Languages

I've figured out how to say taxi and cancer in arabic and Indonesian,
respectively. Ready? It's taxi... and cancer. Crazy, right?

Sent from my iMonkey

New technology

I <3 gadgets. New technology is awesome. A couple of weeks ago, i was
looking into a ebook reader, namely kindle. For an assortment of
reasons, I decided against it. Then I had a brainwave: I wonder If you
can read books on the iPod touch? You can. I excitedly whipped out
money I don't have, purchased it and here I am monkey typing and
blogging on this new fangled device. I realize this is actually old
technology by now in America, but it's new to me and I love it. This
may even encourage me to blog more
.... no promises.

Sent from my iTouchit

whoa

So I see I haven't posted anything in nearly a year. Woops. Bad blogger. 

I'm leaving Thailand in a few weeks and the panic isn't great enough at this point to actually make me productive. And how do I have so many clothes?? I've got a lot of cleaning to do and I've got plans for every weekend between now and March 18th. At this point, time still feels like it's marching really, really slowly. 

I can't wait to get out of here.

Satang

is the most adorable child i have ever seen. she's the perfect cuddly little doll. and then she opens her mouth and you go, "oooh. not cute." this child is a punk. i in turns adore her and really really want to smack her. once, in the middle of making a hotel reservation, she looked at me with a little smile on her face and clicked the hang-up button. i threw her out of the house. but she makes up for it a lot of the times by running to me in her cute toddling way and lifting her arms and demanding, "ooom noi!" (up!)


i discovered her love of putting things in her mouth. in the middle of a phone conversation, i heard the sound of pill getting popped out of its plastic casing and looked up in time to see Satang put one of my birth control pills in her mouth. i screamed, which startled her into spitting it out.

i've cleaned my house since and baby-proofed it. you'd think a child of five would be out of the habit of randomly putting things in their mouth, but i apparently assumed wrong. Satang hasn't been coming around much since she's discovered new friends among the boys who live behind my house. whenever she does come around though, she speaks in gibberish that the other kids can't understand. i once asked her when she was going somewhere and she replied, "dton lek" to which Min (another girl who comes over frequently) shook her head and told her, "that doesn't mean anything." or if she's here and she's not speaking in a language unknown to any of us, she's throwing a tantrum.

Satang here with Min (left) during Loy Krathong.

tonight, a few kids were over and were playing games with the giant pile of garden debris in my front yard. while they debated over rules and how they should jump over the pile of debris, Satang was puttering around in my house. she loves spotting things and asking if she can have it. since it's usually candy she finds, i usually say yes. she picked up a bar of hotel soap (you know, the little chunk that's enough for two showers) and asked what it was and if she could have it. i told her it was soap and that yes, she could have it. i went back outside to preside over the garden-debris jumping game and judge distances. Satang came up to me and i looked down and saw her clutching her bar of soap... and nearly had a heart attack.

she had taken a bite out of it! i looked at her incredulously and said, "that's SOAP. SOAP, Satang." she looked at me with a puzzled expression on her face. now you may say that maybe i said the wrong word, but the other kids gathered around and asked "did you eat soap??" and it was the same word.

so, to sum. i think child has gone feral. she speaks in unintelligible shouting. throws tantrums for no apparent reason. and eats soap.

Captain's Log

Thursday. Classes Finished. Procrastinating on lesson planning for next week. No one online to bother with inane chat small talk that always starts with "How's it going?" and then peters out to nothing.

Current thoughts:
God, I'm full.
How do I do a Life Skills camp?
I want to take a shower.
... and a nap.
I wonder which lesson the 5th graders are on?
Oh yeah. Wild animals. Hmm. What lesson shall I do that has cheetahs and lions and tigers and bears in it?
Oh my.
I need to pack for the weekend.
I REALLY need to find a secondary project.
I should blog more.
Does anyone want any cats?
What does this child want from me?!

Ah. My co-teacher has returned. It's lesson planning time!

English Camp, Phang Nga Town

Had an English Camp sprung on me by our supervisor who never tells me what is going on. He'll only talk to Chris, who also lives in my province.

I was on my way home from Thanksgiving weekend when he calls me and says,
"So you're coming, right?"

Completely confused, I reply: "Uhh, what are you talking about?"

But off to the English Camp I went, and so did a Swede English teacher, who didn't know that she was going to an English Camp until she arrived and saw all the children. She wins. We planned the camp as the school principal was giving the opening speech.

An English Camp is basically a day-long (or several days long) event with the basic components of a (an):
1. Opening ceremony
2. Big group activity. Usually an ice breaker or some such that forces the kids to do some activity that pushes them out of their comfort zone and by some miracle this kind of humiliation forces a bond between students. Lesson learned: discomfort leads to comfort?
3. Break
4. Rotation. In essence, a class where a pre-assigned group of students will learn/do/sing/make something. The students will of course, use and enhance their English skills and have one heck of a good time. A rotation can focus on speaking, listening, reading, writing or any two of the above or all of the above. One teacher teaches one rotation and kids will move from rotation to rotation. Rotate, if you will.
5. Rotation.
6. Lunch.
7. Big Group Activity.
8. Rotation.
9. Rotation.
10. Closing ceremony.

This is the basic setup. Some camps have more rotations, less big group activities, some have more breaks, some have less rotations. You get the picture.

For this camp, there were around 240 students, 4 farang trainers [which meant 60 students per teacher. which is A LOT of students] and one building with no walls or desks or chalkboards to do all our activities in. Months ago, this complete lack of organization and planning would have had me tearing my hair out. On the second day of the camp, supervisor Nimit managed to shanghai a Dane who had been staying at a local hotel to come and help out. I just had to laugh. The camp was successful, the trainers and I all enjoyed ourselves and (I believe) no one lost any hair. This job definitely teaches you how to go with the flow.

i'm back!!!

apparently, and for whatever reason, people actually read this blog? and there has been demand for more of my inane insights into my boring existence. i'm flattered, and frankly, a little frightened. people actually read this blog?

so here's a quick summary of what's been happening with me:

october - phuket vegetarian festival, chika's wedding, school break, one day decorating the english room/ERIC center, krabi (ao nang)

november - chris comes to visit two weekends in a row.. which meant two weekends in a row of phuket, a minor cold with some major depression, english competitions, english camp, thanksgiving

and what's ahead:

december - christmas at kelly's, george is coming for a visit -- new year's in phuket and then off to phi phi island for hopefully white sand and turqoise water. george's one wish.

tomorrow is a holiday so i'll get you the extended version of the update complete with pictures (backdated a la chris allen. the cheater). perhaps. no promises. you know i'm lazy.

foooood

you know you've been living in rice country too long when ...

- you eat a peanut butter sandwich and savor every bite

- you sadly daydream about grilled cheese sandwiches and promise to never take them for granted ever again

- you invent new ways to eat noodles (weird green noodles made with egyptian herbs from japan bought at the mini mart next door mixed in with pork and beans? yeah. how's that for international?)

and yet despite all your longings and fantasies for sourdough bread, rye bread, french bread, dinner rolls, garlic bread, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, scalloped potatoes, PIZZA, you know you've been living in rice country too long when..

- you can totally appreciate a steaming plate of fluffy white rice set in front of you

- you order fried rice in a restaurant

- you voluntarily eat rice for breakfast: as a soup, as a kanom, with last night's leftovers.

ah rice. it's what's for dinner. and breakfast. and lunch. and snack.

so... gin kao reu yang? (have you eaten rice yet?)