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