Skatbos in Thailand

Meghan with some of her students.

About a week ago Tim and I got to participate in Teacher’s Day. This is a day in which all the students pay respects to their current and former teachers. Each student brings flowers, usually a wreath of Jasmin or Orchids, and offers them to the teachers in a semi-formal ceremony.

Tim participating in the ceremony.

After the ceremony one of our favorite teachers, Utipan, made sure that we had some of the most beautiful wreaths. He wanted to make sure we felt welcome and appreciated. He’s an amazing teacher and

Ajarn Utipan, so loved by his students.

highly respected. We recently heard that the director of the school talks to Utipan before making decisions. He is also the teacher that the kids are scared of. He has been known to slap the kids around a bit, but it’s all out of love.

Meghan with flowers on Teacher's Day.

Tim and I had no idea what to do but we followed along and went home with so many beautiful flowers. Our apartment smelled of Jasmin and the orchids lasted about 10 days.

After the ceremony, teachers were offered iced coffee and snacks. Some of our students sang while girls dressed in Thai princess costumes performed traditional Thai dances. Students and teachers would offer money and flowers to the performers.

It was a lot of fun. Although teaching is tough, these are memories that we would never get to make if we weren’t English teachers here.

We also wanted to tell all of you teachers back home that we respect you so much for the job you do.  You all deserve to be showered with flowers.  Thank you for all you do!

Students waiting to give their flower offerings to teachers.

Trays of floral bouquets offered to teachers.

Megs with some of the dancers.

A Thai student dressed like a geek and covered in chalk dust. Funny kid!!!

Here’s a rough video… just to make things clear, Tim is the white guy on the right.  Don’t want to confuse anyone.

I am in slight shock with the news of Michael Jackson’s death.  I am sitting in Thailand listening to his Invincible album.  This album came out my sophomore year in college.  My friend Melanie and I drove to Target as soon as we were done with class to buy it.  That fall he did a follow up video to “Thriller” called “Ghost.”  The acting was corny but the dancing ….it was AWESOME!!!

Me and MJ go way back!

We had the BAD record when I was a kid.  In high school my jazz class performed a dance to Thriller.  (Who hasn’t?)  In college my friend Wendy and I used this MJ tribute video by Usher/Whitney/Mya as our final project.  We learned this dance from the video and performed it, minus the acrobatics and minus the African dance.

This is a youtube video of my favorite MJ song.  The video is weird, but the song is nice.

Dad, this one is for you!

MJ had a sad and strange life, especially his few last years, but you gotta admit….the man could DANCE!!!  I am a MJ fan!

Last weekend a group of us decided to head back to the beach.  After a few weeks in Bangkok we were ready for some fun in the sun. 

We took a bus to Pattaya, (about 1 1/2 hours from Bangkok), and arrived late Friday night. 

Friends (Love the faces.)

Now Pattaya’s nightlife isn’t exactly family friendly.  In fact most bars we visited had poles (yes, for dancing) somewhere and the bartenders had numbers around their necks.  Basically, you can get anything you want in Pattaya. 

During the day Pattaya is completely different.  It is a fun city on the coast with lots of great seafood, boat rides, etc.  As a group we decided to take a speed boat to another island beach for the afternoon.  The ride was a little rough but TOTALLY worth it.

A very fun beach

We arrived at a big open beach that was filled with water toys.  The pictures will describe what I mean by water toys.  We all played like little kids and with little kids as a matter of fact.  Tim spent a lot of time taking photos.  I spent the afternoon laughing at myself, because I was constantly falling into the ocean. 

Meg finally made it to the top...after multiple attempts.

CAREFUL...

Not looking good....

Still trying to hold on.

A great group of people from all over the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pattaya sunset

 

A fruit cart on the street.

Thailand has all kinds of crazy, interesting and delicious new fruits.  Apples are exotic here and expensive.  Tim has been taking pics of all these interesting new treats, so I thought I’d post them. 

Mangos (left side), Mangosteens (right side)

Mangos:  If you don’t know what a mango is you’re an idiot.  It is the best fruit in the world and lucky for me, common in Thailand.

Pineapple:  Read above…same as the mangos.

Coconut:  It’s used for cooking mostly but it’s common to buy a whole coconut, cut the top off and drink the water inside.  The soft coconut inside is also very delicious.

Lychees

Lychee: small red fruit with lots of soft green spikes.  The inside is solid white with a pit.  The fruit itself is the size of an apricot.

An open Lychee

The fruit of the Lychee

There are a lot of other crazy fruits and veggies here but I don’t know what they are called.  I’ll update this post when I learn more.

Exploring Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

A few weeks ago Tim and I got to do a Visa run to Vientiane, Laos.  We arrived in Thailand with tourist visas and had to get our non-immigrant B visas to work in Thailand.  In most cases you have to leave the country before reentering with the new visa status.

Our little run to Laos turned into an amazing weekend where we met some amazing new friends and saw some beautiful places.  Surely, none of these events were accidents.  God really takes care of us.

Our visa run started with yet another overnight bus trip.  We arrived at the Thailand/Laos boarder at 4:30am.  We waited for a 7:30am van to take us across the boarder and while we were waiting we met Riann O’ Brian. 

Riann and Tim in Laos

Riann is an Irish/South African who has been teaching in Thailand for the past few years teaching English.  He speaks at least 4 languages and claims that he failed his English classes in school.  He is an extremely driven and friendly guy.  He recently opened his own language school and has his own students he tutors.  He was extremely helpful in giving us ideas for lesson plans and classroom management. 

The three of us waited together at the Thai embassy to drop off our visa documents.  Riann made sure we had everything in order and walked us through the entired detailed, complicated, unclear process. We said good-bye in the afternoon and set out to find our guesthouse.

A temple in Vientiene.

We stayed at the Heune Lao guesthouse.  Our Thai/Englsh teacher friends recommended it and we got a deal on our room when we said, “Nee and Cho sent us.”  So we paid $8 per night instead of the original price of $11.  Our room had 2 twin beds, a fan, and a bathroom with a hot shower.

The sign for That Dam.

We decided to go exploring by foot.  Vientiane is the capital of Laos but really not that big.  It was much cleaner than most of what we had seen in Thailand.  While exploring we found the president’s mansion, an enormous market that sold beautiful Lao silk, That Dam (We still don’t exactly what it is but it was old and cool looking), and Nicki.

Nicki is a girl who was walking home from work at the bank and saw too white people staring at a map.  Some of you may know that Tim and I have a bad history with directions.  She stopped and asked us if she could help us.  We told her that we were trying to get back to our guesthouse and it turned out that it was 2 minutes from her house.

Meghan and Nicki

That night we met Nicki again and took her out for dinner to thank her for her help that afternoon.  She then took us to some of the places the locals hang out.  What a treat!  We went to a really cool jazz club/bar and listened to a Japanese guy play the accordian.  I know how it sounds but he was AWESOME.  He played a medley of songs that had pretty much every song we knew in it.  We met some of Nicki’s friends and we were off to the next hot spot.  We listened to local musicians, drank beer and RED WINE.  We hadn’t had red wine since we left the USA.  The french influence in Viantiene made red wine a popular choice on the drink list…..haha could it get any better?  Well, it did!

Meg in the coffee shop garden.

Nicki lived down a little street that had an amazing little coffee shop.  She told us to have some Lao coffee there in the morning.  It’s kind of like the secret garden.  You walk down this funny little street/alley that is no more than 10 feet wide and you run into a garden oasis.  We had breakfast and Lao coffee and just soaked in the atmosphere.  It felt like we had found a secret place that only a select few have the opportunity to visit.

Nicki, Megs and Tim having a great time.

After meeting with Riann to pick up our brand new, sparkling visas for Thailand, we met up with Nicki again.  This time she took us to an Italian restaurant with more red wine and live music.  Tim and I were in heaven.  Nicki told us that the Thai princess had eaten at that restaurant when she was in Vientiane for a visit.  We then hit some of the local hot spots for cocktails and dancing.  

