this shirt is laughably hideous. the thai teachers think we're way huger than we are. this is one of the worst fitting shirts i've ever owned. and it's hot pink, just to highlight its ugliness.
awesome.
28.12.09
north poland
my students have been working a christmas month all december, and last week they took a quiz on what they'd learned. even though giving quizzes means i have to grade 800+ papers, answers like these make the agony bearable.
where does santa claus live?
- everywhere in the world
- honland
- snowtown
- my home at christmas day
- santa claus live in my dream
- santa claus live to london
- he live does english
- wonderful city (i thing that) ^o^ 55+
- newzeland, swizzland, finland
- yes
- on the sky
- one student made a very beautiful drawing of a house with an arrow pointing to a brick chimney
- green land
- sky
- harth wored
- santa claus live in bangkok
- north poland
- santa claus is funny
what will happen if you are naughty? (answer with a complete sentence using "if" with "will" or "won't.")
- if i am naughty, santa claus won't love me (this answer got a point, because it's really really true.)
- if you are naughty, i will happen. (words from a baby from the future?)
- if i'm naughty, i will love everything on the world.
- if i funny marry christmas, you will has lots of presents. (maybe if i just write a lot of words about christmas, teacher nicki will give me points.)
- if me kick my friends. i will naughty kids?!!
for my stupid class, instead of giving a written test, i just said five christmas-related sentences and had them copy down what they heard.
• "chirtmus is mind fever."
• "christmas is my family."
◦ (christmas is my favorite.)
• "cantacos com ternie."
◦ (santa claus comes tonight)
teacher nicki sucks.
26.12.09
christmas in suphan
i woke up at 5:30 am (well, my alarm went off at 5:30--i finally, angrily, rolled my body into an upright position closer to 5:50 am) because we were supposed to be on a bus with some m6 kids (seniors) to bangkok at 6:45 am. my crappy mood, however, was almost completely erased when i looked up at my wall and remembered mom and dad had sent me a stocking, so in typical christmas fashion, i sleepily dug through the stocking and eventually found that traditionally arnold (chocolate) orange in the toes of the sock (thank you, parents!).
maddy and i walked down the street to our favorite suphan coffee house to visit panya for our morning fix. she made up our cups and insisted we take them for free--it was christmas, after all. at 6:45, we were on the bus, ready to go, then we waited for another 45 minutes because of bunch of kids were late.
thai time, eh?
a few weeks ago, when kanchana first told us we'd be going on this field trip, she asked us to prepare lessons for the bus ride. she was so insistent on these that she made tahsh, maddy, and i split up so there'd be at least one farang on each bus, and then she said we'd switch buses in the middle of the 2-hour drive down so all the kids could see each lesson.
then we got on the bus and the teachers put a comedy dvd of some kind on the tv and half the kids fell asleep. we asked kanchana if she wanted to pop in a christmas cd maddy'd brought, but she waved us off. so much for the lesson we didn't even plan anyway.
about an hour into the ride, kanchana stuck in a new dvd and some 90s-looking white boy band popped up on the screen.
"kanchana. what's this?"
"weslie."
"huh?"
"weslie."
"what?"
she handed us the dvd case and we figured out it was westlife on the screen, who i'd never seen before in my whole life. BUT this dvd wasn't only westlife--98 degrees and backstreet boys each had four songs featured on the dvd of music videos. so of COURSE maddy and i danced down the aisle of the bus to "larger than life," the performance culminating in a lot of finger pointing and emotional fist making at the end of the bus (aka the stage).
we got to safari (pronounced sufferi) world--not ancient city, as we were led to believe--around 930, i think, peed, and were shuffled off to a show. our whole day consisted of shows. it was bizarre. us arnolds will see maaaaybe one show if we go to the type of amusement park that has shows, and it's usually because we're tired and it happens to be convenient to see the show and rest. but the thai people--nay, everyone in the park, including 10 percent of the population of india--had a schedule, and they were all going to see every show offered. so our day went like this:
10 am: sea lion show
10:30 am: orangutan muay thai boxing show
11:30 am: elephant show
12:30: lunch is served to us in our seats at the elephant arena
1:00: eggs world (exactly as boring as it sounds)
1:30: dolphin/beluga whale show
2:30: spy wars show (terrible rip off of 007)
3:30: safari bus tour
no time for dilly dallying at this park. our school came with 100 people, which would have been enough of a large group to shuffle around anyway, but then it seemed like EVERYONE IN THE PARK was going to every show together. it was insane.
because we were late getting to the park, we should've cut something from our schedule to get back on time (5 pm). but nobody edited the schedule, so we left late and didn't get back until 7:30. i was super pissed on the bus cuz we had our big christmas dinner with everyone that started at 6 pm, and kanchana and the other teachers knew how important it was for us to be there, yet there we were, taking FOREVER to get home (three hours!), and stopping for gas for 20+ minutes so all the kids could go to the stupid gas station store.
oh, and then apparently the buses turn in to high school dances at night: the students turned all the lights off, flicked a fancy spinny colorful light on, bumped their (so super terrible) thai dance club music, and got down in the back of the bus. this happened for at least two hours. TWO HOURS. i would alternate between getting really frustrated and almost crying because this was completely the opposite of how i wanted to spend christmas, and just letting go of whatever stupid emotions i had because i knew crying and yelling wouldn't make the bus go any faster.
we pulled up to school at 7:30 pm, dashed off the bus, up to our rooms to grab our christmas wine, and headed downstairs to meet everyone at dinner. i think we had about 25 people at the table, and i have to say, in some ways it actually did feel like christmas. a bunch of other teachers came from outside suphan, so we got to catch up with them and nosh on delicious mashed potatoes (maybe carrots were in there) and meatballs together.
after dinner, i talked to family in magalia on their christmas morning and opened my presents (starbucks instant coffee and a jeopardy! page-a-day calendar--how well they know me), then everyone came upstairs to my room to do our gift exchange in white-elephant style. easily the highlight of the whole day for me. we ended up having 19 people play, so all sorts of stealing and freezing and shouting antics ensued. the gift exchange devolved into a dance session where tahsh taught us how to dance like black people (i'll never be able to pop, lock, or drop anything) and i led some dances inspired by tae bo workouts.
classic christmas, right?
i don't think i could've asked for anything better from suphan.
(wow, good job finishing a novel, dedicated reader.)
maddy and i walked down the street to our favorite suphan coffee house to visit panya for our morning fix. she made up our cups and insisted we take them for free--it was christmas, after all. at 6:45, we were on the bus, ready to go, then we waited for another 45 minutes because of bunch of kids were late.
thai time, eh?
a few weeks ago, when kanchana first told us we'd be going on this field trip, she asked us to prepare lessons for the bus ride. she was so insistent on these that she made tahsh, maddy, and i split up so there'd be at least one farang on each bus, and then she said we'd switch buses in the middle of the 2-hour drive down so all the kids could see each lesson.
then we got on the bus and the teachers put a comedy dvd of some kind on the tv and half the kids fell asleep. we asked kanchana if she wanted to pop in a christmas cd maddy'd brought, but she waved us off. so much for the lesson we didn't even plan anyway.
about an hour into the ride, kanchana stuck in a new dvd and some 90s-looking white boy band popped up on the screen.
"kanchana. what's this?"
"weslie."
"huh?"
"weslie."
"what?"
she handed us the dvd case and we figured out it was westlife on the screen, who i'd never seen before in my whole life. BUT this dvd wasn't only westlife--98 degrees and backstreet boys each had four songs featured on the dvd of music videos. so of COURSE maddy and i danced down the aisle of the bus to "larger than life," the performance culminating in a lot of finger pointing and emotional fist making at the end of the bus (aka the stage).
we got to safari (pronounced sufferi) world--not ancient city, as we were led to believe--around 930, i think, peed, and were shuffled off to a show. our whole day consisted of shows. it was bizarre. us arnolds will see maaaaybe one show if we go to the type of amusement park that has shows, and it's usually because we're tired and it happens to be convenient to see the show and rest. but the thai people--nay, everyone in the park, including 10 percent of the population of india--had a schedule, and they were all going to see every show offered. so our day went like this:
10 am: sea lion show
10:30 am: orangutan muay thai boxing show
11:30 am: elephant show
12:30: lunch is served to us in our seats at the elephant arena
1:00: eggs world (exactly as boring as it sounds)
1:30: dolphin/beluga whale show
2:30: spy wars show (terrible rip off of 007)
3:30: safari bus tour
no time for dilly dallying at this park. our school came with 100 people, which would have been enough of a large group to shuffle around anyway, but then it seemed like EVERYONE IN THE PARK was going to every show together. it was insane.
because we were late getting to the park, we should've cut something from our schedule to get back on time (5 pm). but nobody edited the schedule, so we left late and didn't get back until 7:30. i was super pissed on the bus cuz we had our big christmas dinner with everyone that started at 6 pm, and kanchana and the other teachers knew how important it was for us to be there, yet there we were, taking FOREVER to get home (three hours!), and stopping for gas for 20+ minutes so all the kids could go to the stupid gas station store.
oh, and then apparently the buses turn in to high school dances at night: the students turned all the lights off, flicked a fancy spinny colorful light on, bumped their (so super terrible) thai dance club music, and got down in the back of the bus. this happened for at least two hours. TWO HOURS. i would alternate between getting really frustrated and almost crying because this was completely the opposite of how i wanted to spend christmas, and just letting go of whatever stupid emotions i had because i knew crying and yelling wouldn't make the bus go any faster.
we pulled up to school at 7:30 pm, dashed off the bus, up to our rooms to grab our christmas wine, and headed downstairs to meet everyone at dinner. i think we had about 25 people at the table, and i have to say, in some ways it actually did feel like christmas. a bunch of other teachers came from outside suphan, so we got to catch up with them and nosh on delicious mashed potatoes (maybe carrots were in there) and meatballs together.
after dinner, i talked to family in magalia on their christmas morning and opened my presents (starbucks instant coffee and a jeopardy! page-a-day calendar--how well they know me), then everyone came upstairs to my room to do our gift exchange in white-elephant style. easily the highlight of the whole day for me. we ended up having 19 people play, so all sorts of stealing and freezing and shouting antics ensued. the gift exchange devolved into a dance session where tahsh taught us how to dance like black people (i'll never be able to pop, lock, or drop anything) and i led some dances inspired by tae bo workouts.
classic christmas, right?
i don't think i could've asked for anything better from suphan.
(wow, good job finishing a novel, dedicated reader.)
24.12.09
christmas eve 2009 (what turned out to be a family affair)
honestly, i've been fretting about christmas for quite a while. i've been missing home, and i've been worried about what christmas would be like. i knew it was stupid to do that, because whatever would happen would happen, whether i worried incessantly or not. but there i was anyway, at random times of the day, semi-freaking out about what christmas would be like.
for a really long time, family and i have gone to san francisco every christmas eve (except when we're in san clemente, of course...long drive). we go shopping, we eat food, we ride the cable cars, we walk pier 39 and ghirardelli square, we check out the tree at union square, and we eat at bubba gumps. same day, almost every year. and i love it. sometimes christmas eve is even better than christmas day.
but when i woke up today, it felt so like a regular day--get up, go to school, listen to the terrible thai music in the morning, prepare for classes--that i wasn't that ruined by not being home. our so incredibly nontraditional christmas eve became a hilarious joke throughout the day. merry christmas eve, now i'm gonna go give a quiz and teach some people. because it's a work day. 555.
i should say, though, that we've been playing so much christmas music that i found myself kind of tired of it today. when i went to play my music in the shower, i almost picked something non-christmasy, just cuz i think i've listened to all 400+ songs of mine already. and i've been turning on the christmas lights every day for at least three weeks now, and i've been wrapping presents like mad. and there are a fair amount of christmas decorations around town and in the stores.
oh, and my students have been doing christmas-related lessons since nov. 30. so i haven't exactly been missing the season.
but anyway, scuse the rambling. on to what happened today. maddy, tahsh, and i made little christmas bags for our teachers and some of the local people in town (laundry people, people who serve us food, that guy who makes thousands of copies for us, the woman who makes us our delicious coffee) and doled them out this morning to many thank yous.
around the middle of the day, the thai teachers in our office did that thing where they linger near our desks like they all have something to give us. after almost everyone gathered, kanchana presented us each with a gift. we opened it up and found the most perfect christmas gift a thai person could ever give us--a bright pink thai costume.
just about every thai person in the office has a shirt like this. just about every thai person in general has a shirt like this. the shirts come in every color, with all sorts of patterns at the bottom. and they're all equally hideous. about a month ago, the thai teachers told us that on tuesdays, we should wear our pink thai costume (that's what this is--not a shirt, a costume). like we have them lying around, and like we spent money on that when we came in the country.
but look--our having one of these thai costumes was so important that they bought us one of our own. this might be my new fave shirt.
anyway, after the gift giving, the day pretty much went on like any other school day. we peaced out around 2, gave out gifts to other people (which prompted many "merry kiiis-ma!" from the thai people), and came home. i graded some papers and went on a bike ride (p.s. remind me to show you my bike later). i got back around 6:30, and got a text from maddy that said something along the lines of "ogie just invited me to a christmas party with his family. 555." a second later, she called me to ask me if tahsh and i wanted to go, too.
well, we had all planned to go to korean bbq, but a thai christmas party with ogie's family sounded WAY more exciting, so we changed in record time, met ogie in a van downstairs, and headed off. some more people got in the car (included a student from my naughtiest class who i'd forced to sing in front of class earlier that day...lol), and we drove about 10 minutes away, to someone's sweet house just beyond tesco.
imagine our surprise when we actually KNEW people there. we'd assumed it'd be ogie's family, we wouldn't know anyone, whatever. but we saw some familiar faces from school (and realized just how connected everyone is to sa-nguan ying), and a bunch of people there recognized--and were excited to see--us.
it's like we actually live here or something.
when we first walked in, lots of people wanted to meet us. sounds cocky, but i really can't emphasize how much we stick out here and how damn fascinating we are to thai people just cuz we're not thai. but this one kid we met...man. first words out of his mouth were "i dunno why i have an american accent." in perfect english. i mean, some of my friends back home don't speak that well. this 10-year-old kid clearly didn't wanna talk to us but had the best english, so he was forced to welcome us to the dinner and show us the food table. then he peaced and started playing with balloons.
our christmas eve feast--pizza, fried rice, noodles, spicy beef salad, etc.--was followed by a "would you like some wine?" and that, a quick, "yes, red please." FREE WINE? EFF YEAH.
we played games with the kids (pwnd'em, btw), did some traditional thai dancing, sang "like a prayer" and "jingle bell rock," and generally laughed at everything our lives were right there at that fancy house in suphan on christmas eve. as the night was winding down, ogie's dad (who had been drinking heavily and whose english had, as a result, vastly improved) beckoned us to introduce ourselves, which we gladly did. after we did our speaking, ogie's brother, aunt, other aunt?, ogie himself, and maybe someone else thanked us immensely for coming. we hardly even talked to the thai people, aside from the few we already knew. they were just thrilled to have some americans around. trophy wives, the lot of us.
