More Christmas

Keats has just written a blog entry for yesterday but since it is Christmas and I am in the giving mood I figured why not have two posts in two days. You guys have worked hard this year and I feel you deserve it. I just got back from work on Christmas day, definitely a strange concept for me. It was a bit hard to actually get my head around the fact that today was indeed Christmas and that I would be going to work. I think the reason it was so hard to comprehend was due to the fact that I have nothing around me that I usually associate with Christmas. I won’t be seeing my family today, there’s no real tree with presents under it, and its not cold at all. Keats did however get me a sweet Fernando Torres Liverpool jersey. The quality on the forgery is the best I have seen so far in Thailand. She also got me two muay thai lessons when we will be up in Chiang Mai. I’m pretty excited to check it out but also a bit apprehensive about getting my ass handed to me by some Thai guys. I got her a pink shirt to wear on Tuesdays. The color for Tuesday is pink and it’s a big deal because one of the Princesses that the people love the most was born on a Tuesday. I also got her cooking lessons at an organic farm in Chiang Mai so hopefully she’ll be able to learn how to make some of our favorite dishes from over here and be able to make them back home.
I feel like I should talk a little more about today and what it has been like. It started off with me being woken up by Daniel, my American friend and fellow teacher, and Wu, the Chinese teacher at our school. They both dressed up like elves with beards. This was no problem for Daniel who already has a beard but it was a bit of trouble for Wu who can’t really grow one. So they came over and borrowed some of Keats’ eyeliner or something like that and Daniel then proceeded to draw a beard on Wu’s face. Wu is very much a by the book kind of guy and takes his appearance very seriously so it was awesome to watch him squirm around and complain while Daniel drew all over him. It ended up looking really good but Wu washed it off midway through the day, what a quitter.
When I got to school I was told that my classes would be in the auditorium doing some Christmas related things. I was pretty happy about that because Thursday is the day with the worst schedule. I teach my three, I don’t want to say dumbest but definitely slowest, classes all in a row to start the day. So it was nice to know I would have a break from the classroom today. I was supposed to be helping the kids do something called a quiz tree. It was set up as a Christmas tree with ornaments on it made of paper. On the ornaments were questions in English. The kids would pay 5 baht to get a piece of paper and then they would take an ornament off the tree and if they answered the question right I would sign their paper. Some of the questions were really easy like what is your name and where do you live and things like that. Some of them were a bit harder like what are three words that start with v. And some of them were just unfair like what is the capital of Austria, I think its Vienna but I don’t really know, and how do you spell February, that’s definitely the hardest month of all to spell. After helping with that for a while I went downstairs to where the M4 kids had set up a food market and were selling all kinds of food and drink. Some of it looked really good and some of it looked absolutely terrible. I ended up eating some Chinese pork dumplings and some fried chicken. It was a very healthy Christmas meal, I think Jesus would have been pleased. Towards the end of the day some of the older grades started putting on a fashion show and they had coordinated dances to go along with it. Most of the dances were super lame and boring but a few were absolutely hilarious. There was one that was hip hop themed and some of the kids were getting super into it. I think were going to post a video of it a little bit later so you can enjoy it as well. There was also a fashion show/dance set to the song I will survive. It definitely had some sexual themes that were made even more awesome/ridiculous due to the fact that the two dancers grinding on each other were both guys. The kids really had a good time with that. I have to commend Thailand for being so open about sexuality and not discriminating against anyone because they are gay or bi sexual or whatever. I’m wondering when people will stop caring about that stuff in the US, I mean Jerry Falwell died a while ago right? After the dances and fashion shows somehow the KFC chicken mascot got brought up on stage and started dancing around too. It was a very surreal thing to watch on Christmas. I feel that they expose these kids to too much corporate branding over here, but whatever it’s the way it is. After all that Keats and I left school and came home. It was nice to not have to do any real work today besides help kids answer questions and eat food. It just would have made me realize how much I miss my family and all the familiarities of Christmas if I would have had to put in a full work day. I hope all of you enjoy the presents and the food and the family that come along with Christmas and also enjoy the cold I am starting to miss that over here. Happy Holidays to everybody and have a Happy New Year as well.

