Tiger Babies

Of course, as soon as I make a blog post, that is when something out of the ordinary happens. I suppose most of you were trying to understand my ordinary days anyways, so it all works out in a way.

Thursday was our school's teacher appreciation day. It's a day in June where the students craft beautiful and creative flower pot things for the teachers. Unfortunately I didn't know, so I didn't bring my camera that day. Morning classes were gone, pretty much, eaten up by the assembly. They did three different ones, for M1/M4, M2/M5 and M3/M6. One of the teachers from the foreign language department was the adviser for 5/7, so I went with her to the M2/M5 assembly. My students. :)

We got there at the end of M1/M4 which was pretty boring...it is at the end that the director gives a speech in Thai. Blah blah blah, I can't understand. Anyways, I got to see the M1/M4 designs and they were very cool. One had taken a watermelon and carved roses out of it. It was very impressive! I was just going to sit at the side and watch the ceremony, but it turned out a couple classes were missing teachers, so one of the Japanese teachers and I went to sit with the teachers on stage. Before the flower presentation, the students spoke some, recited poetry, and sang. I was really impressed by the singing...it wasn't like choral singing, but more like chanting. It reminded me of priest chanting, and it was only one melody line. Still it was fascinating to listen to.

The students presented the flower arrangements they had made to the teachers in groups. One row of teachers sitting, one group of classes. The students carried the flowers and handed them to us, which were unexpectedly heavy! The arrangements are made in large ornate sort of golden goblets. I was thinking it's only flowers, how heavy can it be? Apparently, very. I couldn't tell from how they carried it. They handed the flowers to us from a kneeling position, after which they bowed, head to the floor. It was sort of an awkward feeling, but it is a sign of respect here. Anyways, that was about it. It was neat, and one of the M5 classes had used an Eiffel tower.

Enough about teachers, on to the tiger babies!!! Sunday, which is today, just fyi, a group of the other foreign teachers and myself took a little trip to the Ayutthaya floating market. It was very cool! The first thing we did was go see the tiger, which was sleeping. Then they brought out the tiger babies. Only one at first, who was adorable. We took turns, and then they brought out a second one, which was the baby I got to hold. The other one was being a little grouchy, but mine was still pretty happy. They were adorable! Their fur was coarse though, and short, I had sort of been expecting it to be softer and more like cat fur.

After the baby tigers, we wandered around the floating market. It is a good place to shop, and they had a lot of interesting stores and items, in addition to just being pretty. It was half on the river, so parts of it were actually floating, and it was right next to the water, so that vendors would be right next to the deck, selling food from their boats. In addition to shopping, we got to stop by a stage and see some historical reenactment sort of play. It was very violent, but they made it quite fun to watch.

Well, I feel like I run out of things to say before I hit a conclusion. Maybe it's just too much English training that makes me feel like I need a conclusion every time. Here's my conclusion: "Oh crap, I need to conclude this blog post!" Life is good in Thailand. I hope life is good in other parts of the world as well!

I don't like 6am

At this point I feel like I will never be a morning person. Being perky at 6:15 when I wake up, or even 7:20 when I arrive at school is not easy. Luckily, classes don't start until 8:30, and I only have one 8:30 every week. I'm making coffee in the morning part of my routine...it helps wake me up a little.

There haven't really been any exciting new developments in my life since the end of my first week. I've been keeping my weekends to quiet, going out for a meal at least once and hanging out with the other teachers a bit. It's nice to sleep in until 10ish and not rush off anywhere. I got paid half my pay check for this month in advance the other day, so maybe I will try and plan some day trips on future weekends. It's nice to make money. :)

Classes are starting to have a sort of routine. I have a couple trouble classes, that simply don't like to listen to me. Since it's work for them to understand me, they often choose to go into ignore the teacher mode rather than try. It gets frustrating, but luckily it's just one of my 5 classes, and at least last week, my Friday afternoon kids. They just want to be done and not in my classroom. It can be hard to switch modes sometimes, when I have a lot of either my M2 classes or M5 classes in a row and then something different. It always takes a conscious effort to remember what that class is doing.

My M5's are presenting ordering food dialogues that they wrote this week. My gifted 5 class was a real treat today, they actually put effort into props. One group had a restaurant that served unicorn, termite, gecko or tick fries. It was quite amusing. Have I mentioned that I love my gifted classes? They are the most advanced and certainly most enthusiastic. Plus the class size is about half the regular.

The heat some days is intense. It's really draining teaching in it all day without a break. It saps my appetite a lot too, so I always end up having a tiny lunch. By my afternoon classes I'm dragging, yes, once I wake up I do have energy in the morning. Some food usually helps, unless the heat is just too intense. I'm done teaching by 2:20 everyday, but us teachers still have to be around until 4, when the last official period ends. It's a good time to do my paper work, but still by 4 I am probably more eager to get out of school than most of the students. They like to hang around, it seems like the school really serves as a hang out spot. There are plenty of food/drink vendors right outside the school gates at that time to cater to the students, and hanging out is something that it seems is encouraged.

Well, I hope that satisfied some curiosity. I can always answer questions if there are any...but...I'm not psychic! Also...procrastination. I'm going to return to being lazy now that I have written this. :P