really, though, it ended up being a really heartwarming evening. this post is about a mile long, and i still haven't explained everything. there's no way i could. everyone at the party was so open and so excited to be able to share christmas eve with us. it was no bubba gumps with the fam, but how could i not have had a fulfilling night?
for a really long time, family and i have gone to san francisco every christmas eve (except when we're in san clemente, of course...long drive). we go shopping, we eat food, we ride the cable cars, we walk pier 39 and ghirardelli square, we check out the tree at union square, and we eat at bubba gumps. same day, almost every year. and i love it. sometimes christmas eve is even better than christmas day.
but when i woke up today, it felt so like a regular day--get up, go to school, listen to the terrible thai music in the morning, prepare for classes--that i wasn't that ruined by not being home. our so incredibly nontraditional christmas eve became a hilarious joke throughout the day. merry christmas eve, now i'm gonna go give a quiz and teach some people. because it's a work day. 555.
i should say, though, that we've been playing so much christmas music that i found myself kind of tired of it today. when i went to play my music in the shower, i almost picked something non-christmasy, just cuz i think i've listened to all 400+ songs of mine already. and i've been turning on the christmas lights every day for at least three weeks now, and i've been wrapping presents like mad. and there are a fair amount of christmas decorations around town and in the stores.
oh, and my students have been doing christmas-related lessons since nov. 30. so i haven't exactly been missing the season.
but anyway, scuse the rambling. on to what happened today. maddy, tahsh, and i made little christmas bags for our teachers and some of the local people in town (laundry people, people who serve us food, that guy who makes thousands of copies for us, the woman who makes us our delicious coffee) and doled them out this morning to many thank yous.
around the middle of the day, the thai teachers in our office did that thing where they linger near our desks like they all have something to give us. after almost everyone gathered, kanchana presented us each with a gift. we opened it up and found the most perfect christmas gift a thai person could ever give us--a bright pink thai costume. just about every thai person in the office has a shirt like this. just about every thai person in general has a shirt like this. the shirts come in every color, with all sorts of patterns at the bottom. and they're all equally hideous. about a month ago, the thai teachers told us that on tuesdays, we should wear our pink thai costume (that's what this is--not a shirt, a costume). like we have them lying around, and like we spent money on that when we came in the country.
but look--our having one of these thai costumes was so important that they bought us one of our own. this might be my new fave shirt.
anyway, after the gift giving, the day pretty much went on like any other school day. we peaced out around 2, gave out gifts to other people (which prompted many "merry kiiis-ma!" from the thai people), and came home. i graded some papers and went on a bike ride (p.s. remind me to show you my bike later). i got back around 6:30, and got a text from maddy that said something along the lines of "ogie just invited me to a christmas party with his family. 555." a second later, she called me to ask me if tahsh and i wanted to go, too.
well, we had all planned to go to korean bbq, but a thai christmas party with ogie's family sounded WAY more exciting, so we changed in record time, met ogie in a van downstairs, and headed off. some more people got in the car (included a student from my naughtiest class who i'd forced to sing in front of class earlier that day...lol), and we drove about 10 minutes away, to someone's sweet house just beyond tesco.
imagine our surprise when we actually KNEW people there. we'd assumed it'd be ogie's family, we wouldn't know anyone, whatever. but we saw some familiar faces from school (and realized just how connected everyone is to sa-nguan ying), and a bunch of people there recognized--and were excited to see--us.
it's like we actually live here or something.
when we first walked in, lots of people wanted to meet us. sounds cocky, but i really can't emphasize how much we stick out here and how damn fascinating we are to thai people just cuz we're not thai. but this one kid we met...man. first words out of his mouth were "i dunno why i have an american accent." in perfect english. i mean, some of my friends back home don't speak that well. this 10-year-old kid clearly didn't wanna talk to us but had the best english, so he was forced to welcome us to the dinner and show us the food table. then he peaced and started playing with balloons.
our christmas eve feast--pizza, fried rice, noodles, spicy beef salad, etc.--was followed by a "would you like some wine?" and that, a quick, "yes, red please." FREE WINE? EFF YEAH.
we played games with the kids (pwnd'em, btw), did some traditional thai dancing, sang "like a prayer" and "jingle bell rock," and generally laughed at everything our lives were right there at that fancy house in suphan on christmas eve. as the night was winding down, ogie's dad (who had been drinking heavily and whose english had, as a result, vastly improved) beckoned us to introduce ourselves, which we gladly did. after we did our speaking, ogie's brother, aunt, other aunt?, ogie himself, and maybe someone else thanked us immensely for coming. we hardly even talked to the thai people, aside from the few we already knew. they were just thrilled to have some americans around. trophy wives, the lot of us.
really, though, it ended up being a really heartwarming evening. this post is about a mile long, and i still haven't explained everything. there's no way i could. everyone at the party was so open and so excited to be able to share christmas eve with us. it was no bubba gumps with the fam, but how could i not have had a fulfilling night?
merry christmas eve
i'm at work today. i even gave my kids a quiz today. meanest teacher ever, right? but i'm wearing a santa hat, so it's all good. all the teachers in the office were laughing at me. "beautiful!" they said. (tahsh just ripped my santa hat off, btw. she is a bitch.) they didn't mean it, though, because they were in hysterics as they said it. LIARS.
tahsh, maddy, and i put together bags of christmas treats for all of them today, complete with handmade christmas cards. maddy and i are sporting some christmas gear, and there's even a christmas tree set up in the hallway to celebrate the holiday. this school WILL be christmasy, whether it likes it or not. i'll have to show you pictures later, when i'm on my home computer. internet's been acting up lately, so i make no promises.
tahsh, maddy, and i put together bags of christmas treats for all of them today, complete with handmade christmas cards. maddy and i are sporting some christmas gear, and there's even a christmas tree set up in the hallway to celebrate the holiday. this school WILL be christmasy, whether it likes it or not. i'll have to show you pictures later, when i'm on my home computer. internet's been acting up lately, so i make no promises.
21.12.09
"cold"
"goood moooooooooorning, teeeeeecha."
"good morning, class. how are you?"
"i'm fiiiiiiiiiiine teacher. aaaaand youuu?"
"i'm good, thank you. you can sit down."
"thaaaaaaank you, teeeeeachaaaaa."
(i make a shivering gesture) "are you guys cold today?"
(they answer me in unison, which is usually something they NEVER do) "YES!"
the internet tells me it's 28 degrees celsius in suphan today. that's 82 degrees fahrenheit. with the wind, i'd call it 77 degrees fahrenheit out there today.
"good morning, class. how are you?"
"i'm fiiiiiiiiiiine teacher. aaaaand youuu?"
"i'm good, thank you. you can sit down."
"thaaaaaaank you, teeeeeachaaaaa."
(i make a shivering gesture) "are you guys cold today?"
(they answer me in unison, which is usually something they NEVER do) "YES!"
the internet tells me it's 28 degrees celsius in suphan today. that's 82 degrees fahrenheit. with the wind, i'd call it 77 degrees fahrenheit out there today.
tiger milk
sam, ally, maddy, alex (new australian), anna (new australian's girlfriend, here for just a few weeks), tessa, and i had no plans for yesterday, so anna and alex organized a van trip out to a zoo/aquarium about 50 minutes away. we left at 8 am, despite the fact that the zoo--our main reason for going--didn't open until 10 am (bret, the guy who helps us get the van, likes to organize these trips so we leave REAL early in the morning so we can get to our destination, sit around, and wait).
no matter. we grabbed some caffeine and popped into an aquarium. actually, there were two aquariums: one cheap one for 30 baht, and one expensive one for 150 baht. maddy and i weren't feeling the expensive one, mostly because we knew it'd pale in comparison to monterey bay and didn't want to be disappointed. so we played speed and yahtzee on this lake in the park.
some time between 10 and 11, we hopped back in the van, and the driver took us back to the zoo. we paid maybe a dollar to get in, then for less than a dollar, we went into a cage with about 10 baby lions tigers (i'm pretty sure some of those were lions, anyway). it was just the seven of us and two handlers, kickin it in the cage with the big cat babies. the handlers shoved the cats into our hands, gave us bottles, and forced us to take adorable pictures holding the furry babies.
oh fineeeeee. i guess i needed a new post-christmas prof pic, anyway.
the cats romped around and we remarked at how much they were like...well, cats. they played with each other just like a litter of house kittens. they did have teeth (which weren't actually that sharp), and they did bite us a little, but it was a playful, light bite. they could've bitten our hands off in an instant, but we were friends, so they spared us.
after 15-20 minutes of tiger joy, the handlers told us our time was up. we wept, then went on to the rest of the zoo. after much animal sighting (i'm not gonna tell you about all of it here, mostly because pictures are better and i have to go to school pretty soon), we went to the huge sam chuk market, and came home.
not bad for a $20 day.
p.s. FOUR DAYS TO CHRISTMAS!
19.12.09
various life updates
i realized that some things have happened in my life that i haven't told you about. they don't have much to do with each other other* than the fact that they've all happened, and they've all been in my life.
hopefully the rest of the post won't be as repetitive as that last sentence. i broke stuff up into sections so you have some kind of clue as to when i'm changing subjects completely.
no, i don't get any time off.
a lot of people back home have been asking me what i'm doing for christmas and how many days i have off. the answer is zero. i have zero days off for christmas. i live in a buddhist country, and i get days off for things like the king's birthday, not the day when jesus christ was born.
BUT of course we're doing some celebrating. tash, maddy, and i are going to bangkok with the m4/m5/m6 students (those are sophomores, juniors, and seniors), mainly to give them a lesson on christmas on the bus ride there. maddy and i are planning tosing perform "baby it's cold outside" (i'm the girl part. amber and i have been dueting this song for four years and i've always been the girl, so i've got this down).
we'll get back from bkk around 6 pm (hopefully, depending on traffic...), when we'll promptly go to the thai-farang dinner place across the street, where they're giving us a free (!) christmas dinner. paul, the guy who owns the place, is dutch, so he's making us all a dutch dinner for the special occasion. there've been rumors of mashed potatoes. we'll be with around 15 of us foreign teachers, plus the older farang guys who normally hang out at the thai-farang place. i'll have to put on bug spray and i'll be sitting outside and i'll probably be sweating a little bit. it'll be the weirdest christmas dinner ever. i can't wait.
after that, i'll come upstairs, skype with the fam on their christmas morning, then probably drink some wine and talk christmas with everyone here.
bangkok traffic makes me want to slit my own throat
this past friday, ciee put on a holiday dinner in bangkok for everyone in the program (or all those who teach close to bkk and wanted to come). teaching discussions would start at 4 pm (ha, yeah right, we don't give a crap about that), and dinner would be served at 6 pm. great, we thought. free dinner, and we don't have plans for the weekend anyway. so tash, maddy, and i hopped on a van from suphanburi at 4 pm. we figured we'd get to bangkok around 5:30, then we'd get in a taxi and get to the dinner just after 6 pm.
5:45 pm rolled around and we were still only on the edge of the city--stuck in some TERRIBLE traffic. it was the worst bangkok traffic i've ever been in. we moved one mile in probably 20 minutes. maddy and i talked about ways we wanted to kill ourselves. we talked about what we were doing exactly five years ago at that time. we talked about where we'd be exactly two weeks from that time (on a beach on koh phi phi for new years...mmm). we talked about how bored we were. we talked about why bangkok SUCKS BALLS cuz of the traffic alone.
finally, at like 6:30 pm, the van dropped us off and we rejoiced in stretching and standing up. we motioned to a taxi driver and showed him the name of the place we were supposed to have dinner (phil, the moron in charge of the teach in thailand program, was nice enough to write directions to the restaurant in thai so taxi drivers could find the place, which was in podunk nowhere, just like our orientation hotel). the taxi driver nodded, told us he'd put the meter on, and we got in. he started asking us about seafood, and we assumed he was just making conversation. "seafood? you like? tom yum?" yeah, sure, we like seafood. just take us to the restaurant on the map, man.
turns out the seafood question wasn't just conversational banter. he had NO IDEA where the restaurant was, so he took us to some random seafood market/restaurant. for no apparent reason. we're fairly certain he just stole his dad's taxi (he looked nothing like the guy on the license taped to the dashboard of the car) and thought it'd be funny to play a trick on these farang girls.
so at this point, it's 7-something, we're hungry, we need to pee, and we're at some random location in bangkok. SCREW YOU, PHIL. it's all phil's fault. he's the one who organized a dinner at 6 pm on a school day, and he's the one who put it at a restaurant so far outside the city center that even taxi drivers don't know where it is. (phil, if you're reading this, sorry. i shouldn't be so mean. it was very nice of you to organize and give us a free dinner. but seriously, you couldn't pick something near the grand palace on a saturday evening?)
we got on the skytrain, took it to the stop closest to this stupid, far away restaurant, and grabbed a cab to take us the rest of the way. he sounded like he confidently knew where he was going, but so did the last guy. without other options, we just got in the taxi and hoped he'd take us to the right place. or any place that served food and had a bathroom.
at 7:45 pm, the guy turns to tash (who's sitting in the front seat), and says he needs to get some gas. oh, yeah, fine, let's get gas. great. awesome. we pulled off at the gas station and the gas people made all of us get out of the car for god knows what reason. so there we were, standing in a gas station on the outskirts of bangkok, overnight bags and all, starving, and needing to pee real bad. low point. fill-up done, we got back in the car and he drove literally TWO MORE MINUTES and we were at the restaurant. finally. 8 pm. we peed (the bathroom was gorgeous, btw, and had coy fish in a tank...made things a little better) and ate the food that was a little cold by that point, because we were two hours late.
thai time. psh.
we spent a lot of time in traffic in the last 36 hours, actually. our van ride back to suphan took almost two hours. i think i've said about a thousand times that this drive should only take an hour and a half, at most. on the ride home, the driver decided to blast some stupid thai music, a guy who smelled like cheap women's perfume sat next to me, and my leg was touching his for the whole ride cuz the van was completely full.
ughhhhhhh. traffic is the sole reason i HATE bangkok.
bagels
i had one this morning at au bon pain. onion. it was delicious, so i had another. cinnamon raisin this time. had to have one boy and one girl flavor, of course. it's things like bagels that make me love bangkok.
also, last night, i went out with a bunch of people who i don't normally get to see/talk to and went dancing (ohhhh going out, how i've missed you!). it's things like that that make me love that stupid city, too.
love-hate relationships are hard to manage.
working legally
we got our work permits last week. look how cool they are.
*i love when double-word sentences happen. they're not really pretty when they're written, but whatever. i ditched pretty writing like 20 years ago.
hopefully the rest of the post won't be as repetitive as that last sentence. i broke stuff up into sections so you have some kind of clue as to when i'm changing subjects completely.
no, i don't get any time off.
a lot of people back home have been asking me what i'm doing for christmas and how many days i have off. the answer is zero. i have zero days off for christmas. i live in a buddhist country, and i get days off for things like the king's birthday, not the day when jesus christ was born.
BUT of course we're doing some celebrating. tash, maddy, and i are going to bangkok with the m4/m5/m6 students (those are sophomores, juniors, and seniors), mainly to give them a lesson on christmas on the bus ride there. maddy and i are planning to
we'll get back from bkk around 6 pm (hopefully, depending on traffic...), when we'll promptly go to the thai-farang dinner place across the street, where they're giving us a free (!) christmas dinner. paul, the guy who owns the place, is dutch, so he's making us all a dutch dinner for the special occasion. there've been rumors of mashed potatoes. we'll be with around 15 of us foreign teachers, plus the older farang guys who normally hang out at the thai-farang place. i'll have to put on bug spray and i'll be sitting outside and i'll probably be sweating a little bit. it'll be the weirdest christmas dinner ever. i can't wait.
after that, i'll come upstairs, skype with the fam on their christmas morning, then probably drink some wine and talk christmas with everyone here.
bangkok traffic makes me want to slit my own throat
this past friday, ciee put on a holiday dinner in bangkok for everyone in the program (or all those who teach close to bkk and wanted to come). teaching discussions would start at 4 pm (ha, yeah right, we don't give a crap about that), and dinner would be served at 6 pm. great, we thought. free dinner, and we don't have plans for the weekend anyway. so tash, maddy, and i hopped on a van from suphanburi at 4 pm. we figured we'd get to bangkok around 5:30, then we'd get in a taxi and get to the dinner just after 6 pm.
5:45 pm rolled around and we were still only on the edge of the city--stuck in some TERRIBLE traffic. it was the worst bangkok traffic i've ever been in. we moved one mile in probably 20 minutes. maddy and i talked about ways we wanted to kill ourselves. we talked about what we were doing exactly five years ago at that time. we talked about where we'd be exactly two weeks from that time (on a beach on koh phi phi for new years...mmm). we talked about how bored we were. we talked about why bangkok SUCKS BALLS cuz of the traffic alone.
finally, at like 6:30 pm, the van dropped us off and we rejoiced in stretching and standing up. we motioned to a taxi driver and showed him the name of the place we were supposed to have dinner (phil, the moron in charge of the teach in thailand program, was nice enough to write directions to the restaurant in thai so taxi drivers could find the place, which was in podunk nowhere, just like our orientation hotel). the taxi driver nodded, told us he'd put the meter on, and we got in. he started asking us about seafood, and we assumed he was just making conversation. "seafood? you like? tom yum?" yeah, sure, we like seafood. just take us to the restaurant on the map, man.
turns out the seafood question wasn't just conversational banter. he had NO IDEA where the restaurant was, so he took us to some random seafood market/restaurant. for no apparent reason. we're fairly certain he just stole his dad's taxi (he looked nothing like the guy on the license taped to the dashboard of the car) and thought it'd be funny to play a trick on these farang girls.
so at this point, it's 7-something, we're hungry, we need to pee, and we're at some random location in bangkok. SCREW YOU, PHIL. it's all phil's fault. he's the one who organized a dinner at 6 pm on a school day, and he's the one who put it at a restaurant so far outside the city center that even taxi drivers don't know where it is. (phil, if you're reading this, sorry. i shouldn't be so mean. it was very nice of you to organize and give us a free dinner. but seriously, you couldn't pick something near the grand palace on a saturday evening?)
we got on the skytrain, took it to the stop closest to this stupid, far away restaurant, and grabbed a cab to take us the rest of the way. he sounded like he confidently knew where he was going, but so did the last guy. without other options, we just got in the taxi and hoped he'd take us to the right place. or any place that served food and had a bathroom.
at 7:45 pm, the guy turns to tash (who's sitting in the front seat), and says he needs to get some gas. oh, yeah, fine, let's get gas. great. awesome. we pulled off at the gas station and the gas people made all of us get out of the car for god knows what reason. so there we were, standing in a gas station on the outskirts of bangkok, overnight bags and all, starving, and needing to pee real bad. low point. fill-up done, we got back in the car and he drove literally TWO MORE MINUTES and we were at the restaurant. finally. 8 pm. we peed (the bathroom was gorgeous, btw, and had coy fish in a tank...made things a little better) and ate the food that was a little cold by that point, because we were two hours late.
thai time. psh.
we spent a lot of time in traffic in the last 36 hours, actually. our van ride back to suphan took almost two hours. i think i've said about a thousand times that this drive should only take an hour and a half, at most. on the ride home, the driver decided to blast some stupid thai music, a guy who smelled like cheap women's perfume sat next to me, and my leg was touching his for the whole ride cuz the van was completely full.
ughhhhhhh. traffic is the sole reason i HATE bangkok.
bagels
i had one this morning at au bon pain. onion. it was delicious, so i had another. cinnamon raisin this time. had to have one boy and one girl flavor, of course. it's things like bagels that make me love bangkok.
also, last night, i went out with a bunch of people who i don't normally get to see/talk to and went dancing (ohhhh going out, how i've missed you!). it's things like that that make me love that stupid city, too.
love-hate relationships are hard to manage.
working legally
we got our work permits last week. look how cool they are.
oooh! a work permit! (i know, i know, it's backwards. damn photobooth.)
almost two months after i've been showing up to school every day, i'm cleared to work here. woohoo!
*i love when double-word sentences happen. they're not really pretty when they're written, but whatever. i ditched pretty writing like 20 years ago.
15.12.09
nicki helps ogee go to college
tash, maddy, and i tutor this boy, ogee, three times a week. we switch off, so tash takes mondays, i'm on tuesdays, and maddy's on thursdays. we started two weeks ago, but cuz of miscommunication and his fancy trip to europe, i just started today. when we got back from school at 5:20 (tuesday and wednesday we teach an extra smart class after school), he was already sitting outside yoo dee mee sook on his motorbike, ready to whisk me away to get some english learnin' in him.
"oh...i've never been on a motorbike before," i said a bit nervously before i climbed on.
"oh, haha. it's fun."
i awkwardly grabbed his sides and away we went. it was a jerky ride and that, paired with the fact that i didn't have a solid grip on him (no way was i gonna hug this high school kid's stomach upon first introduction), probably made me look like a fool. when we came up on the intersection, who do we see on the motorbike next to us but kanchana (my coordinator at school) and her husband.
i laughed because hey, there's my boss and here i am on the back of a motorbike with a 17-year-old boy and i'm not wearing a helmet and there kanachana is laughing at me and ogee together, so why not join in.
just when i got used to being passenger (i was just mastering the leaning techniques), we got to his house. it's HUGE. i'm used to the houses around here being more like modest townhouses that look a little weathered from the storm and well loved. but this house...i kicked off my shoes, entered through a sliding glass door, walked between leather couches and a big flat-screen tv, and sat down in a room that overlooked a porch with a pond on one side and maybe a fountain of some kind on the other.
these people must be loaded.
ogee's a tight kid. he's a senior in high school, looking to go to university to become a civil engineer. he wants to design houses. he's a master at math and physics, but can't get english down (when he told me this, i reassured him that he wasn't alone--math/science people are notoriously bad at english. no offense, math friends). but he knows that if he wants to pass the standardized test to get into university (think SAT, thai-style), he needs to understand a lot more english then he does now. he really wants to go to university. REALLY wants to. i told him that if he really wants to and really tries, he'll get there.
we chatted about the collectivist nature of thais vs the individualism all over america, about whether he wants to get married or not (one of the first questions he asked me was if i was single, not because he wants to date me, but because in thailand that's a normal introductory question), if he wants to have kids (he doesn't--like i said, he just wants to build houses), and he wants to live in suphanburi forever.
around 7 pm, his sister brought a plate of fried rice to me. i asked ogee if i should eat with them at the table (his sister and mom had just sat down to dinner at the table in the dining room), and he gave me this non-answer--of course, he's thai--so i just sort of said i wanted to eat with them, carried my plate to the table, and ate a fairly quiet meal with the three of them.
after dinner was through, he drove me home in his family's bmw. at least that's what it smelled like. that, or a cadillac. something grandparents own. thailand has imported that exact smell.
"oh...i've never been on a motorbike before," i said a bit nervously before i climbed on.
"oh, haha. it's fun."
i awkwardly grabbed his sides and away we went. it was a jerky ride and that, paired with the fact that i didn't have a solid grip on him (no way was i gonna hug this high school kid's stomach upon first introduction), probably made me look like a fool. when we came up on the intersection, who do we see on the motorbike next to us but kanchana (my coordinator at school) and her husband.
i laughed because hey, there's my boss and here i am on the back of a motorbike with a 17-year-old boy and i'm not wearing a helmet and there kanachana is laughing at me and ogee together, so why not join in.
just when i got used to being passenger (i was just mastering the leaning techniques), we got to his house. it's HUGE. i'm used to the houses around here being more like modest townhouses that look a little weathered from the storm and well loved. but this house...i kicked off my shoes, entered through a sliding glass door, walked between leather couches and a big flat-screen tv, and sat down in a room that overlooked a porch with a pond on one side and maybe a fountain of some kind on the other.
these people must be loaded.
ogee's a tight kid. he's a senior in high school, looking to go to university to become a civil engineer. he wants to design houses. he's a master at math and physics, but can't get english down (when he told me this, i reassured him that he wasn't alone--math/science people are notoriously bad at english. no offense, math friends). but he knows that if he wants to pass the standardized test to get into university (think SAT, thai-style), he needs to understand a lot more english then he does now. he really wants to go to university. REALLY wants to. i told him that if he really wants to and really tries, he'll get there.
we chatted about the collectivist nature of thais vs the individualism all over america, about whether he wants to get married or not (one of the first questions he asked me was if i was single, not because he wants to date me, but because in thailand that's a normal introductory question), if he wants to have kids (he doesn't--like i said, he just wants to build houses), and he wants to live in suphanburi forever.
around 7 pm, his sister brought a plate of fried rice to me. i asked ogee if i should eat with them at the table (his sister and mom had just sat down to dinner at the table in the dining room), and he gave me this non-answer--of course, he's thai--so i just sort of said i wanted to eat with them, carried my plate to the table, and ate a fairly quiet meal with the three of them.
after dinner was through, he drove me home in his family's bmw. at least that's what it smelled like. that, or a cadillac. something grandparents own. thailand has imported that exact smell.
14.12.09
dreamworld: thailand's ripoff disneyland (or that time i turned 23)
(warning: this will be a long post. i broke it up with some subheads for you. but not for this first part. it's just the intro.)
i didn't have plans for my birthday originally. i'm not a huge birthday person (i hate people cooing over me, coddling me and asking me what i wanna do and making sure i have a good time and blah blah blah crap), but i knew i wanted to get out of suphan. a few weeks ago, a brilliant thought hit me: DREAMWORLD. the amusement park's tag line is literally "the world of happiness." their little mascot wears some of the exact same outfits as mickey. i think i saw minnie walking around the park. the amount of copyright infringement was baffling. but hey, it's thailand. as we've been told before, the rules are up to you.
the plan was to leave suphan on the 8 am bus to bangkok. we'd decided to take the public bus over the personal minivan we usually take because, even though the bus would take longer, it would be cheaper and it would take us right to the morchit bus station, where we'd catch the city bus straight to dreamworld. the park opened at 10 am, and we figured we'd get into the park sometime before 11 am. perfect.
here's what actually happened.
getting to dreamworld
6:15 am -- alarm goes off. i think i hit snooze, but i really hit off. nancy (who teaches up north but came down for some suphan fun times) asked me at 6:30 am what time it was.
7:15 am -- got delicious coffee at this adorable coffe house down the street.
7:45 am -- reached the bus station, where about five different thai bus station guys asked us (me, maddy, nancy, tash, ally, sam) where we wanted to go. "bangkok," we all repeated. one guy claimed us ("oohh, look at the farang i scored!") and lead us toward a bus that said "bangkok suphanburi" on the side. the bus was empty, but i attributed that to the early morning and the fact that it was saturday.
8 am -- the bus leaves right on time. EFF YEAH.
8:10 am -- sam makes a comment about how the bus is going some crazy direction to bangkok, but i give him what i'm pretty sure was a "yeah right, sam" look/comment, and we all resumed conversation.
8:55 am -- we start noticing the sun is on our right. the sun rises in the east. that means we're going north. bangkok is south of suphanburi. then we see the giant buddha--the same one we saw when we were on our way back from lopburi, which is to the north of suphanburi. we pretty much confirm within the group that we are, indeed, going the wrong way.
9:00 am -- we stop in some podunk nowhere town for about 20 minutes, during which time we debate about what we're going to do. sam goes to ask the guy what time we'll get to bangkok, and he hears something like 11:30. that's three and a half hours after we left. it should only take 1-2 hours to get to bangkok from suphan. it says bangkok on the side of our bus, right? still incredulous, i go and ask the bus driver about arrival in bkk myself. he points to the 11 on the clock. indeed.
9:15 am -- we decide we're never taking the bus to bangkok again.
11 am (actually, probably a little after that) -- OH MY GOD, IT'S THE MORCHIT STATION! WE'RE IN BANGKOK!