Pat

Christmas in Trang

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

While many of you are enjoying a nice vacation or at least break from school or work, Patrick and I have to continue to work on Christmas Eve Day, Christmas Day and the day after Christmas Day. Thailand is predominantly Buddhist country with some Muslims and Christians. Unlike the States they do not recognize Christmas or the time around Christmas as a holiday. Last Thursday at our weekly faculty meeting we learned that we would in fact be celebrating Christmas at school by doing various Christmas activities on Christmas Day. Pat was volunteered to dress up as Santa and I was assigned to teach each of my classes a different Christmas song (yes that would be 10 different Christmas songs.) After having a failed lesson on Thanksgiving, I was going to avoid Christmas and just do seasons and months, but I was informed that we had to partake in the “Christmas activities” with our classes. For the past three days I have been teaching “Jingle Bells,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Must be Santa Claus,” etc which has made for a lot of solo, acappella singing which is not pretty. The Christmas cheer has been brought to Thailand, so do not worry. (Pat and I also have a small Christmas tree in our house that is attempting a festive mood at our place. It is hard to believe that Christmas is tomorrow as the weather is hot and humid and we are living in a tropical place.)

Two weekends ago, we went back to AoNang Beach in Krabi. After such a wonderful weekend in Phuket, we had a hard time wanting to stay in Trang for the weekend. We caught a fairly early bus allowing us to arrive in Krabi before the sunset. To keep the cost down, we ate mostly at the roadside Thai food stands outside of the Krabi McDonalds and Starbucks. We could get Pad Thai or Fried Rice for 35 baht (or $1) as opposed to the touristy restaurants that charge closer to 120 baht or more for meals. We spent plenty of time reading on the beach and playing in the water, walking along the shops on the streets and eating Thai food. While there were still a fair amount of tourists, we noticed much less than even the month before. You could also sense a sadness and desperation from the shopkeepers. The bad economy and the closing of the airport are definitely affecting Thailand. The number one industry is tourism and both have had a hard hit.

Last weekend we took a rode trip with Daniel and our motorbikes to a nearby island, Koh Mook. On our ride we noticed a huge amount of police officers lining both sides of the road maybe 150 ft apart. The road was also lined with Thai flags and purple flags. We were very curious as to what was going on and for miles we observed police and flags. After taking a ferry across a river in Kantang, we passed Thai students lined up along the road waving Thai flags. We stopped to take pictures and learned that the King’s son’s wife was driving through. It was quite the scene for the King’s son’s wife.

The drive to the pier was about one hour and then we chartered a longtail boat to Koh Mook which took around 30-45 minutes. We ended up staying in a bungalow on the beach with a fan and bathroom. It was nothing too nice, but it was on the beach with a great view. We quickly found that the power was turned off from about midnight until 6pm the following day, so having a fan really meant nothing. On Saturday we chartered a boat and visited some other islands in the area and went to the Emerald Cave. The Emerald Cave is a natural chimney. You swim into the cave and through the dark for about 10 minutes and then you come to a beach that is surrounded on all sides with limestone rocks. It was absolutely gorgeous, but everyone and their brother was there. There was a hoard of Asians jumping and splashing each other while taking pictures. We swam back out and loaded up our longtail to go snorkeling a bit and then visit Koh Hai and Koh Kradan. We ate lunch on Koh Hai and walked along the beaches admiring the white sand and amazingly turquoise water. From Koh Hai we took a painfully bumpy boat ride to Koh Kradan where we laid on the quiet beach and swam. The ocean was incredible rough, which sent us bumping up and down on the longtail boat and gripping the sides with white knuckles. For dinner we ate at a resort on the beach. There was a grill set up on the beach beside the tables with a small wooden boat full of ice and fish for display for the diners to choose. There was a marlin between 2 and 3 ft long along with other large fish, Phuket lobsters, Tiger Prawns (that were HUGE), and crabs. Pat and I split the marlin and a pizza, that was really delicious!! Throughout the weekend we spent a lot of time at a place called Mookies. It is a restaurant, bar and tent hotel run by an Australian and his Thai wife. The hotel is made up of a handful of tents that have a bed, fan and light. We were at first turned off by the idea of spending the weekend in tents, but after staying in the bungalow on the beach we decided we would stay at Mookies if we ever went back. The atmosphere was fun and we met some cool people from around the world.

That is quite a bit of catching up to do. We are spending this weekend in Trang in preparation for our trip to Bangkok and Chiang Mai on Tuesday.

Phuket and more

I know its been a while since I’ve written a blog post, and I know many of you out there have found yourself thinking hey what are Pat’s thoughts about everything. Well I’m about to give them to you. Keats and I just got back from a pretty awesome vacation in Phuket. It’s one of the larger islands a bit north of Trang. We were lucky enough to have a family connection in Phuket that hooked us up with a place to stay. Keats Aunt Carter, who passed away about 10 years ago, was friends with this guy Barry who now lives in Phuket. Through Keats uncle we were put into contact with him and arranged to go up to Phuket to visit. Phuket is a great place to go for a vacation, especially when you have a nice free place to stay for a few days. Barry had a really sweet house with all kinds of art and souvenirs from all over Asia and India. He was very much a traveling hippie back in the 70’s and had some really great stories to tell us about some of the things he has seen and done. He was also generous enough to share with us several bottles of red wine, something we had definitely been missing greatly in Trang. He also had a kitchen and a grill so I took it upon myself to cook some meals for us all while we were there. We had filet mignon, not the cheap fake filet that Trang is famous for but real stuff, and ribs and a salad for dinner one night. The next night we had pasta with tomato sauce and fresh vegetables and another delicious salad made by our friend Sven, from Berlin visiting his Thai girlfriend Aow. Barry also had a really nice garden where we did a lot of eating and equally as much drinking, I’m pretty sure his extra dry martinis could have been lit on fire. It was just really awesome to have someone be so welcoming and generous with everything that he has. I think its something that Keats and I appreciated even more given the fact that were both poor college graduates. On one of the days Barry drove us all over the island in his truck to see some of the viewpoints that not to many of the tourists know about. Some of these sights were really amazing to see, the sea mixed with the green hills and blended with the development of some of the major beaches made for some great photos. He also took us by one of his favorite local artists, a guy named Niran. Barry has several pieces by him in his house and he encouraged Keats and I to buy some art from him that we really liked. It was nice to have someone encourage me to buy something I have absolutely no idea of where to put. I think I might take him a photo of a giant Buddha in nature and have him draw his interpretation of it. That’s right I’m commissioning art over here, what are you doing? I’m like the Catholic church, minus that whole child sex scandal. One of my favorite things about the trip was the food that we had in restaurants, it was nice to be able to order a pizza or a sandwich and not pay too much for it. I still really enjoy Thai food but it is nice to have an alternative every now and then. The beaches in Phuket were absolutely gorgeous, they cost 100 baht to get on but that got you a nice chair and an umbrella. They also would bring whatever drinks you wanted right to your chair, it was pretty much like a living Corona commercial except it was just a different kind of light watery tasting beer. Needless to say the beaches were amazing the water was completely clear, I could see my feet in 6 feet of water. I don’t think I will ever go back to the beaches in North Carolina again knowing what I do now. And one of the best parts is Phuket is only a 5 hour trip from Trang, I have driven 5 hours to go to way worse and much more boring places, I’m looking straight at you Aiken SC. Well I’m done now trying to explain how awesome and great my past weekend was. The only bad part about it was Barry got bitten by his neighbors dog but in the end it kind of worked out for Keats and I because it meant we got to stay an extra day and take care of him, sorry Wichienmatu School. What kind of guests would we be if we left him in that condition.
I guess now I will try to talk a bit about school and some of the frustrations I have been having with it. It has gotten very difficult to deal with the extreme language barrier with some of my classes. Some of my better classes will pick up on an idea almost instantly and some others will just stare at me with that classic stare that lets you know they have no idea what your saying. We also have pretty much no interaction with the Thai teachers who teach our kids English. I still don’t really know who my co teachers are and I’ve been working here for almost two months. I’ve been trying to understand the Thai education system and not get to angry with it but for the most part I don’t really see why they keep it in place. If they ever wonder why their number one industry is other people coming to see their country they must look no farther then their school system. I don’t want to complain to much right now but if I post another thing about this in a few days you will know things have gotten worse.
Now I would like to discuss something that has given me much joy lately. That is watching our Tar Heels destroy anyone who would even think of stepping to us. Through the great power of the internet I was able to watch us demolish Michigan St, in the state of Michigan no less, by 36. Was I the only one who loved seeing Sheed in the house, I love that guy. Here is a great website to look at if you also love Sheed http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/7346/ . My personal favorite on that list is that he got thrown out of the McDonalds All American game. Anyway we are absolutely dominating right now something I really love to see. Lawson is a machine and Tyler has been his usual animal self on the block. Its been nice to see Deon man up as well. It was also nice to see Duke lose to Michigan and shoot 20 percent from three. See what happens after you fire a Duke grad, Tommy Amaker, good things start to happen. Whats Quin Snyder doing these days? I cant wait to skip work and watch the UNC-Duke game in an internet café. I might have to re schedule my return flight by about a month and land in Detroit so I can watch us cut down the nets. Well I think that’s enough writing for now. I’m about to watch an episode of the Sopranos, anyone who thinks that show is better than The Wire is definitely white and definitely not a smart person. Is the Wire still on BET, I hope not. Is there still a BET, I really hope not. I’ll post more soon I promise.


Pat

Thanksgiving in Trang

Friday, November 28th

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even though the lessons covering Thanksgiving and the festivities of Turkey Day continue in the classroom, our Thanksgiving is officially over with no surprises. Classes went as usual, it rained like every other day this week, and we met Daniel, the only other American teacher at our school, at a hotel to eat our Thanksgiving feast and give thanks together. Daniel and Pat shared a cheeseburger and fillet mignon while I enjoyed a cheeseburger to myself followed by an ice cream sundae. We could not have found a more American meal in Trang and it was probably our most expensive meal costing around $7 per person. The fillet and burger were not too bad, but the meat had a different consistency and the cheese was a bit funky. (For the most part cheese is a very rare occurance in Thailand.) Sadly our Thanksgiving felt like any other rainy, school day in Trang with the exception of being able to talk to our extended families on video chat and use the holiday as an excuse for a lesson plan.

Lesson plans always seem like a great idea at first, but after teaching the lesson 10 times you are over the initial excitement of your creativity. In honor of Thanksgiving, I chose to play several rounds of Hangman covering the appropriate vocabulary: Thanksgiving, Holiday, Thursday, Feast, Turkey and Pumpkin Pie. As each word was discovered, I explained its importance and relationship to Thanksgiving. We quickly reviewed the basics of Thanksgiving avoiding the Pilgrims and Indians and the mass slaughter that that involves, and then I passed out a wordsearch with Thanksgiving words. Wordsearches work miracles!!!!! My worst classes were nearly silent hovering over their papers. Even after the bell sounded (i.e. the air raid drill), they continued to sit in their seats trying to finish the wordsearch!!! Thai students can be very maticulous about their work. Most of the students carry around rulers and whiteout. A handful of students actually used their rulers to make straight lines on their wordsearches!! And any paper turned in is usually covered with whiteout and freshly written answers over the whiteout.

So I thought the Thanksgiving lesson plan was excellent. Lots of games but they are still learning some vocabulary and about a cultural holiday. The students ate it up, but teaching it 10 times is a bit much. That is like 60 rounds of Hangman!! The first and second period you teach a lesson it is like practice, you figure out what works and what doesn't. By the third period, you have ironed out any problems that there may have been. By the fifth period, you are bored with the lesson and over your initial creativity. By the eighth and ninth period who are just wishing that your classes do not show up because you are so over the lesson and then you still have the tenth period. This all spans a three-day period of teaching. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are lesson 1 of the week and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday are lesson 2. So you are probably asking, "Well Keats, why don't you just change up the lesson for each class?" Well that would be fun to come up with 10 different lessons and also the kids are all taking the same mid-term and final exams so I have to teach them all the same things. Hmmm...interesting.

As for the weather here in Trang...it is rainy and has been rainy for maybe two weeks. It is not a constant downpour, but when it stops raining it is still overcast and dark. It is always a pleasure to wake up to the sound of rain and remember that Popeye the motorbike is taking us to school. It is not really that hot. Fairly comfortable especially with a breeze, but no sun. The last time I remember seeing the sun was when we were at the beach in Krabi. I may have seen it since then but the rain has drowned that out. We picked up our laundry yesterday which we had dropped off Tuesday only to find that all of it was all still damp. So now our one room house looks like a shanty town with laundry hanging all over the place and smells like mildewy clothes. Until the rain stops, there is not much hope for dry clothes. Pat told me this morning that the weather forecast says that it is going to rain for the next 3 weeks!! Hmmm...interesting.

There is not too much planned for the weekend as we are working an English camp all day Saturday. If we are lucky, maybe Sunday will be a nice day and a bit relaxing. Next weekend is a three-day weekend and we are heading to Phuket!!

Pictures of Wichienmatu School

Beautiful Beaches

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

There actually are beautiful beaches in Thailand despite our disappointment from the Ko Lanta beaches. We expected white sand, teal water and beautiful islands jutting out in the horizon and Ko Lanta fell far from that. This past weekend we went to Ao Nang Beach in Krabi with Daniel and Niamh, two other English teachers at our school. We took a two hour bus ride, which was fairly nice with AC, quality Thai music videos, and absolutely no shocks making for a bumpy adventure. Having arrived after dark, we did not know what to expect except something more or less like Ko Lanta. We checked into our hotel, which was a newly renovated place with 5 rooms and run by a spacy Calfornian. Our room was nice and big with a large contemporary painting of batman and catwoman kissing. We had AC, hot water, TV (with English channels), a DVD player and DVDs (including The Dark Knight), and a fridge!! Hot water being one of the most exciting points. Krabi is much more built up with restaurants, bars, touristy shops and LOTS AND LOTS of farangs. It was strange stepping out of our farang-free world of Trang into the farang hot spot. Pat said it was like being in the cool club and then all the sudden it not being cool any more. There were not the stares, hellos and honks that we were becoming accustomed to in Trang. Saturday morning when we could see the beach, we realized that Thailand does in fact have the beautiful beaches that you see in all of the guide books and all of the pictures ever taken of Thailand. Saturday we decided to go on an afternoon/evening snorkeling trip that was incredible. We hung out, shopped and walked around until 3pm when a longtail boat took us to a larger speed boat where our snorkeling adventure would begin. Niamh and I sat in awe at the front of the boat watching as the islands in the distance grew closer. It was BEAUTIFUL!!! The snorkeling was fine. The visibility was not super, but we saw several fish and corals. We stopped to snorkel at two different islands. We ate dinner on the boat and watch the sunset behind the islands. After it was dark, we headed to the darkest area we could find to go for a night swim and see the bioluminecense which were really cool!! As you splashed around, they would light up like glitter or fireflies all around you. We swam around with our snorkel masks on splashing around to see them light up!! The speedboat took us back to a longtail which took us back to shore and we wondered around Ao Nang shopping and eating a latenight snack at roadside carts. Sunday, after checking out of our hotel, we took a longtail boat to Railay, which is not an island, but the only way to get to it is by boat. Limestone cliffs surround the beach and only a few hotels are in the area. The limestone cliffs were beautiful, the sand white, the water warm and teal, and the islands sat beautifully in the horizon. After a few hours of laying out, swimming, and reading, we walked to a beach on a different side. As we approached the second beach, we were met by monkeys jumping all over the place and stealing trash and food. The second beach was just as beautiful and also crowded with tourists. We stayed for a few hours and then took the longtail boat back to AoNang and then a bus back to Trang.