We met Nicki again the next day and she told us we were going to the fish park for lunch.  Nicki’s friend Nils (swedish guy) picked us up in his truck and took us into the country.  (Now the countryside in Laos is rice paddies, palm trees, and jungle green vegetation.  It’s a little change from corn and soybean fields.)

Lunch a the Fish Park with new friends.

We arrived at a pond that was surrounded by little thatched roof huts.  They had short tables and cushions to sit on.  Our local friends ordered us all sorts of local dishes and we had coconut water to drink (still in the coconuts..so sweet.)  We had a whole fish (head and all) arrive at our table.  Nicki showed us how to eat it and it was delicious.  We figured out later it was Tilapia.  It was one of those situations where you look around and say, “Am I really here?”

After that final outing we had to get on a bus to head back to Thailand.  We loved Laos so much that Tim thought we should quit our jobs in Thailand and move to Viantiene instead.  We really hope we can make it back before our adventure ends.

I apologize for the length of this post.  I think I needed the details written down for myself more than anything.  I don’t want to forget any of it.

Alright, boys and girls.  I’ve finally gotten the photo page working the way I want it to… so you’ll be seeing a lot more pics in the near future.  I just uploaded a few and Megs and I will be adding a lot more in the next few days.

To view photo albums, click the ‘Photos’ link on the nav menu at the top of the screen.  You’ll also notice the random photos now posted in the right sidebar.

Let me know what you think of the interface (I know, total dork), if you have problems clicking on things, if you’d like to see something else or different.

Love you all!

Most of you may not know that there is a difference between an animal and a creature, in my vocabulary.  An animal is something that you know, for example, a dog or an elephant.  There are plenty of animals here in Thailand.  There are dogs EVERYWHERE and there was a baby elephant walking down our street last week.

Creatures are usually also animals, but they are the animals that you see and say, “What the hell is that!”  We have found many “creatures” in Thailand as well.

Behind our school is a little stream…creek…small river.  We ate lunch with some of our Thai/English teacher friends last week.  We got our lunch and sat down next to the water.  Tim and I could not stop watching the ENORMOUS fish that were in the water.  They weren’t just swimming around, their huge heads were out of the water and there mouths were open…very ugly.  A few minutes later a man was walking over the bridge near us and kicked a HUGE lizard into the water.  I saw the back end and tail go in the water, Tim saw the whole thing.  I asked a Thai teacher, “Was that a crocodile?”  She replied, “Yes, we have them here but they only eat fish.”  Her response had me wondering if she heard me correctly, so I attempted to clarify “crocodile”.  I asked, “How big do they get?” Her response, “As big as you, but they only eat fish.”

Okay, great!

The students here in Thailand have choosen their own English nicknames.  Many are quite humorous, so I thought I’d list some for you!

1. Beer

2. Champ

3. Earth

4. Porn ( They don’t know what it means…I don’t think.)

5. Ice

6. Sexy (He…..yes HE knows what it means.)

7. Bee

8. My

9. Men

10. Ping Pong

11. Top

12. Cream

13. Mint

14.  Boss

15. Benz

16. Palm

17.  Golf

18. Team

19. Mind

20. Pee

21. Wow

22. Bird

23. Get

24. Name

25. Dummy

Just a taste of what we laugh at every day.  Any favorites???  God bless em.

A list of crazy things kids have done in our classes…..so far!

1.  Lighting paper airplanes on fire.  (I took the lighter away when I smelled something burning.)

2. Sticking toothpicks into an onion. ( I took that away too.)

3.Talking on their cell phones.

4.  One boy choked a girl.  ( I kicked him out and then made him sit in front of the class, facing his classmates.)

5.  Kids knock over chairs and desks.  (We did that too!)

6.  Ask for our cell phone numbers.  (Appropriate????? I think not!!!)

7. Always putting powder on themselves.  (Could be because of the heat.)

8.  One kids pulled another kids pants down in front of me.  He was embaressed.  (Sounds like Tim in high school.)

9.  Kids are CONSTANTLY yelling, “HI TEACHER”, “HELLO”, “HOW ARE YOU TODAY?” (The funny thing is that if you respond to a question they get wide eyed and laugh because they don’t understand your response.)