11:30 ish -- we ask the info desk where we hop on bus 538 to get to dreamworld. she tells us we take bus 77 from the bus terminal to the morchit station (which, it turns out, is not different than the bus terminal. of course). at this point, we did a big "screwwwww that" and hopped in a taxi.
some time just after noon: ARRIVE IN DREAMWORLD! FINALLYYYYY! after only four hours of travel! perfect!
inside the park
really, though, we were in a surprisingly great mood. we played MASH on the bus, then listened to some bumpin' tunes on the van ride to the park, and we were just so damn excited to finally be in the park that we didn't have it in us to lament about the ridiculous travel time. thai time.
our van driver pulled up to the park entrance, we grabbed our stuff, paid him, and walked away toward the ticket buying station when the van driver said something in thai and started leading the way. "you farang clearly don't know what you're doing. let me help you." he took us past the regular entrance to a special VIP area where we could buy tickets. a woman looked at us and told us the ticket price would be 550 baht. sam whipped out his work permit to ask if there was a teacher's discount. "oohhh, you live in thailand? well then, the price is only 440 baht!" SCORE.
goal number one once we were in the park was food (well, first was a toilet, but food was a close second). the food situation was apparently semi-complicated, so as we were staring at the menu options, a friendly dreamworld worker came up, took our order, and told us to sit down (this is at a place where everybody else clearly buses themselves). thai people must look at us and go, "aw...how pathetic. i'll help them."
fed and peed, we were ready to hit the rides. goal number one: sky coaster, a ride where your feet dangle and you spin round and round, much like top gun. HELL YEAH. after a maybe 30-minute wait, we hopped on, strapped in, and went on a ride that felt like maybe it needed a little servicing. but no matter. we were so pumped after our first thai roller coaster that we didn't even notice.
after that, we (sans ally and tash) went on the viking, which is one of those boats that spins around in a circle. once you sat down, a bar came down--and that was it. no seatbelts, and i couldn't fairly easily slipped out of the seat. but heyyyy, it's thailand. safety, up to you. so you know how this ride is sort of scary, but after the first few big swings you kind of get in to it and start enjoying things? not these thai people. about half of the four rows we were facing spent the entire time either with their faces dug into their neighbors' shoulders, or with a permanent scream attached to their face. they were scared shitless. then there was the guy who was taking pictures of us four white people the whole time.
we also went on space mountain (EXCELLENT ripoff), walked through the haunted mansion (thai people are really graphic in their representation of scary things), went on a spinny thing that was kind of like that spinning circle ride at the fair that spins you so hard you stick to the wall (centrifugal force!), ate some waffles/ice cream/BOBA!/other delicious amusement park food, watched a 3d show like "honey, i shrunk the kids" (it only occurred to us thirty seconds before showtime that it'd all be in thai), and walked through the creepiest fairytale land ever (a robot threw up into a trash can and hansel and gretel were trapped in a morbidly real-looking jail cell). i apologize for that long sentence.
oh, then we played in the snow.
snowtown
this is a serious sentence. i'm not talking about the "snow" that's actually bubbles at disneyland either. i mean we paid some extra baht to go inside a freezing room with actual snow on the ground, a hill to sled down, a snowman, some snowy creatures, an igloo, santa claus, and a christmas tree. we walked in to the building, traded our flip flops for galoshes, and grabbed some snow jackets. i thought the thais were probably just wimpy about the cold; after all, they wear jackets when it's 75 F in suphan.
but no. we entered the snowy heaven and were instantly thrust into regular mid-winter conditions. we were so giddy and i think that moment was my happiest of the whole day.
we raced down the hill three times and nancy (illegally) climbed on top of a mammoth-sized mammoth. we took a thousand pictures, including an adorable christmas photo in santa's sleigh and everything. we spent probably an hour inside snowtown and only left because we were too cold to possibly stay in any longer.
the end of the day
the parked closed at 7, and even though we all agreed we'd done everything we wanted to do at dreamworld, i think i could've spent a few more hours there just soaking it all in. we hopped in a taxi (all 6 of us in one because we're cheap and don't give a crap about comfort), and after an hour and a half of driving around bangkok (i hate bangkok), we finally made it to khaosan road, where we'd be staying for the night. i decided on the very fancy mcdonalds for my birthday dinner, and holy crap that was a delicious choice (mmmmm big mac). full of american saturated fats, we wandered down to our hostel, set our stuff down, and found a place to get a couple drinks and people watch. exhausted in the way that only amusement parks can make you, we didn't say much, but were perfectly content to stare and make silent judgments on the passersby.
frozen margarita and tequila sunrise in my belly, i was sleepy and ready to hit the hay. as soon as my body hit the fairly uncomfortable hostel bed, i was out. first day as a 23-year-old was a success.
my first hot birthday = everything i wanted. thank you, friends :-D
i didn't have plans for my birthday originally. i'm not a huge birthday person (i hate people cooing over me, coddling me and asking me what i wanna do and making sure i have a good time and blah blah blah crap), but i knew i wanted to get out of suphan. a few weeks ago, a brilliant thought hit me: DREAMWORLD. the amusement park's tag line is literally "the world of happiness." their little mascot wears some of the exact same outfits as mickey. i think i saw minnie walking around the park. the amount of copyright infringement was baffling. but hey, it's thailand. as we've been told before, the rules are up to you.
the plan was to leave suphan on the 8 am bus to bangkok. we'd decided to take the public bus over the personal minivan we usually take because, even though the bus would take longer, it would be cheaper and it would take us right to the morchit bus station, where we'd catch the city bus straight to dreamworld. the park opened at 10 am, and we figured we'd get into the park sometime before 11 am. perfect.
here's what actually happened.
getting to dreamworld
6:15 am -- alarm goes off. i think i hit snooze, but i really hit off. nancy (who teaches up north but came down for some suphan fun times) asked me at 6:30 am what time it was.
7:15 am -- got delicious coffee at this adorable coffe house down the street.
7:45 am -- reached the bus station, where about five different thai bus station guys asked us (me, maddy, nancy, tash, ally, sam) where we wanted to go. "bangkok," we all repeated. one guy claimed us ("oohh, look at the farang i scored!") and lead us toward a bus that said "bangkok suphanburi" on the side. the bus was empty, but i attributed that to the early morning and the fact that it was saturday.
8 am -- the bus leaves right on time. EFF YEAH.
8:10 am -- sam makes a comment about how the bus is going some crazy direction to bangkok, but i give him what i'm pretty sure was a "yeah right, sam" look/comment, and we all resumed conversation.
8:55 am -- we start noticing the sun is on our right. the sun rises in the east. that means we're going north. bangkok is south of suphanburi. then we see the giant buddha--the same one we saw when we were on our way back from lopburi, which is to the north of suphanburi. we pretty much confirm within the group that we are, indeed, going the wrong way.
9:00 am -- we stop in some podunk nowhere town for about 20 minutes, during which time we debate about what we're going to do. sam goes to ask the guy what time we'll get to bangkok, and he hears something like 11:30. that's three and a half hours after we left. it should only take 1-2 hours to get to bangkok from suphan. it says bangkok on the side of our bus, right? still incredulous, i go and ask the bus driver about arrival in bkk myself. he points to the 11 on the clock. indeed.
9:15 am -- we decide we're never taking the bus to bangkok again.
11 am (actually, probably a little after that) -- OH MY GOD, IT'S THE MORCHIT STATION! WE'RE IN BANGKOK!
11:30 ish -- we ask the info desk where we hop on bus 538 to get to dreamworld. she tells us we take bus 77 from the bus terminal to the morchit station (which, it turns out, is not different than the bus terminal. of course). at this point, we did a big "screwwwww that" and hopped in a taxi.
some time just after noon: ARRIVE IN DREAMWORLD! FINALLYYYYY! after only four hours of travel! perfect!
inside the park
really, though, we were in a surprisingly great mood. we played MASH on the bus, then listened to some bumpin' tunes on the van ride to the park, and we were just so damn excited to finally be in the park that we didn't have it in us to lament about the ridiculous travel time. thai time.
our van driver pulled up to the park entrance, we grabbed our stuff, paid him, and walked away toward the ticket buying station when the van driver said something in thai and started leading the way. "you farang clearly don't know what you're doing. let me help you." he took us past the regular entrance to a special VIP area where we could buy tickets. a woman looked at us and told us the ticket price would be 550 baht. sam whipped out his work permit to ask if there was a teacher's discount. "oohhh, you live in thailand? well then, the price is only 440 baht!" SCORE.
goal number one once we were in the park was food (well, first was a toilet, but food was a close second). the food situation was apparently semi-complicated, so as we were staring at the menu options, a friendly dreamworld worker came up, took our order, and told us to sit down (this is at a place where everybody else clearly buses themselves). thai people must look at us and go, "aw...how pathetic. i'll help them."
fed and peed, we were ready to hit the rides. goal number one: sky coaster, a ride where your feet dangle and you spin round and round, much like top gun. HELL YEAH. after a maybe 30-minute wait, we hopped on, strapped in, and went on a ride that felt like maybe it needed a little servicing. but no matter. we were so pumped after our first thai roller coaster that we didn't even notice.
after that, we (sans ally and tash) went on the viking, which is one of those boats that spins around in a circle. once you sat down, a bar came down--and that was it. no seatbelts, and i couldn't fairly easily slipped out of the seat. but heyyyy, it's thailand. safety, up to you. so you know how this ride is sort of scary, but after the first few big swings you kind of get in to it and start enjoying things? not these thai people. about half of the four rows we were facing spent the entire time either with their faces dug into their neighbors' shoulders, or with a permanent scream attached to their face. they were scared shitless. then there was the guy who was taking pictures of us four white people the whole time.
we also went on space mountain (EXCELLENT ripoff), walked through the haunted mansion (thai people are really graphic in their representation of scary things), went on a spinny thing that was kind of like that spinning circle ride at the fair that spins you so hard you stick to the wall (centrifugal force!), ate some waffles/ice cream/BOBA!/other delicious amusement park food, watched a 3d show like "honey, i shrunk the kids" (it only occurred to us thirty seconds before showtime that it'd all be in thai), and walked through the creepiest fairytale land ever (a robot threw up into a trash can and hansel and gretel were trapped in a morbidly real-looking jail cell). i apologize for that long sentence.
oh, then we played in the snow.
snowtown
this is a serious sentence. i'm not talking about the "snow" that's actually bubbles at disneyland either. i mean we paid some extra baht to go inside a freezing room with actual snow on the ground, a hill to sled down, a snowman, some snowy creatures, an igloo, santa claus, and a christmas tree. we walked in to the building, traded our flip flops for galoshes, and grabbed some snow jackets. i thought the thais were probably just wimpy about the cold; after all, they wear jackets when it's 75 F in suphan.
but no. we entered the snowy heaven and were instantly thrust into regular mid-winter conditions. we were so giddy and i think that moment was my happiest of the whole day.
we raced down the hill three times and nancy (illegally) climbed on top of a mammoth-sized mammoth. we took a thousand pictures, including an adorable christmas photo in santa's sleigh and everything. we spent probably an hour inside snowtown and only left because we were too cold to possibly stay in any longer.
the end of the day
the parked closed at 7, and even though we all agreed we'd done everything we wanted to do at dreamworld, i think i could've spent a few more hours there just soaking it all in. we hopped in a taxi (all 6 of us in one because we're cheap and don't give a crap about comfort), and after an hour and a half of driving around bangkok (i hate bangkok), we finally made it to khaosan road, where we'd be staying for the night. i decided on the very fancy mcdonalds for my birthday dinner, and holy crap that was a delicious choice (mmmmm big mac). full of american saturated fats, we wandered down to our hostel, set our stuff down, and found a place to get a couple drinks and people watch. exhausted in the way that only amusement parks can make you, we didn't say much, but were perfectly content to stare and make silent judgments on the passersby.
frozen margarita and tequila sunrise in my belly, i was sleepy and ready to hit the hay. as soon as my body hit the fairly uncomfortable hostel bed, i was out. first day as a 23-year-old was a success.
my first hot birthday = everything i wanted. thank you, friends :-D
11.12.09
a few semi-delayed stories from koh si chang
sorry i suck and didn't write about si chang until just now, four days after we returned from little koh si chang. nicki fail.
anyway, we left suphanburi friday evening around 6 pm. since we couldn't make it to the island (koh=island in thai, btw. and you thought you'd never learn anything from this blog) on friday night cuz ferries don't run at 10 pm, we decided we'd stay on si racha, which lonely planet and other travel guides made seem like a small fishing town with nothing in it. i was expecting one or maybe two hostels/hotels/places for strangers to sleep, mostly for one night before they hop on the ferry (just like we were doing).
so when we pulled into a town that had a brightly lit town square, multiple bars/dance clubs, and more than a couple thai hookers, i thought for sure the driver had taken us to the wrong place. i was convinced he was in pattaya. he started to guide this huge 8-person van down a tiny road that i would've struggled to put the xa down. we were absolutely convinced he was going down the wrong road, but alas, there at the end of the alley was the siriwatana hotel, our home for the evening.
GROSS. that's what the siriwatana hotel was (that it even tried to parade itself around as a "hotel" is laughable). it was on stilts over water, which sounds really nice, and would be, if there wasn't pee and poop and trash directly below. the ocean was a trashcan mixed with salt water. soupy disgustingness. the rooms were small; the beds were not even double-sized; cockroaches were abound. but it was after 10 pm, and we were tired, so we paid a guy some money and went two to a room. we pissed into a hole in the ground, watched in go into the ocean, and fell asleep.
the next morning we were up and on the ferry by 10 am, on the island by 11 am. we made our way to our hostel for the weekend, which was a huge upgrade from that siriwatana crap. we stayed in a hostel/hotel that was actually boats-turned-rooms.
anyway, we left suphanburi friday evening around 6 pm. since we couldn't make it to the island (koh=island in thai, btw. and you thought you'd never learn anything from this blog) on friday night cuz ferries don't run at 10 pm, we decided we'd stay on si racha, which lonely planet and other travel guides made seem like a small fishing town with nothing in it. i was expecting one or maybe two hostels/hotels/places for strangers to sleep, mostly for one night before they hop on the ferry (just like we were doing).
so when we pulled into a town that had a brightly lit town square, multiple bars/dance clubs, and more than a couple thai hookers, i thought for sure the driver had taken us to the wrong place. i was convinced he was in pattaya. he started to guide this huge 8-person van down a tiny road that i would've struggled to put the xa down. we were absolutely convinced he was going down the wrong road, but alas, there at the end of the alley was the siriwatana hotel, our home for the evening.
GROSS. that's what the siriwatana hotel was (that it even tried to parade itself around as a "hotel" is laughable). it was on stilts over water, which sounds really nice, and would be, if there wasn't pee and poop and trash directly below. the ocean was a trashcan mixed with salt water. soupy disgustingness. the rooms were small; the beds were not even double-sized; cockroaches were abound. but it was after 10 pm, and we were tired, so we paid a guy some money and went two to a room. we pissed into a hole in the ground, watched in go into the ocean, and fell asleep.
the next morning we were up and on the ferry by 10 am, on the island by 11 am. we made our way to our hostel for the weekend, which was a huge upgrade from that siriwatana crap. we stayed in a hostel/hotel that was actually boats-turned-rooms.
the rest of the long weekend was typical. we mostly hung out on the beach in some floppy beach chairs, drinking fresh fruit smoothies, eating delicious thai food, and lazing around in the water. we explored the tiny island (maybe 15, 20 minutes to drive around the whole thing) a bit, but really, we mostly just hung out at the beach. it was a perfect way to spend the king's birthday.
it's beginning to look a lot like christmas
i got a sunburn today and had a sweat river running down my back. my air conditioning is on. tomorrow's weather is supposed to be around 32 (which is celsius, not fahrenheit), so i plan on wearing a skirt and a short-sleeved shirt.
but with the help of elf, christmas lights, homemade no-bake cookies, and friends, it's sort of feeling like christmas around these parts.
but with the help of elf, christmas lights, homemade no-bake cookies, and friends, it's sort of feeling like christmas around these parts.
8.12.09
how thai kids get on the naughty list
my m3s (9th graders) are doing comparative sentences with christmas vocabulary this week. both the vocab and comparative structure are review, so this shouldn't have been too hard. i gave them a worksheet to do, then walked around the class to make sure they were doing said comparative worksheet. from the back corner, i heard a loud, "teacher! teacher!"
me: "yes?"
student 1 (pointing to her friend): "stupid!"
me: "she is stupid?"
student 1: "yes, she is stupid!"
me: "NO! she is not stupid! are you stupid?"
student 2 (looks at me confused because she is sort of stupid): "no...uhh..." (says some stuff in thai)
me: "you are not stupid. this is hard. don't worry."
but the name calling continued, and after some debate about the stupidity of student 2 (who we determined was only a little crazy, but not stupid), student 2 pointed to student 1 and said, "she is bigger. her body is bigger. ugly."
i gasped and looked at her directly in the face. "NO! you are beautiful."
no wonder the thai teachers are so concerned with body image (in this office, anyway). they're terrible to each other from an early age. "you're bigger than me, so you're ugly." while i can appreciate some of the thais' frankness about image and learning ability, sometimes it's just too harsh (people are regularly described as "fat" or "dumb"). i used to parade around saying i hated political correctness and having to describe someone by every single other attribute they have other than "freaking huge," but really, i don't know how much of this harsh honesty is good for these poor pubescent kids.
me: "yes?"
student 1 (pointing to her friend): "stupid!"
me: "she is stupid?"
student 1: "yes, she is stupid!"
me: "NO! she is not stupid! are you stupid?"
student 2 (looks at me confused because she is sort of stupid): "no...uhh..." (says some stuff in thai)
me: "you are not stupid. this is hard. don't worry."
but the name calling continued, and after some debate about the stupidity of student 2 (who we determined was only a little crazy, but not stupid), student 2 pointed to student 1 and said, "she is bigger. her body is bigger. ugly."
i gasped and looked at her directly in the face. "NO! you are beautiful."
no wonder the thai teachers are so concerned with body image (in this office, anyway). they're terrible to each other from an early age. "you're bigger than me, so you're ugly." while i can appreciate some of the thais' frankness about image and learning ability, sometimes it's just too harsh (people are regularly described as "fat" or "dumb"). i used to parade around saying i hated political correctness and having to describe someone by every single other attribute they have other than "freaking huge," but really, i don't know how much of this harsh honesty is good for these poor pubescent kids.
7.12.09
blame it on genius
i meant to go to bed early tonight. i'm tired from a weekend in the sun on the beach, and i wanted to go to bed early so i could wake up early tomorrow to enjoy the morning and do some writing/picture uploading for you.
(side note: my flower lights just fell off my wall and scared the crap out of me.)
but now i'm here, 11 pm, still planning on showering and yoga-ing. aka i'm still an hour away from bed. itunes just made such a good genius playlist that i can't stop listening...every song has been flowing perfectly after the one before it, and it's put me in a great mood, and i just can't press pause.
oh well. if the nexus taught me nothing else (let's be real: it didn't), i learned there that sleep is for the weak.
(side note: my flower lights just fell off my wall and scared the crap out of me.)
but now i'm here, 11 pm, still planning on showering and yoga-ing. aka i'm still an hour away from bed. itunes just made such a good genius playlist that i can't stop listening...every song has been flowing perfectly after the one before it, and it's put me in a great mood, and i just can't press pause.
oh well. if the nexus taught me nothing else (let's be real: it didn't), i learned there that sleep is for the weak.
4.12.09
the animals in my life
(side note before i start this post: i just wrote a post about a sort of scandalous situation at school...but about an hour after i posted, i realized it reflected really badly on the school and since it's on the internet, it might get around and it might not be good for me and blah blah blah, so i decided to take it down. but i still have the post, so if you're curious, i'll send it to you.)
the eggs hatched. i can't believe i forgot to tell you. i'm a terrible person. georgia's eggs hatched about two weeks ago, and they're pretty much the ugliest birds i've ever seen. i was under the impression that all baby animals are cute, but that's incredibly false.
so i've gotten to watch them grow into more beautiful pigeons. (true fact: if reincarnation is what happens after death, i hope i'm a pigeon. i used to want to be a seagull, but pigeons are better. they kick it all over awesome monuments and in stunning nature, and that's what i wanna do.) georgia has stopped sitting on them so much, so i've had a chance to check them out a little more and, more importantly, figure out what their names should be. i'm thinking, since they were born at the end of november, they should be something with the holiday season...oh, i just got a great idea. holly and daye. spelled all annoying like that. that's so cute. perfect.
ALSO, blog friends, i don't think i told you, but i got a fish about a month ago. it rocks. it doesn't have a name or a gender (reminds me of a 'human i used to know). i just call it fish. it once lived for five days without food. it can make it through days in a too-dirty tank because i sometimes get too busy to clean it. if this fish can survive having an arnold as its owner, it's a baller. it's my roommate, along with my best friend Internet. just the three of us, shoved in that tiny space, with holly and daye chillin' outside. we're all growing quite close.
p.s. blog shout out to john, who sent me a surprise package and made my day :-D
the eggs hatched. i can't believe i forgot to tell you. i'm a terrible person. georgia's eggs hatched about two weeks ago, and they're pretty much the ugliest birds i've ever seen. i was under the impression that all baby animals are cute, but that's incredibly false.
ALSO, blog friends, i don't think i told you, but i got a fish about a month ago. it rocks. it doesn't have a name or a gender (reminds me of a 'human i used to know). i just call it fish. it once lived for five days without food. it can make it through days in a too-dirty tank because i sometimes get too busy to clean it. if this fish can survive having an arnold as its owner, it's a baller. it's my roommate, along with my best friend Internet. just the three of us, shoved in that tiny space, with holly and daye chillin' outside. we're all growing quite close.
p.s. blog shout out to john, who sent me a surprise package and made my day :-D
30.11.09
monkeys in my hair
sa-nguan ying is paad sib!
ever since we met the thai teachers waaaaaay back at orientation, they've been talking about how the school is turning 80. what a big deal it is, they kept gushing. so last night was finally the big night--the dinner party for sa-nguan ying's 80th birthday.
we got to school just after 6:30 pm (because it started at 6 pm) and were welcomed by huge fluorescent lights, huge trees made of lights, a gigantic stage, four giant screens throughout what's usually a soccer field and outdoor gymnasium.
it looked NOTHING like a high school.
noon, another thai teacher in our office, was sitting at our table when we got there. she pointed out that we had water, soda, and whiskey for drinking. a bottle of whiskey for every table. you only turn 80 once. we were served a bunch of dishes and dug in to them collectively. everyone at the 8-person table dug in with their chopsticks. double dipping wasn't of a great concern to everyone.
then, at some point in the night, we heard the distinct, squealing *shoooo* of a firework. we looked up and, indeed, there were fireworks right there--literally OVER OUR HEADS. firework crap was falling in my face and on my food. our whole table (filled with mostly girls under the age of 30) spent half of the show screaming and ducking, half laughing and awing at the show. after it was done, we tried to explain to our foreign friends why this was so weird to americans. we need at LEAST 100m between viewers and the fireworks themselves. in thailand, nbd. safety? what?
anyway, drinking commenced and you can take the story wherever you want from there.
lopburi monkeys
this morning, we woke up realllllllll early to go to lopburi for the monkey festival. we were told there would be hundreds of monkeys running all over this ancient wat, eating human food and opening cans of coke. the monkeys would walk right up to you and steal your stuff if you weren't careful.
not a lie. i think i understand the people who nay say the "monkey as a pet" idea now.
we walked up to the monkeys chillin on the wat and, not really knowing what i was in for and thinking all monkeys must be as friendly as curious george, i touched one. awwww.
then it made a hissy face at me and smacked my forehead. touché, monkey.
after that, i realized maybe monkeys weren't so cuddly, so i sort of let them do their thing. i took TONS of pictures, most of which look the same (but the monkeys never get less cute! damn their meanness). a few of us were just hanging out on one side of the wat; a monkey had jumped on matt and he was busy trying to ask it where his monkey friends took his glasses (because really, they stole his glasses right off his head...bitches). i felt a shove on my back, and at first i thought it was sam pushing me. weird, i thought, because i hadn't really done anything to provoke a shove from him...
...but he was still a couple feet away from me. and a monkey was on my back. then his friend was on my back, and then they were both sifting through my hair like they were looking for delicious bugs. they stole my hair thing and did something that felt like gnawing on my scalp (monkey deep scalp treatment?) i broke into a fit of laughter, because really, what else do you do when there are two monkeys on your back and they're sort of ripping out your hair in an adorably and slightly painful monkey way?
(p.s. kristina, these subheads are completely inspired by your blog. excellent idea.)
ever since we met the thai teachers waaaaaay back at orientation, they've been talking about how the school is turning 80. what a big deal it is, they kept gushing. so last night was finally the big night--the dinner party for sa-nguan ying's 80th birthday.
we got to school just after 6:30 pm (because it started at 6 pm) and were welcomed by huge fluorescent lights, huge trees made of lights, a gigantic stage, four giant screens throughout what's usually a soccer field and outdoor gymnasium.
it looked NOTHING like a high school.
noon, another thai teacher in our office, was sitting at our table when we got there. she pointed out that we had water, soda, and whiskey for drinking. a bottle of whiskey for every table. you only turn 80 once. we were served a bunch of dishes and dug in to them collectively. everyone at the 8-person table dug in with their chopsticks. double dipping wasn't of a great concern to everyone.
then, at some point in the night, we heard the distinct, squealing *shoooo* of a firework. we looked up and, indeed, there were fireworks right there--literally OVER OUR HEADS. firework crap was falling in my face and on my food. our whole table (filled with mostly girls under the age of 30) spent half of the show screaming and ducking, half laughing and awing at the show. after it was done, we tried to explain to our foreign friends why this was so weird to americans. we need at LEAST 100m between viewers and the fireworks themselves. in thailand, nbd. safety? what?
anyway, drinking commenced and you can take the story wherever you want from there.
lopburi monkeys
this morning, we woke up realllllllll early to go to lopburi for the monkey festival. we were told there would be hundreds of monkeys running all over this ancient wat, eating human food and opening cans of coke. the monkeys would walk right up to you and steal your stuff if you weren't careful.
not a lie. i think i understand the people who nay say the "monkey as a pet" idea now.
we walked up to the monkeys chillin on the wat and, not really knowing what i was in for and thinking all monkeys must be as friendly as curious george, i touched one. awwww.
then it made a hissy face at me and smacked my forehead. touché, monkey.
after that, i realized maybe monkeys weren't so cuddly, so i sort of let them do their thing. i took TONS of pictures, most of which look the same (but the monkeys never get less cute! damn their meanness). a few of us were just hanging out on one side of the wat; a monkey had jumped on matt and he was busy trying to ask it where his monkey friends took his glasses (because really, they stole his glasses right off his head...bitches). i felt a shove on my back, and at first i thought it was sam pushing me. weird, i thought, because i hadn't really done anything to provoke a shove from him...
...but he was still a couple feet away from me. and a monkey was on my back. then his friend was on my back, and then they were both sifting through my hair like they were looking for delicious bugs. they stole my hair thing and did something that felt like gnawing on my scalp (monkey deep scalp treatment?) i broke into a fit of laughter, because really, what else do you do when there are two monkeys on your back and they're sort of ripping out your hair in an adorably and slightly painful monkey way?
(p.s. kristina, these subheads are completely inspired by your blog. excellent idea.)
28.11.09
sleeping in?
we don't have any plans today, so i got to sleep in (until 8:30, and that i even call that sleeping in is a terrible sign). we're gonna go on a run, head to the market, maybe watch a movie, maybe wander around town, maybe play games, maybe do nothing. we realized last night we haven't really done this--this we-have-nothing-to-do-all-day-tomorrow thing--at all since we got here.
ahhhhhh what a good feeling. hello, lazy saturday. it's nice to see you.
ahhhhhh what a good feeling. hello, lazy saturday. it's nice to see you.
27.11.09
a burger and fries
it's my i'm-not-in-america-but-i-need-to-celebrate-thanksgiving-anyway tradition. paris 2007, it was a huge, delicious, meaty burger at "breakfast in america." two years later, i had a not so huge but just as delicious burger at some place off khaosan road in thailand. excellent choice.
why travel all the way to bangkok when the thai-farang place across the street in suphanburi sells a mean burger, nicki? well, friend, let me tell you. maddy, sam, ally, and i needed to get tickets to go to koh phi phi for new years and rumor had it tickets were significantly cheaper if you bought them at the station itself. and it only takes an hour and a half or so to get there, so nbd. we went.
it was sort of a weird day for me. i realized this blog has mostly just been a bullet by bullet summary of everything i've done, which is all fine and good, but i haven't talked about my feelings much (shocking, i know).
but i was homesick today. and now i feel like i need to talk about emotions (nat's dying of happiness right now). i don't think i let on too much, but i was missing home real bad. it seems like we've been talking a lot about home lately cuz of the holidays, and just thinking about how much i love thanksgiving week in san ramon made me wish i could go back, just for a couple days. when i started to explain thanksgiving to my wonderful first class this morning, my chest twisted and my words stopped themselves in my throat for a second.
these little bouts of homesickness aren't really a big deal. i'm still so happy for thailand, and so happy about my friends here, and i'm not thinking about going home at all. just...some days i miss california and my family (in every sense of the word) more than others. i'm thankful for the good life i have in the states and here in thailand.
why travel all the way to bangkok when the thai-farang place across the street in suphanburi sells a mean burger, nicki? well, friend, let me tell you. maddy, sam, ally, and i needed to get tickets to go to koh phi phi for new years and rumor had it tickets were significantly cheaper if you bought them at the station itself. and it only takes an hour and a half or so to get there, so nbd. we went.
it was sort of a weird day for me. i realized this blog has mostly just been a bullet by bullet summary of everything i've done, which is all fine and good, but i haven't talked about my feelings much (shocking, i know).
but i was homesick today. and now i feel like i need to talk about emotions (nat's dying of happiness right now). i don't think i let on too much, but i was missing home real bad. it seems like we've been talking a lot about home lately cuz of the holidays, and just thinking about how much i love thanksgiving week in san ramon made me wish i could go back, just for a couple days. when i started to explain thanksgiving to my wonderful first class this morning, my chest twisted and my words stopped themselves in my throat for a second.
these little bouts of homesickness aren't really a big deal. i'm still so happy for thailand, and so happy about my friends here, and i'm not thinking about going home at all. just...some days i miss california and my family (in every sense of the word) more than others. i'm thankful for the good life i have in the states and here in thailand.
25.11.09
so, would you like a job?
after class, maddy and i walked into the teachers' office and saw tons of strangers milling about. kanchana introduced us to a short woman dressed in an elaborate thai costume, and a guy started snapping pictures of us chatting with the woman.
turns out all of these people (maybe 10 or so) are from a university which may or may not have been kasetsart university...i dunno, i couldn't really understand her. the camera man directed us outside so we could all take a picture together, then the group picture devolved into small talk. tahsh, maddy, and i talked to this short university professor/administrator for maybe 20 minutes about nothing in particular--how she spent some time in los angeles and rode the bus, about how we don't like busy cities that much, about how there's a buffalo village in suphanburi, blah blah blah.
once or twice, the tiny woman sort of joked about us working at the university when we finished our contracts, but i sort of figured it was a complete joke. but then, right at the end of the conversation, right when everyone was leaving, the tiny woman called over this other university man.
"ask them to work at the university."
so right there, in the middle of the hallway at our school (a school we've only taught at for a month! out of a year-long contract!), a man offered us jobs as university professors. doesn't matter what credentials we have, doesn't matter how much we've taught, nothing. we just know how to speak english, and that's good enough to be a university professor.
oh, and just to be sure we knew he was serious, the man leaned in at the end of the conversation and goes, "we offer 35...35,000 baht for 12 hours a week. five hundred baht for every hour over that."
SO, all of my jobless friends, don't worry so much. know that you're already qualified to be a university professor in thailand.
turns out all of these people (maybe 10 or so) are from a university which may or may not have been kasetsart university...i dunno, i couldn't really understand her. the camera man directed us outside so we could all take a picture together, then the group picture devolved into small talk. tahsh, maddy, and i talked to this short university professor/administrator for maybe 20 minutes about nothing in particular--how she spent some time in los angeles and rode the bus, about how we don't like busy cities that much, about how there's a buffalo village in suphanburi, blah blah blah.
once or twice, the tiny woman sort of joked about us working at the university when we finished our contracts, but i sort of figured it was a complete joke. but then, right at the end of the conversation, right when everyone was leaving, the tiny woman called over this other university man.
"ask them to work at the university."
so right there, in the middle of the hallway at our school (a school we've only taught at for a month! out of a year-long contract!), a man offered us jobs as university professors. doesn't matter what credentials we have, doesn't matter how much we've taught, nothing. we just know how to speak english, and that's good enough to be a university professor.
oh, and just to be sure we knew he was serious, the man leaned in at the end of the conversation and goes, "we offer 35...35,000 baht for 12 hours a week. five hundred baht for every hour over that."
SO, all of my jobless friends, don't worry so much. know that you're already qualified to be a university professor in thailand.
24.11.09
the ability to make pancakes and grilled cheese
that's what i want. man, if i could make some banana pancakes in the morning on the weekend, life would be sweet. how jack johnson of me.
i hope hot plates aren't too expensive here. maddy and i might splurge on one once we get paid. december first i'll be rollin' in baht, making grilled cheese sandwiches, and riding my bike places. (oh, i want money to buy a bike, too. if that wasn't clear.)
i hope hot plates aren't too expensive here. maddy and i might splurge on one once we get paid. december first i'll be rollin' in baht, making grilled cheese sandwiches, and riding my bike places. (oh, i want money to buy a bike, too. if that wasn't clear.)
23.11.09
starbucks, burritos, pizza, spaghetti, and wine
overall, thailand is suiting me quite well. i’m loving the food; the people are enchanting; being able to wear skirts pretty much all the time and never having to be concerned about bringing a jacket out are pretty awesome things. but after a month here (one month anniversary was on friday!), I was sort of craving a bit of amerikuh goodness.
enter chiang mai, complete with burritos, sandwiches, shocking amounts of English speakers, and starbucks. ohhhhh, starbucks. I didn’t realize what a shameless consumerist I’d become until I saw the starbucks here and squealed.
we (maddy, ally, tahsh, and i) left suphanburi around 3:30 pm on Tuesday and, after an hour+ long van ride (100 baht/~$3) and an expensive, equally long taxi ride (~80 baht each/~$2.90), we got to the airport to pick up our train tickets. since we bought them online, we had to pick them up not at the train station but the airport. logic completely escaped these train ticket sellers because 1) they didn’t put the pick up desk at the train station, where the trains ACTUALLY ARE 2) they put them at the airport, which is an hour away from the train station in half-decent traffic 3) not only were the tickets at the airport, but they were at a random cargo station, which is a shuttle ride away from the regular part of the airport where normal people put pick up desks.
whatever. that story’s probably not going to come off nearly as confusing/hilarious as it was in person, so just trust when I say it was a crazy time. we finally got our tickets, made it to the train station, and hopped on our overnight train. maddy and i took some sleeping drugs and slept like babies on the way up there, and when we finally pulled into the station just after 1 pm, i felt completely well rested (though i was starving--shitty breakfast food on the train. whoda thunk).
we checked into our hostel ("a little bird," it was called. i highly recommend it) and the first item on the list was food. western food, to be exact. we'd heard about the delicious western food all over the city, but even so, when we walked across the street to a burrito place, we nearly fainted when we saw the deliciousness of the food. OH MY GOD I'VE MISSED BURRITOS.
on thursday we woke up reallllllll early in the morning to do the gibbon experience, which was a 15-platform zip line thing through the jungles just north (i think) of chiang mai. phenomenal. the pictures tell better stories (but don't judge me...harnesses make everyone look bad).
the rest of the trip was punctuated by tons of shopping, lots of delicious (if expensive) eating of solely western food (hence the title), gallons of coffee drinking, and lots of hanging out with friends from the north. these names won't mean a thing to most of you, but we met up with nancy, brian, brian's friend joe, markus, and cindy, and i was overjoyed. it's weird how close we became during that orientation week, and how much i've missed this people in the three weeks since i've last seen them, and how comfortable i felt with them. thailand friends, you're pretty neat.
this won't be the final chiang mai trip, not by a long shot. i just want to exist in coffee shops there a lot more.
enter chiang mai, complete with burritos, sandwiches, shocking amounts of English speakers, and starbucks. ohhhhh, starbucks. I didn’t realize what a shameless consumerist I’d become until I saw the starbucks here and squealed.
we (maddy, ally, tahsh, and i) left suphanburi around 3:30 pm on Tuesday and, after an hour+ long van ride (100 baht/~$3) and an expensive, equally long taxi ride (~80 baht each/~$2.90), we got to the airport to pick up our train tickets. since we bought them online, we had to pick them up not at the train station but the airport. logic completely escaped these train ticket sellers because 1) they didn’t put the pick up desk at the train station, where the trains ACTUALLY ARE 2) they put them at the airport, which is an hour away from the train station in half-decent traffic 3) not only were the tickets at the airport, but they were at a random cargo station, which is a shuttle ride away from the regular part of the airport where normal people put pick up desks.
whatever. that story’s probably not going to come off nearly as confusing/hilarious as it was in person, so just trust when I say it was a crazy time. we finally got our tickets, made it to the train station, and hopped on our overnight train. maddy and i took some sleeping drugs and slept like babies on the way up there, and when we finally pulled into the station just after 1 pm, i felt completely well rested (though i was starving--shitty breakfast food on the train. whoda thunk).
we checked into our hostel ("a little bird," it was called. i highly recommend it) and the first item on the list was food. western food, to be exact. we'd heard about the delicious western food all over the city, but even so, when we walked across the street to a burrito place, we nearly fainted when we saw the deliciousness of the food. OH MY GOD I'VE MISSED BURRITOS.
on thursday we woke up reallllllll early in the morning to do the gibbon experience, which was a 15-platform zip line thing through the jungles just north (i think) of chiang mai. phenomenal. the pictures tell better stories (but don't judge me...harnesses make everyone look bad).
the rest of the trip was punctuated by tons of shopping, lots of delicious (if expensive) eating of solely western food (hence the title), gallons of coffee drinking, and lots of hanging out with friends from the north. these names won't mean a thing to most of you, but we met up with nancy, brian, brian's friend joe, markus, and cindy, and i was overjoyed. it's weird how close we became during that orientation week, and how much i've missed this people in the three weeks since i've last seen them, and how comfortable i felt with them. thailand friends, you're pretty neat.
this won't be the final chiang mai trip, not by a long shot. i just want to exist in coffee shops there a lot more.
17.11.09
exploring the north
going away for the weekend again. indeed, the weekend is starting on a tuesday. you're jealous, i know. we're headed up to chiang mai for the weekend. well, assuming we get on the right van from suphanburi to bangkok, get a taxi from the center of bangkok to the big airport, find where we pick up our train tickets, hop in a taxi to the train station, and make it on our train by 10 pm, then we'll be in chiang mai tomorrow. there's a lot of room for mess ups/delays/really bad things to happen tonight en route. yeesh. i'm nervous eating right now.
anyway, i'm pretty sure we're gonna make it, and once we're up there i'm not gonna be on the internet. weird, i know, especially for this girl. so again, i apologize for the lack of updating and such, but i'll make it up to you on monday.
peace out, friends :-D
random side note: the most serious man in our office is blasting beyonce on his lap top right now. 555
anyway, i'm pretty sure we're gonna make it, and once we're up there i'm not gonna be on the internet. weird, i know, especially for this girl. so again, i apologize for the lack of updating and such, but i'll make it up to you on monday.
peace out, friends :-D
random side note: the most serious man in our office is blasting beyonce on his lap top right now. 555
16.11.09
karaoke
today's tahsh's 25th birthday (in america...in china, it'd be her 26th, apparently), so the night was up to her. her only goal? to sing karaoke.
but first we had to eat. obviously. because it's a main part of living here. so we went to a place just down the road, and then a hilarious thing happened. tahsh was enjoying her second dish of the night (number one was not delicious) when she bit down on something hard in her egg: a screw. a screw was sitting there in her egg, in the middle of her noodles. we laughed hysterically (i think i might have done a semblance of the seal laugh), then sunny told tahsh she should tell the cook.
so tahsh waves the cook over, points to the screw and asks, "what's that?"
"gung," (shrimp) the cook says first, like tahsh is some sort of idiot.
"no, that!" tahsh pointed again to the screw. the cook sort of looked at it funny, knew it didn't belong, and then stuck her fingers in the meal, took the screw out, and walked away like it was nothing. it wasn't a dainty little "ooo, i'm just going to stick the tips of my very clean fingers in here to fish out this gross thing! sorry!" the cook's dirty fingers slammed into the dish, touched more of the meal than was necessary and grabbed the screw like it was gonna jump back out of her hands.
after that whole fiasco, with sore abs and empty plates (yes, tahsh finished hers, mostly cuz she's a baller), mr wat, our thai man friend, met us at the dinner place so we could all go to karaoke together. he said he'd take us to the best place in town, and we trusted him, so off we went. the group sort of dwindled down so it was only sam, maddy, tahsh, mr. wat, and i going to the karaoke place. these people are easily my least favorite of everybody i know in the world, so i super wasn't looking forward to it, but whatever.
we pulled up to the fanciest hotel in suphanburi and headed to the 6th floor cuz we're super pimps. the fancy waitresses greeted us as we stepped out of the elevator and lead us to our own private karaoke room. I KNOW. hilarity ensued. tahsh is the greatest karaoke-ist i've ever seen.
birthdays are pretty neat in this country.
i guess i have a job?
i was accepted to the teach in thailand program in may. in july, i was given a placement in a thai school. in october, i flew to thailand with the intention of being trained as a teacher so i could work in said school. last week, i signed a contract saying i agreed to a bunch of terms as a teacher at this school. on paper, it looks exactly like i have a real-person job.
but if you looked at me and watched me for a while, you'd never guess that what i'm doing all day is working. this isn't one of those "oh my god, i just love my job soooooooo much!!! i would never call it WORK! it's the best thing ever!!!!111!!" literally, i hardly ever work. i have 3-5 classes a day, but we get time off all the time. i'm only working two days this week; last week, we only taught for a day and a half. i actually don't think we've had a full week of teaching yet.
even when we do have a full day, it's full of all this great stuff that's not teaching. like today's tahsh's birthday, so the teachers have been shoving food down our throats all day ("here, it's 9:15 am, have some fresh salad. keep eating it because there's a lot left. here, have some cake. here, have some ice cream on bread. here, have some pineapple. here, eat some cookies, they're your favorite. never stop eating, fat americans."). maddy went to her class at least 20 minutes late because we were singing happy birthday. don't worry, the teachers said; the kids will wait for you.
and even when i go to class, it's not like the teachers are expecting much of me. just play games and have the kids practice english for an hour. it doesn't matter what it is. just have them speak english. it'll be fine.
this job rules.
but if you looked at me and watched me for a while, you'd never guess that what i'm doing all day is working. this isn't one of those "oh my god, i just love my job soooooooo much!!! i would never call it WORK! it's the best thing ever!!!!111!!" literally, i hardly ever work. i have 3-5 classes a day, but we get time off all the time. i'm only working two days this week; last week, we only taught for a day and a half. i actually don't think we've had a full week of teaching yet.
even when we do have a full day, it's full of all this great stuff that's not teaching. like today's tahsh's birthday, so the teachers have been shoving food down our throats all day ("here, it's 9:15 am, have some fresh salad. keep eating it because there's a lot left. here, have some cake. here, have some ice cream on bread. here, have some pineapple. here, eat some cookies, they're your favorite. never stop eating, fat americans."). maddy went to her class at least 20 minutes late because we were singing happy birthday. don't worry, the teachers said; the kids will wait for you.
and even when i go to class, it's not like the teachers are expecting much of me. just play games and have the kids practice english for an hour. it doesn't matter what it is. just have them speak english. it'll be fine.
this job rules.
14.11.09
i'm dressed like an 8-year-old
yesterday the thai teachers told us we would be singing "que sera, sera" karaoke-style in front of the whole school today. they specified that we should dress like little girls.
professionalism out the door. hilarity of being a white person, come on in.
professionalism out the door. hilarity of being a white person, come on in.
13.11.09
justin timberlake
it turns out "exhibition day" is actually a huge, school-wide carnival. the students have their own booths with delicious food, drinks, jewelery, clothes, blah blah blah. some of them have booths with games, there's a big aquarium touch-tank type deal in the gym, there's a haunted house upstairs (and actually, maybe a second haunted house in another building, but i'm not sure), music's blasting everywhere (so much katy perry)...it's stupendous. exhibition was not used right here. the word our teachers were searching for is "carnival." and maybe the adjectives "freaking awesome" in front of it.
so we decided to ditch pictionary early on because it would've been too hard. instead, we got a map of the US and some star stickers, and gave the students a chance to put the sticker where they want to visit in the US. new york seemed to be the most popular, but there were some surprising answers. like denver swooped in from outta nowhere. one kid came up and asked me about norfolk (which i made him point out because i had NO CLUE where it was. it's virginia, by the way). another student came up to the board very confidently and stuck her star right on las vegas. some students spent forever looking at alllllllllll their choices, like they were actually planning a trip.
but my favorite conversation...ohhh boy. here, i'll dialogue it for you:
"teacher, where is tennessee?"
(bizarre state to choose, but okay. let's hear why.)
"oh, it's right here. why do you want to go to tennessee?"
"oh umm...justin timberlake."