Only in Thailand

Thursday, November 13, 2008

So we are just about finished with week two of teaching. Last weekend the Swedish couple, Jarmo and Johanna, that we met at the beach came to Trang for the weekend. It was a rainy weekend, so our hopes for driving motorbikes to the beach for a day just did not work out. After wandering the streets of Trang Saturday, we decided to try to find some waterfalls outside of Trang on Sunday. We waited until the rain slowed and then took our bikes and headed out. We drove about an hour out of town to find the first waterfall. The drive was beautiful with brilliant green rice paddies and navy blue mountains with darkish storm clouds. The first waterfall was amazing! Absolutely no one else was there and the waterfall was beautiful. After good luck with the first one, we tried to find a second. We followed some signs to a deserted parking lot and market and then hiked until we ran into a rubber tree farm in the middle of nowhere. We ended up hiking 30 or 45 minutes and never found a waterfall. (Later talking with our coordinator we found out that the waterfall had some how collapsed or something.) We headed back to Trang to find dinner in the night market which consisted of skewered and grilled meats, Thai omelets with muscles, a variety of pre-made noodle dishes (one that was green noodles with tofu), fried coconut balls with banana in the center, sticky rice with coconut and coconut custard, and sugar coated donuts.

Last night (Wednesday) was Loy Katron, which was explained to me as a festival that marks the end of the rainy season along with the full moon. Loads of people gather at temples, or wats, in what resembled a state fair but in Thai style. There was lots of food!! All kinds of meat skewered on sticks and grilled, candies and cakes, pancakes made from sticky rice and red beans, sweet waffles with corn, brightly colored juices…There was a moon walk and merry-go-round and stages set up for traditional dances and drumming. In the far corner, there was a beauty pageant taking place where the women in sparkling dresses had their name, age, height and weight announced over the loud speaker. Amongst the crowd were monks, young and old, in bright orange tunics and flip-flops. By the river for around 50 cents you could buy a “katron” which was a floating bouquet made from banana tree trunks, banana leaves, incense sticks and candles. You light the incense and the candle and set the bouquet on the river saying a prayer to please the river god and to release the evil from the past year. Pat and I shared a “katron” and squeezed through the crowd to the river to release our “katron.” The dark river was spotted with flickering candles drifting and congregating in the current as other peoples bouquets went by. Under tents there were oversized “katrons” displayed on tables that looked like they may be judged. Some resembled the small ones floating down the river with banana leaves and orchids while others were more contemporary including an earth that was on fire and a computer sucking the brains of the user.

Today Pat and I took an unnecessary trip to Kantang, a neighboring town. Our coordinator took over my class in the middle of the period and sent me to meet her husband in the parking lot to get our visas extended in Kantang. It ended up after the 30 minute drive and 20 minutes of paperwork that we could not extend our visa yet. We have to wait until January. I ended up missing two classes and we were 15 minutes late to our last class. On Thursdays we have English Department meetings and today we quickly learned that Thai teachers are very similar to Thai students. They talked while the meeting was being run and their cell phones rang in the middle and they answer them. Hmm…I guess that apples do not fall far from the tree.

To end today’s blog, I have a few things that seem to only happen in Thailand:

-The ending buzzer on our washing machine is a compilation of Christmas carols including “Dashing through the snow” and “Santa is coming to town”

-The bell between classes at school sounds like an air raid drill.
-On Thursdays at our school, 7th, 8th and 9th graders wear girl scout and boy scout uniforms and one male teacher wears it also.

-Chip flavors include “Double Cheese Pork Burger,” “Spicy Squid,” “Thai Basil”

-There is a wedding dress shop on almost every corner. There are probably at least 5 in Trang Town.

-Thais eat everything spicy including their fruit. Most fruit comes with a sugar, salt and chili flake mixture that you dip fruit slices in.

