I’m done with grading for now.  It was a very convoluted process, and I will have to do it again in a month, but it’s done for now.  There was no sports day this week like Pat had told me there would be.  But, did she tell me when it changed?  No.  I had to just wait and find out.  Good thing I planned lessons for this week. For some of my classes, I am doing a lesson on song lyrics.  I did Let It Go from the cartoon Frozen.  And I did Firework by Katy Perry.  I was quite struck by how beautiful our language is, not so much that it sounds beautiful, but that we have so many different ways to say something.  There are about 5,000 words in the Thai language and over one million words in the English language.  No wonder our language is so difficult to learn, but beautiful.  The basic message from the song Firework is that if you feel alone, unloved, unimportant, fat or ugly, that you are not.  You are wonderful and unique.  I know that getting the meaning of a song would be difficult for the students since it’s all analogies and idioms, but when I wrote on the board “Do you feel alone, unloved, unimportant, ugly…….”, they answered “no”.  I wonder if they don’t feel these things because their society is more communal and accepting than ours or if they just answered “no” because they don’t show negative feelings.  It was an interesting experience though.

There were two more parties this week, both for another teacher that is leaving.  I managed to get away before YMCA for one of the parties, but not the other.  The second party was nice because it was at the teacher’s house in a different village.  Her house was right on the river and there was a nice breeze out all evening.  But, I just don’t like karaoke that much and it’s constant.  My brain hurts just writing about it.  At some point some drunk guy from the neighborhood wandered up and tried to join in the festivities.  I could tell by the looks on people’s faces when he tried to talk to them that he was not invited.  It was wonderful to watch Q take control and mitigate the situation.  He found a chair for the man and got him a soda to drink.  Q sat him in front of the karaoke stage and sat next to him with is arm around him so the man might feel welcome, but was also kind of restrained from bothering the singers.

Thursday was Parents Day so everyone wore light or turquoise blue in honor of Mother’s Day because, you know, that’s what you wear.  I was told to wear blue, but not told the shade of blue so I kinda fit in.  The parents came to school in the morning.  There was traditional Thai dance, speeches and a lot of moving the Westerners from one place to the next. And of course, posing for 10,000 photos.  They take so many photos at every event.  I never see these photos.  I’m not sure where they go.  I was expected to give a speech, but no one told me before.  I think I know less Thai now than I did when I got here so giving a speech in Thai was impossible. Then after I spoke they asked Robin to translate for me.  I think he got the short end of the stick.  At some point we had to go plant trees.  This involved standing next to a new tree that someone else planted with a watering can in hand.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day so we have the day off school.  It’s a big holiday here to celebrate the Queen’s birthday because she is the mother of Thailand.  I think celebrating your own mother is a second thought after that.

Most of my furniture was moved out of my house and into storage this week.  One room of bedroom furniture wasn’t moved because the room was locked.  I was livid when I got up in the morning and found this out.  A few emails and phone calls later, the issue is resolved.  My friend Jay will meet the homeowner at the storage place and move the rest in later.  Still, it shouldn’t be Jay’s responsibility to do this.  I am so thankful for all his help.

Xploreasia won’t work directly with my school because they don’t want to cause problems with the agent that assigned me to this school in the first place.  That’s understandable, but then they offered to call the agent and my school when I informed them that my school would not be able to afford to work with that agent anymore.  The agent is punishing my school by charging them more than they can afford next semester.  Why would you call the agent?  This is exactly how we got into this drama in the first place.  That agent is not a reasonable person.  If they call her she will just get angrier.  She’s not going to suddenly become a reasonable person.  Hopefully my school can find a replacement for me another way.

In other news:  I booked my trip to China and now I have to get a visa.  The frog in the bathroom is back.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore