrivals. 

Matti's goodbye ceremony was the first introduction of what goes down in this emotional ceremony. All the students in the EP program gather in one of the empty rec rooms. The person or people leaving sit in front of everyone at a table to their hands folded together hanging off the table. Under their hands is a silver bucket type thing filled with flowers. First, Chaht makes a speech in Thai to the students about you then Tuke calls up a representative from each class. That student comes to the front and says some nice things in English about you and what you've done for them. Some classes sing songs, or read things to you or give you drawings. Then you say a few words about your experience and thank yous and whatnot. After, one by one the faculty first, lines up and pours water over your hands and says some meaningful words to you, the students follow by grade.

The goodbye dinners are just for the faculty to say a last goodbye and eat over some delicious food.  Chaht makes a speech, you make a speech and we all have a good time. The dinners seem to get smaller and smaller. Sad.