A Day in the life of Pat

I know its been a little while since I last wrote a blog post and I know my people out there are hungry to know what Pat is thinking and feeling these days. So I feel it is my obligation, no my duty, to let you all know how things are going for me in Trang these days. The school I work at is fairly large it has about 2000 or so kids here broken up into 6 grades, M1-M6. I am teaching M1 and the kids there are 12 and 13 years old. Its pretty crazy that some of them who haven’t hit puberty yet are still like 4 feet tall and some of them are 5-6 or taller. I do have to announce that I did make a kid cry on my first day. He was one of the kids who was sitting in the back and would not shut up. So I made him sit in the front of the classroom facing the rest of the class. I guess this was just too much shame for his Thai heart to handle and he broke down and started crying. And if you can imagine how awkward it must feel to make someone cry on your first day of work it felt exactly like that. However the next day when I saw the cryer he bowed to me really low, the lower you bow the more respect is shown. So I’m pretty sure he knows what time it is.
As for my other classes I teach 10 classes of about 45 kids twice a week. I’ll give you a moment to do the math in your head to figure out how many young lives I am molding into my image on a weekly basis. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to live and breathe for all things UNC basketball related. Isn’t that why I came here anyway to enhance their cultural understanding of all things English related?

What I have found when interacting with the kids is that they know how to spell and read way more words than they know how to accurately pronounce. For instance they constantly mispronounce the letter “v” as “we” and the letter “r” as “ahh.” I try to correct them but sometimes they just cannot say it correctly. I’m hoping to slowly wear down their mispronunciations like a river does a rock until there is nothing left but accurate pronunciations. However I’m sure that is just a hopeless pipedream much like my dream to teach someone here how to make a chipotle style burrito.

I figured here I would write about some of the things in Thailand that just trip me out in general. For starters every day has a color associated with it. For instance Monday is yellow, Tuesday is pink, and I think Wednesday is green. And because the King was born on a Monday around 70 percent of the people will wear yellow every Monday. For instance I am sitting in the teachers lounge right now and every single person in this room but me is wearing yellow. And in case your wondering how many people are in here with me its 10. And that brings me to another thing that freaks me out here. How much the people actually love the king. There are pictures of him everywhere, and I mean everywhere. There is a picture of him in every room in the school. There is one in every restaurant and probably one in every home. There are also huge pictures of him on billboards and roadside stands. Some of his pictures in Bangkok make the Lebron “we are all witnesses” billboard look like garbage. King James needs to bow down to the real King baby, or get a better marketing team. Step your game up Nike. If I didn’t know how much these people genuinely love this man I would have sworn it was beaten into them. That’s the only other way I would imagine to explain the massive amounts of love and respect this guy gets. And I have yet to figure out what it is he does or how he amassed his huge fortune, around 25 billion US. I know he has done a lot of social projects and things like that to better the people of Thailand’s lives. But it seems like a pretty sweet setup he has going on over here. When the entire country gets the day off on your birthday you know you’re the man. Another thing that I find very interesting is the fact that there seems to be no driving rules here, if you can do it and get away with it its pretty much legal. Its funny that’s the way I viewed driving when I was 16 but was soon checked back down to earth after that first car accident. You can pass whenever you want, drive on the wrong side of the road do whatever you want. You can also try to fit as many people as you want on a motor scooter. The record I have seen so far is 5 people, but I’m hoping some brave Thai soul will try to best that soon. One last thing that I will tell you guys about that makes me laugh every time is the fact that every time I walk into my class one student will say “stand up please” and they will all stand up and then in a very sing songy voice they will all say “Good Morning Teacher.” Then I usually say “what’s up guys” or something else to throw them off. But they don’t understand that because all they are conditioned to respond to is “How are you?” And then they say “Fine Thanks and You?” I’m really hoping to break them of their conditioning and get them to say some different things. I am really hoping to get them to say “What’s happening hot stuff” Long Duck Dong style but I’m sure that might raise some eyebrows over here. I know at least Rod will understand that last part. I’m sure I will have more things to tell you all about soon that I either find really funny or extremely frustrating.