(personal nicki freak out)
"i LOVE justin timberlake! do you like *nsync?"
this girl and i talked for a few minutes about *nsync and justin, and then she told me she liked justin cuz her older sister liked justin. she made a "wait one second" motion with her hand and came back a few minutes later with her older sister (the two were 13 and 15 years old). i talked with the older sister for five entire minutes--in english!--about justin. about how i'd seen him four times in concert, how he and jessica biel were getting married ("i heard that was just gossip," she said), how some of jc's songs are good, sometimes even better than justin's because sometimes justin's voice is too high-pitched ("but i still love him!" she squealed). she also likes ashley tisdale, high school musical in general, taylor swift, and some carrie underwood ("she is soooo beautiful"). she feels so-so about miley cyrus.
easily the best thai child-nicki interaction to date. justin unites people around the world.
so we decided to ditch pictionary early on because it would've been too hard. instead, we got a map of the US and some star stickers, and gave the students a chance to put the sticker where they want to visit in the US. new york seemed to be the most popular, but there were some surprising answers. like denver swooped in from outta nowhere. one kid came up and asked me about norfolk (which i made him point out because i had NO CLUE where it was. it's virginia, by the way). another student came up to the board very confidently and stuck her star right on las vegas. some students spent forever looking at alllllllllll their choices, like they were actually planning a trip.
but my favorite conversation...ohhh boy. here, i'll dialogue it for you:
"teacher, where is tennessee?"
(bizarre state to choose, but okay. let's hear why.)
"oh, it's right here. why do you want to go to tennessee?"
"oh umm...justin timberlake."
(personal nicki freak out)
"i LOVE justin timberlake! do you like *nsync?"
this girl and i talked for a few minutes about *nsync and justin, and then she told me she liked justin cuz her older sister liked justin. she made a "wait one second" motion with her hand and came back a few minutes later with her older sister (the two were 13 and 15 years old). i talked with the older sister for five entire minutes--in english!--about justin. about how i'd seen him four times in concert, how he and jessica biel were getting married ("i heard that was just gossip," she said), how some of jc's songs are good, sometimes even better than justin's because sometimes justin's voice is too high-pitched ("but i still love him!" she squealed). she also likes ashley tisdale, high school musical in general, taylor swift, and some carrie underwood ("she is soooo beautiful"). she feels so-so about miley cyrus.
easily the best thai child-nicki interaction to date. justin unites people around the world.
the exhibition
it's happening today. it's apparently a huge deal, but we have almost zero idea what's going on. if you want to know anything around here, you have to piece together bits of different conversations from different people. last week, kanchana told us the thai teachers wanted us to come up with some game ideas because the teachers weren't creative enough. (it seems to be a widely held belief among thais that foreigners know and are really good at tons of games for students.) so we brainstormed a whole list and showed kanchana on monday. she just told us to write down what supplies we'd need to play the games.
ok, so apparently we're leading these games. for how many students? we had no idea. we only knew it'd be in the downstairs area.
yesterday, they asked us how we wanted our board decorated, how many chairs we wanted, and how many tables we wanted. just tell the students what you want and they'll give it to you.
um...we have no idea what's going on. we'd love to be able to order the students around like slaves, but we have no clue what the end game here is, so it's pretty hard to organize some means. we tried to ask bird and other teachers what we were supposed to be doing, but everyone repeatedly just told us to "play games. just play games." then they'd quiz us incessantly on what games we were playing. JUST PICTIONARY, OK? we're just playing pictionary with an unknown number of students, maybe from different schools, maybe from different areas, maybe with their parents. we'll just have to see what kind of games work once the day starts because we have almost zero idea what to do.
exhibition day starts in 15 minutes. wish us luck. expect pictures.
ok, so apparently we're leading these games. for how many students? we had no idea. we only knew it'd be in the downstairs area.
yesterday, they asked us how we wanted our board decorated, how many chairs we wanted, and how many tables we wanted. just tell the students what you want and they'll give it to you.
um...we have no idea what's going on. we'd love to be able to order the students around like slaves, but we have no clue what the end game here is, so it's pretty hard to organize some means. we tried to ask bird and other teachers what we were supposed to be doing, but everyone repeatedly just told us to "play games. just play games." then they'd quiz us incessantly on what games we were playing. JUST PICTIONARY, OK? we're just playing pictionary with an unknown number of students, maybe from different schools, maybe from different areas, maybe with their parents. we'll just have to see what kind of games work once the day starts because we have almost zero idea what to do.
exhibition day starts in 15 minutes. wish us luck. expect pictures.
11.11.09
buddhist monks in the morning, concert in the afternoon
we didn't have class today (as usual. i swear, i've spent more days NOT working at sanguan ying than i have working. no complaints here.). the thai teachers explained to us that there would be buddhist monks coming to bless this new building at the school so the school could be prosperous. during the ceremony, the students and teachers also stuck all this money on to a money tree. the money will go to the monks and the school (but mostly the school, says our coordinator. they're hoping this new buildling will be air conditioned).
so at 9 am, in this sticky, hot heat, we went to the monk ceremony. all the kids were sitting down in the outdoor gym/auditorium, watching the 10 or so monks sitting up on stage. a lot of stuff went on in thai. i got sweaty and bored.
in the afternoon, the thai teachers explained, there would be a concert to promote a drug-free lifestyle. awesome. so i'm figuring it's gonna be a small thing. maybe a local band, maybe some students who are really good on the drums. not a big deal.
SO SO FALSE. it was huge. girls were screaming like we were at a beatles reunion tour or something. three bands came: some thai named band, the worm, and spinhead. the LOVE these bands. oh holy crap. they were rushing the stage, screaming at a pitch that would've broken windows had we been indoors. the girls at the front stuck their hands up just to touch the lead singer's hands, just for a second. after the worm had finished playing, they were out in their van and a crap ton of girls bumrushed the van, begging for pictures and autographs.
they were the jonas brothers, thailand. maddy said their clothes looked like they literally got them off the jo bros' backs. it's good to know middle and high school girls all around the world are the same.
here, just in case you're craving some spinhead now, check it out:
http://video.mthai.com/player.php?id=14M1177330526M0
so at 9 am, in this sticky, hot heat, we went to the monk ceremony. all the kids were sitting down in the outdoor gym/auditorium, watching the 10 or so monks sitting up on stage. a lot of stuff went on in thai. i got sweaty and bored.
in the afternoon, the thai teachers explained, there would be a concert to promote a drug-free lifestyle. awesome. so i'm figuring it's gonna be a small thing. maybe a local band, maybe some students who are really good on the drums. not a big deal.
SO SO FALSE. it was huge. girls were screaming like we were at a beatles reunion tour or something. three bands came: some thai named band, the worm, and spinhead. the LOVE these bands. oh holy crap. they were rushing the stage, screaming at a pitch that would've broken windows had we been indoors. the girls at the front stuck their hands up just to touch the lead singer's hands, just for a second. after the worm had finished playing, they were out in their van and a crap ton of girls bumrushed the van, begging for pictures and autographs.
they were the jonas brothers, thailand. maddy said their clothes looked like they literally got them off the jo bros' backs. it's good to know middle and high school girls all around the world are the same.
here, just in case you're craving some spinhead now, check it out:
http://video.mthai.com/player.php?id=14M1177330526M0
9.11.09
is this racist?
"we need to go get some blasians." (indeed, this is a mix between a black baby and an asian baby. way cuter than a white baby.)
(in the same conversation about multiracial babies) "so this guy was a canadian..."
(after watching "charlie bit my finger" on youtube) "i don't think black people have seen this."
ab work out tonight.
(in the same conversation about multiracial babies) "so this guy was a canadian..."
(after watching "charlie bit my finger" on youtube) "i don't think black people have seen this."
ab work out tonight.
the art of squatting to pee
we have one western-style toilet in the teachers' bathrooms. for the first week and a half of school, tash, maddy, and i were lovin' it. we have to bring our own toilet paper to school, but it's not a big deal.
then last week, the door to the western toilet was mysteriously locked. we were forced to use something i thought i would only use on rural trips: a squat toilet. there's a whole row of them in the bathroom just next to the western-style toilet.
then last week, the door to the western toilet was mysteriously locked. we were forced to use something i thought i would only use on rural trips: a squat toilet. there's a whole row of them in the bathroom just next to the western-style toilet.
the western toilet's been locked for almost a week now, so we've had to resort to using the squat toilet. if you've ever been in a desperate pee situation with me (out camping, out after a night of drinking but far away from usable toilets, etc.), you know how bad i am at squatting and peeing. i always end up getting it on my shoes or a little bit on the edge of my pants or other gross things like that. i'm even terrible at squatting over a western toilet in a public bathroom. i'll usually resort to making my own cover out of toilet paper and just sitting on it over hovering for that dreaded 45 seconds. my thighs must be weak.
but apparently, they'll be getting stronger if that damn western toilet never opens up. squatting to pee presents a few questions. our squat toilets are raised off the ground about six inches; do i put my feet on the ground, or on the sides of the toilet? do i aim for the porcelain bowl or the water down below? how far down do i squat?
i can feel it in my thighs after every pee session. maybe these toilets are how asian people stay so much skinnier than us.
6.11.09
ayutthaya and apologies
1. AYUTTHAYA THIS WEEKEND! this should be beautiful. we have bike rides around ancient temples planned. i'm a happy girl.
2. i apologize because i probably won't be near a computer this weekend, so i won't be able to give you minute-by-minute updates. i know, i know, you're crying. i'm sorry. on sunday, i'm gonna get really serious about uploading pictures and hopefully (fingers crossed really hard) i'll finally get caught up on pictures. i'm pathetically and inexcusably far behind.
2. i apologize because i probably won't be near a computer this weekend, so i won't be able to give you minute-by-minute updates. i know, i know, you're crying. i'm sorry. on sunday, i'm gonna get really serious about uploading pictures and hopefully (fingers crossed really hard) i'll finally get caught up on pictures. i'm pathetically and inexcusably far behind.
5.11.09
thursday, third period
10:10 am--bell rings
10:15 am--i arrive in the classroom. no students.
10:25 am--still no students. keep in mind, this class only goes until 11 am, and the kids only have english with me once a week.
10:30 am--students finally trickle in. we're still missing half the class.
10:35 am--miew says the students are ready. the kids don't stand up and greet me or anything. i just start...halfway through class.
10:45 am--even more students walk in. we've started the activity already, so i tell them they can just sit to the side and wait. they ignore me.
10:47 am--i get mad at a kid for talking; i shush and look angrily at the whole class; i get mad at another kid for wearing headphones and having NO IDEA what's going on.
10:50 am--i scold the same kid for putting his headphones back in.
10:55 am--i decide to give these stupid kids some homework.
teacher nicki mad.
10:15 am--i arrive in the classroom. no students.
10:25 am--still no students. keep in mind, this class only goes until 11 am, and the kids only have english with me once a week.
10:30 am--students finally trickle in. we're still missing half the class.
10:35 am--miew says the students are ready. the kids don't stand up and greet me or anything. i just start...halfway through class.
10:45 am--even more students walk in. we've started the activity already, so i tell them they can just sit to the side and wait. they ignore me.
10:47 am--i get mad at a kid for talking; i shush and look angrily at the whole class; i get mad at another kid for wearing headphones and having NO IDEA what's going on.
10:50 am--i scold the same kid for putting his headphones back in.
10:55 am--i decide to give these stupid kids some homework.
teacher nicki mad.
3.11.09
"um, it was good"
one of the other thai teachers in the office, miew, got married on sunday. she didn't even mention it last week; we found out through the grapevine from a teacher in a different office. when we asked her last thursday, she sort of smiled and shrugged and went, "who did you find out from?" no glowing. no nothing.
she wasn't around yesterday, so we asked her about it when she walked in just a second ago.
"good morning, miew."
"ohh, good morning."
"how was your wedding?"
(miew shrugs again, sort of looks to the floor, shakes her head, looks up with a half-smile) "it was okay. good."
that's it. no honeymoon, no wedding photos, no gushing over a gorgeous dress and no giggles about the first night as a married couple. basically just another sunday, but this time with her wedding. nbd.
she wasn't around yesterday, so we asked her about it when she walked in just a second ago.
"good morning, miew."
"ohh, good morning."
"how was your wedding?"
(miew shrugs again, sort of looks to the floor, shakes her head, looks up with a half-smile) "it was okay. good."
that's it. no honeymoon, no wedding photos, no gushing over a gorgeous dress and no giggles about the first night as a married couple. basically just another sunday, but this time with her wedding. nbd.
penny and peter
"come here, nicki." kanchana, our coordinator, stood near the window and motioned to me to come over. she pulled aside the curtain and pointed to a pigeon.
"pigeon is hurt, so we have to let it get better until it can fly again. one week, maybe two. we let it get better." in a cardboard box in the corner of my porch sat a sick-looking pigeon, missing a few feathers and looking like she'd seen better days.
but here's the thing. she's not always alone. sometimes, there are two pigeons. i couldn't really figure it out for a while; i didn't know if maybe there were always two pigeons and i just didn't look hard enough before. but no, there was indeed only one pigeon sometimes, two other times. penny and peter, i decided to call them (because maddy's around, and since she names everything, i might as well, too). penny is the injured one. she managed to hop out of the cardboard box and now spends most of her days in the corner. peter flies in to keep her company (and food/water, i assume, because she's still alive), usually at night.
it's a bird love story.
whenever i open a curtain to look at them, both of their eyes bug out and peter scoots closer to penny, protecting her from whatever potential evil i might inflict on her (which is obviously nothing, but how is he to know that?). so i try to give them their privacy, but i still check on them everyday because i'm a worried momma. for the last week, they've just been in the corner, waiting for health to float down on penny. nothing's really changed.
this morning, both of them were standing and walking around. my face broke into a proud-momma smile and i came immediately here to tell you guys about it. i think it's a good sign for today.
banana tree stumps, fireworks, and beauty competitions: loi kratong 2009
i keep waiting for things to calm down here. i keep waiting for a boring day, for a day when i might just miss the usa, for a day when all i want to do is go to bed.
but it's just not happening. every day has been beautiful in some way. oh, god, i sound so lame when i say crap like that. whatever.
today was loi kratong (often spelled loy kratong, but since romanizing thai words is all a phonetic guessing game anyway, i decided i'd like to spell it l-o-i), which meant no classes, an introduction speech from us farang in front of the entire school, and a traditional thai dance put on by us farang ourselves.
oh, yes, friends. we did the dance today. after hours of practice (hmmm...that's actually a generous term for how much serious practicing we did), we took the stage and shook our groove things like nobody's ever seen. here, i'll set the scene for you.
more than three thousand thai kids are sitting in the gymnasium, enjoying the loi kratong assembly and festivities. when i say "enjoying," i mean screaming their heads off any time one of their classmates gets on stage to sing. these kids are easily excitable. after maybe 20 minutes of other performances, our dance leader tuk signals to us that it's our turn, and we line up in order with our partners.
a word about what we look like: bizarre. we've all got our thai costumes on, which for girls means a red jacket with a black wrap around skirt and a scarf-type deal wrapped over our shoulder, and for boys means a neon green shirt with a bright red sash tied around their waist.