10.  They constantly laugh. (Laughing in Thailand is a way to apologize, forgive someone, show embaressment, show nervousness, actually I think they laugh when trying to show any emotion.)

Some of these kids melt your heart, a few make you want to jump out the window!  I’m sure we’ll have a greater list as the semester goes on.

Hello everyone!  Sorry it has been so long since we have written.  We are now 3 weeks into the semester.  It has been an overwhelming few weeks with a lot of ups and downs.  We think that we might have hit bottom last week, as far as being homesick, overwhelmed, in culture shock, etc.  Now, we can only go up!

We are teaching in Krathumbaen, Thailand.  We are about 40 minutes SW of Bangkok.  Our English dept. consists of 10 English teachers, 3 of us are native speakers.  We teach 19 classes per week and the classes are 40-50 students.  Tim is teaching M3 and M4 (9-10 grade).  I am teaching M1 and M6 (7th and 12th grade).  Our students see us once per week and have English class with the Thai English teachers the other days.  We teach conversation and listening.  The other teachers do the grammar, writing, reading, etc.  The kids are tested and put into a class that is appropriate for their level.  That means that all the smart kids are in one class and all the kids who don’t give a crap about anything are another class.  To put it bluntly, it has been absolutely exhausting.  A few of our classes are very good at English and have good behavior.  Others…..well others can’t even write their names in English. 

Our school here is very different from any school back home. 

1.  There is very little structure in our dept.  We have text books but they are way to advanced for the kids and the Thai teachers don’t really know how to use them yet.  We are trying to use the book as a guide for our lessons. 

2.  Teachers are allow to hit their kids.  We have only seen one student actually get hit (on the back of her shoulder), but lots of kids get swatted with rulers or sticks.  We don’t hit students…..yet!  I have had to kick a few kids out of class for being rude and disrespectful. 

3.  We don’t even have attendance sheets.  We were told they would be ready for us last week but another teacher said, “don’t count on it.”  So we are attempting to have the kids write their names and student #’s on paper so we can create our own class roster.  (Once again I remind you, some kids can’t write their names in English.)

This is just a few of the frusterations we have run across.  It’s a whole different system that we don’t understand and hasn’t been explained to us, so we just have to do the best we can and try to get the kids to say some stuff in English.

The school itself has about 3000 students.  There is AC in a few rooms.  Most have fans, some don’t.  It’s hot and sweaty.  The classrooms are tight with 50 kids in them and most rooms don’t have doors, so it’s pretty loud and cramped too.  All this being said, compared to some of our friends who are teaching here, we feel pretty lucky!

We have spent 2 weekends in Bangkok with friends.  We meet up on Khao San Road (look it up, it’s full of Backpackers.)  We pay $1 each to take a van from our town to Bangkok.  There are guesthouses everywhere.  We paid $5 last night to have a little room with a double bed, fan, and shared bathrooms.  You can pay more for AC and a private bathroom if you want.  There is AMAZING street food EVERYWHERE, lots of shops, bars, music, etc.  It’s a fun place to relax on the weekend.

Last weekend we were in Laos getting our Non-Immigrant B visas.  I’ll write more about that later, but Lao is BEAUTIFUL!!!  We really want to go back.

Our apartment is nice…..for Thailand.  We have a 3/4 bathroom (no hot water) and AC.  We have a double bed, a fridge, microwave (haven’t used it yet), a TV stand (no TV), table and 2 chairs.  We have a little balcony that is our only window.  We also have pets.  Aparently our apartment is a super highway for all the ants of Thailand.  They trek right through our apartment.  They don’t bother any our stuff, they just stay in their perfect line.   They come in our door and go out through a secret passage way near our balcony door.  We tried to poison them, but they are smart and just piled the poison on the floor, so we just live with them.  We don’t have internet in our apartment and have been using internet cafes to keep up with email.  We are hoping to find a way to post pictures soon!

Ok, again, sorry it’s been awhile since we posted.  There has been a lot going on!!!