For now life in Trang is pretty good, its been a bit of an adjustment but I expected that. The food we eat is pretty good and extremely cheap, it costs me and Keats about 2 dollars to eat dinner every night. Our lunches are even cheaper at about 50 cents per person. Well I’ve written enough for one day and I’m sure some of you guys are bored now after reading all that. I’ll try to post a bit more soon.

Pat

First Day of Class

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Tuesday, November 4, 2008

We have both successfully made it through our first and second days of teaching. To start with it was quite interesting. Yesterday was the first day of class so we cruised in on our Popeye scooter, parked somewhat illegally right next to the one and only building that we had been in before yesterday. The students were gathering in a large mass directly in front of the main building where they line up all 3,000 of them in lines based on their grade level and classes to sing the Thai national anthem with the raising of the flag, say a prayer of some sort and then sit as they listen to announcements projected across the masses with a loud speaker. Pat and I went to the teachers' lounge on the second floor and watched over this morning assembly as we tried to figure out where our first class was. We gathered our rosters for our 10 sections that were largely in Thai and then we headed to our buildings. My rosters revealed that my classes would be between 34 and 50 students but most were between 45 and 50. I arrived at my first class hot and nervous and thus already sweating in the early Thai morning. I turned to write on the blackboard and immediately a voice said "stand up!" and then the class said in unison "good morning teacher!" They would not sit until I told them to take their seats and then they thanked me. My first class must have been close to 48 students. My lesson plan was to draw a picture of myself on the board and have them guess about my name, age, where I was from, and if I had any pets or siblings. Then they would pair up and draw the person sitting next to them and answer the same questions which I would collect and then be able to know their nicknames (not Thai names) and student numbers. My first class was loud and they were a bit difficult to teach but for the most part they followed the lesson which I followed with a couple of rounds of Halloween themed Hangman. I went directly to my second class, which ended up being quiet, well-behaved and they knew quite a bit of English. They followed the lesson beautifully and had some great sketches of each other. I then had a few periods for planning and lunch during which I met up with Pat and we attempted to brave the student canteen. We found some soup that supposedly had chicken in it and some pineapple which would do just fine for a first day of lunch. With two classes under my belt I was feeling pretty good, but my last two classes were quite a challenge. Both were incredibly loud and struggled to follow the lesson. I was unable to gather everyone's nickname so I resorted to them writing their own on the roster which was complete chaos. During one of the classes I confiscated a cell phone because a student was taking a call in class, and during the last class I asked two students to leave for the remainder of the period because they would not behave even after having one of them move seats to the front and center. I felt a bit defeated after my last two classes. The classes are so large and the students are on such a large spectrum of English abilities. At the end of the day, I was not nervous about teaching but I was a bit apprehensive about day two. On Tuesdays, I only teach two classes, one first period (8:30-9:20) and one seventh (1:30-2:20), which makes for a long lunch and planning period. My first class was incredible!! They were so well behaved and they followed the lesson and the directions and understood what I was saying!!! There were only 34 students and they were quiet and respectful and interested in the class. My last class was wild and loud and did not even understand "Draw a picture," which made the lesson quite challenging. So all in all teaching in Thailand is interesting. The Thai education system is very different from what I am used to, so it is difficult to understand. Pat's day went well, but he made a kid cry which he will have to write about soon.

But on a different note, the students can be quite amusing. They get to choose their own nicknames which makes it easier for foreign teachers to know who they are. So the nicknames are really funny. Here are some examples: Beer, Best, Game, Ball, Benz, Rainbow, Nut, Bank, Mail, Golf, Rainbow, Book, Boss, Arm, Film, Mild and it goes on and on. The pictures posted for today are drawings that my students did of fellow students, which are really funny. Take a look at some of the nicknames.

So all is well in Trang. We are handling teaching thus far. We just got a refrigerator and washing machine, and I wish I could accurately describe the washing situation this afternoon. It is unlike any washer you have probably seen. We rolled the washer down a couple of steps to our back porch where it was hooked to a spigot with a hose, the drain hose hung off the porch and an electric cord coming from the bathroom. It was quite the set up. At least our clothes are clean and hanging to dry.