as soon as the thai students see us farang walking toward the stage, they go wild. i've never seen an entrance like this at a school, much less for me. we felt precisely like rock stars.
we got on stage, the music started, and we messed up the dances about 80 times. the girls went in when we were supposed to go out, nobody faced the outside of the circle when we needed to, blah blah blah. but we (farang and students) were all cracking up way too much to notice. i know somebody took a video, so i'll try to let you know when that comes in to play.
oh, we gave little introduction "speeches" earlier in the day (speech=two sentences, one says where you're from, the other says how excited you are to be here), but they weren't really a big deal. especially in comparison to the rest of the day.
so on loi kratong, the big to-do is to make a "kratong" (which means something like boat) out of some trunk from a banana tree, the banana tree leaves, and a crap ton of beautiful flowers. then you stick a candle and some incense in it, take it to the river at night, and float it ("loi") in the river. in the afternoon, bird, who's another one of the thai teachers, brought us some kratong stuff and helped us make our own. at the end of the day, she told us to go to this one wat where everybody in town goes for the loi kratong fest.
around 8 pm, seven of us found a taxi (hrmm...don't think of a car when you read this. more like an enhanced motorbike with a tiny, open trailer), showed him the piece of paper bird wrote the name of the wat on, and hopped in. when we got off, we were greeted with fluorescent lights, firecracker noises, and enough kratongs for the world. look at pictures. i can't say that enough when i talk about thailand. my words are a petty excuse for explaining how incredible things are here.
we found our way to the river and set off our kratongs, which is supposed to bring good luck and health. you can write the names of whomever you like on a piece of paper and stick it in your kratong, and legend has it that the buddha will bring all of those people good luck and health. (of course i put your name on it.) you also put a finger nail (which i forgot) and a piece of your hair in the kratong to bring good luck to yourself.
with the kratongs headed down the river, we were content to hang around the festival and soak it in. the guys (ian and sam) got all pyro-happy and found some fireworks. these things aren't regulated here whatsoever (the fireworks, not the boys), so people were setting them off pretty much everywhere. getting hurt potential was at about 78%.
on our tuk tuk ride back, we were all so giddy from such a phenomenal day that we couldn't knock smiles off our faces. now i'm going to bed way later than i planned, and i meant to upload more pictures for you, and i meant to watch that episode of glee, but i don't even care. i fucking love this country.
p.s. i forgot so much stuff. i meant to tell you about the beauty contests, the flying lanterns, the general thrill of tuk tuk rides, and more specifics about kratongs. but this is already a novel, so i'll hold back. i'll save the stories for another time.
but it's just not happening. every day has been beautiful in some way. oh, god, i sound so lame when i say crap like that. whatever.
today was loi kratong (often spelled loy kratong, but since romanizing thai words is all a phonetic guessing game anyway, i decided i'd like to spell it l-o-i), which meant no classes, an introduction speech from us farang in front of the entire school, and a traditional thai dance put on by us farang ourselves.
oh, yes, friends. we did the dance today. after hours of practice (hmmm...that's actually a generous term for how much serious practicing we did), we took the stage and shook our groove things like nobody's ever seen. here, i'll set the scene for you.
more than three thousand thai kids are sitting in the gymnasium, enjoying the loi kratong assembly and festivities. when i say "enjoying," i mean screaming their heads off any time one of their classmates gets on stage to sing. these kids are easily excitable. after maybe 20 minutes of other performances, our dance leader tuk signals to us that it's our turn, and we line up in order with our partners.
a word about what we look like: bizarre. we've all got our thai costumes on, which for girls means a red jacket with a black wrap around skirt and a scarf-type deal wrapped over our shoulder, and for boys means a neon green shirt with a bright red sash tied around their waist.
we got on stage, the music started, and we messed up the dances about 80 times. the girls went in when we were supposed to go out, nobody faced the outside of the circle when we needed to, blah blah blah. but we (farang and students) were all cracking up way too much to notice. i know somebody took a video, so i'll try to let you know when that comes in to play.
oh, we gave little introduction "speeches" earlier in the day (speech=two sentences, one says where you're from, the other says how excited you are to be here), but they weren't really a big deal. especially in comparison to the rest of the day.
so on loi kratong, the big to-do is to make a "kratong" (which means something like boat) out of some trunk from a banana tree, the banana tree leaves, and a crap ton of beautiful flowers. then you stick a candle and some incense in it, take it to the river at night, and float it ("loi") in the river. in the afternoon, bird, who's another one of the thai teachers, brought us some kratong stuff and helped us make our own. at the end of the day, she told us to go to this one wat where everybody in town goes for the loi kratong fest.
around 8 pm, seven of us found a taxi (hrmm...don't think of a car when you read this. more like an enhanced motorbike with a tiny, open trailer), showed him the piece of paper bird wrote the name of the wat on, and hopped in. when we got off, we were greeted with fluorescent lights, firecracker noises, and enough kratongs for the world. look at pictures. i can't say that enough when i talk about thailand. my words are a petty excuse for explaining how incredible things are here.
we found our way to the river and set off our kratongs, which is supposed to bring good luck and health. you can write the names of whomever you like on a piece of paper and stick it in your kratong, and legend has it that the buddha will bring all of those people good luck and health. (of course i put your name on it.) you also put a finger nail (which i forgot) and a piece of your hair in the kratong to bring good luck to yourself.
with the kratongs headed down the river, we were content to hang around the festival and soak it in. the guys (ian and sam) got all pyro-happy and found some fireworks. these things aren't regulated here whatsoever (the fireworks, not the boys), so people were setting them off pretty much everywhere. getting hurt potential was at about 78%.
on our tuk tuk ride back, we were all so giddy from such a phenomenal day that we couldn't knock smiles off our faces. now i'm going to bed way later than i planned, and i meant to upload more pictures for you, and i meant to watch that episode of glee, but i don't even care. i fucking love this country.
p.s. i forgot so much stuff. i meant to tell you about the beauty contests, the flying lanterns, the general thrill of tuk tuk rides, and more specifics about kratongs. but this is already a novel, so i'll hold back. i'll save the stories for another time.
1.11.09
suphanburi, thailand
i'd liken this town to san jose, i suppose. it's about an hour and a half outside of bangkok, depending on how you get there. lots of people live here, but mostly just because they work here. you wouldn't go out of your way to visit suphanburi as a tourist. lots of schools in this area, lots of stores, big ol' mall and a tesco lotus, which is a thai version of target (it's been a fantastic substitute so far).
so even though it's not filled with gorgeous waterfalls, huge buddhist temples, or famous old bridges, this isn't to say there's nothing to see and do in suphanburi. like on thursday night, ally, maddy, and i took a walk toward the river that runs through town, just because we wanted to get outside. we just kept wandering, and eventually stumbled upon this:
just a gigantic dragon, chillin there like it ain't no thang. we asked some people at school about it the next day, and it's apparently a big chinese culture museum. if i did things like actually research a town before i live in it, i probably would've known that, but so it goes. either way, we were massively impressed and plan on going back in the light of day to actually go inside.
then yesterday, on the hottest halloween of my life and also the only one i didn't dress up for (sadface), a bunch of us were wandering the streets of suphanburi on our way to the tower, which is this big thing in the middle-ish of town. we figured we'd get to the bottom of it, look up and go, "whoa, that's really big," then go home.
but then there was a fountain. i just tried to attach a picture but blogger was like, "no, stop it, you can't do this right now," so you'll have to look on fbook. the fountain was a massive circle and water spurted up from the ground, choreographed with some thai tunes. we frolicked (i've never used this word more appropriately) in the fountain forever, then walked home along the river in our comfortably wet clothes. perfect halloween.
just a gigantic dragon, chillin there like it ain't no thang. we asked some people at school about it the next day, and it's apparently a big chinese culture museum. if i did things like actually research a town before i live in it, i probably would've known that, but so it goes. either way, we were massively impressed and plan on going back in the light of day to actually go inside.
then yesterday, on the hottest halloween of my life and also the only one i didn't dress up for (sadface), a bunch of us were wandering the streets of suphanburi on our way to the tower, which is this big thing in the middle-ish of town. we figured we'd get to the bottom of it, look up and go, "whoa, that's really big," then go home.
but then there was a fountain. i just tried to attach a picture but blogger was like, "no, stop it, you can't do this right now," so you'll have to look on fbook. the fountain was a massive circle and water spurted up from the ground, choreographed with some thai tunes. we frolicked (i've never used this word more appropriately) in the fountain forever, then walked home along the river in our comfortably wet clothes. perfect halloween.
30.10.09
that messy teacher
you know that teacher who sweats and gets the blue whiteboard marker all over her face and her white clothes?
that's me.
both wednesday and thursday, i managed to give myself a blue mustache, and yesterday i was smart enough to lean against the eraser holder along the bottom of the white board, which put a huge line of blue across my cream-colored skirt. good job, nicki.
oh, well. the kids don't seem to mind or disrespect me for it, but then again, they're not the type to openly be rude to me. i don't have to teach today...my co-teacher told me yesterday that she'll be doing all the lessons, so i'm just going to sit back and relax.
so one of my activities has been to pair the students up and have them introduce their partner in front of the class. i thought this would be a boring activity and the kids would hate me, but it's turned out to be a riot. even my choosing of partners has lead to hilarity. i paired this guy and this girl up, and when they were called to the front of the classroom, the kids uttered a huge "oOoOOoOoOo!" i leaned over to one of the girls and asked what everyone was so excited about.
her: "they're both the tallest in the class."
me: "ohhhh, so they're going to be in love." (and i make a heart with my hands)
her: (squealing and giggling) "yessss yes!"
so i'm a thai match maker. nbd. later in that same class, two girls came up and everyone just busted up. i asked another girl what was so funny, and she goes, "they have the same hair!"
everyone here has the same hair. seriously, everyone wears a uniform and all the younger girls have to have their hair cut the same (it's at this hideous length right below their ears. tough haircut for a pubescent girl). these two girls who had "the same hair," i guess, maybe hadn't had a haircut for a few weeks? both had their hair parted in the middle?
another question i like to ask the kids is where they want to live. one of the most popular answers from the girls has been korea. in fact, the first girl to mention korea in class usually gets another one of those "oOoOOoOOo!" noises. so i asked them what was so great about korea. i guess there's some sort of singer or multiple singers from korea? my co-teacher tells me they have "korean fever." lolz.
anyway, i'm off to another day of class. this afternoon we get fitted for our thai costumes for monday. one of the american directors took the big sizes to america, so we're going to have to squeeze into some tiny thai ones. this will be interesting.
that's me.
both wednesday and thursday, i managed to give myself a blue mustache, and yesterday i was smart enough to lean against the eraser holder along the bottom of the white board, which put a huge line of blue across my cream-colored skirt. good job, nicki.
oh, well. the kids don't seem to mind or disrespect me for it, but then again, they're not the type to openly be rude to me. i don't have to teach today...my co-teacher told me yesterday that she'll be doing all the lessons, so i'm just going to sit back and relax.
so one of my activities has been to pair the students up and have them introduce their partner in front of the class. i thought this would be a boring activity and the kids would hate me, but it's turned out to be a riot. even my choosing of partners has lead to hilarity. i paired this guy and this girl up, and when they were called to the front of the classroom, the kids uttered a huge "oOoOOoOoOo!" i leaned over to one of the girls and asked what everyone was so excited about.
her: "they're both the tallest in the class."
me: "ohhhh, so they're going to be in love." (and i make a heart with my hands)
her: (squealing and giggling) "yessss yes!"
so i'm a thai match maker. nbd. later in that same class, two girls came up and everyone just busted up. i asked another girl what was so funny, and she goes, "they have the same hair!"
everyone here has the same hair. seriously, everyone wears a uniform and all the younger girls have to have their hair cut the same (it's at this hideous length right below their ears. tough haircut for a pubescent girl). these two girls who had "the same hair," i guess, maybe hadn't had a haircut for a few weeks? both had their hair parted in the middle?
another question i like to ask the kids is where they want to live. one of the most popular answers from the girls has been korea. in fact, the first girl to mention korea in class usually gets another one of those "oOoOOoOOo!" noises. so i asked them what was so great about korea. i guess there's some sort of singer or multiple singers from korea? my co-teacher tells me they have "korean fever." lolz.
anyway, i'm off to another day of class. this afternoon we get fitted for our thai costumes for monday. one of the american directors took the big sizes to america, so we're going to have to squeeze into some tiny thai ones. this will be interesting.
28.10.09
"hello, teacher!"
tash, maddy, and i walked into sanguan ying (school) today at 8 a.m., just as planned. everybody stared at us when we walked through the middle of campus, like we were celebrities. it was just like that scene from 500 days of summer. we needed more group dancing, baseball hitting, and campy music.
we were shown to our desks (hell yeah i have my own desk in the teacher office), so we sat down and started sifting through papers left behind by former english teachers. we were introduced to some other english teachers who would also be our co-teachers (typically they pair a westerner with a thai teacher for the sake of order in the classroom. westerners can't really discipline the kids, so we leave it to the thai teachers. other than punishment, the westerners are in charge). at about 8:35, miew (who is my co-teacher for my M4, or 9th grade, students) came up to me. here's pretty much how the convo went:
other teacher: "nicki, you ready to teach?"
me: "today?"
other teacher: "yes, at 8:30."
me (after i look at the clock and realize that's five minutes ago and i have a minor freak out inside my body): "umm...yeah, i think i can. i would rather start tomorrow, if that's okay."
other teacher: "relax, nicki. just play game."
well, okay, sure. that sounds easy enough. so i get all enthused but also nervous, so i sweat, but that's okay because there isn't a/c in the classroom so i'd be sweating anyway.
the thing about this situation that's most baffling to me is that it wasn't even that big of a deal that i was just thrown into my brand new job with little introduction. the thai teachers didn't seem to mind that i hadn't actually had teaching practice or that i didn't even know what a thai classroom looked like. it was just like, "okay, go on, start teaching. everyone does it. you'll be fine. just head on out. we'll help you if you need, but you probably won't. you'll be great."
and surprisingly, i didn't even do that badly. i used up all of my class time and my students seemed to like me, so it's all good. i did some simple introduction activities (introduced myself, had students pair up then interview and introduce each other) and learned thai kids are their own breed. for example, dark brown and gray were both favorite colors in my classes (and these are classes full of girls). when asked where they wanted to live, more than a handful of my girls in the smart class* said places like "belgium, germany, luxembourg, and "holliand."
since i only have each class once a week, i figure i'll get to use this same lesson until next wednesday. ballin. this teacher thing is the best. we also get free lunch every day, and next monday we foreigners will be participating in the holiday (koy kratong or something like that...i'll probably be able to explain more next week) by doing a traditional thai dance on stage in front of the whole school in the full get up and everything.
SERIOUSLY.
*this is really what the thai teachers call the kids in the gifted class. they openly favor them and like them better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)