Lots of Lunch

On February 15, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized2 Comments

I would have written a blog yesterday, but wifi seemed to disappear off the face of the planet for a day. I couldn’t connect to the school wifi and although I could connect to my portable hot spot, it didn’t allow me on any websites. All day today was the same issue. Tonight, I seem to have wifi, so fingers crossed that I have it at least for the time it takes me to write this. I find that this wifi difficulty puts me into a downward spiral of “I want to go home” and “I don’t think I can do this until October”.

I had three exploration goals for yesterday, one of which scared me quite a bit. 1. I was almost out of gas for the motorbike. I had been told the cheapest gas would be from the mechanic who fixed the bike, who I don’t like very much. So, this scared me a bit – would I make it to the next village without running out of gas, would he be there, would I be able to communicate what I needed, and would he rip me off? I’m not sure why I don’t trust him, but I don’t. Maybe because he doesn’t smile and everyone here smiles? But, I got there without running out and he was there and understood my charades. They store the gas in old liquor (?) bottles. Not sure if I got ripped off or not. Next time I’ll go to a gas station and see how much it costs. The gas stations scare me a little too. They aren’t like gas stations in a big city, but that will be a blog story for another day. 2. My second goal was to go to the Sunday Market. It’s only on Sunday mornings and I have been asked several times if I went to the Sunday Market, but because of my lack of transportation, I had not been able to. It’s held on the grounds of the village temple and part of a school’s athletic field. It was quite impressive for a small town. It took me over an hour to walk through it all. I stopped to get a few things. I definitely turned some heads as I am the only foreigner and probably looked lost. I did see a few students. I also ran into my new best friend, Noi’s husband who was playing in a small band. 3. My third exploration goal was to go to a new coffee shop. There were at least two I saw in this village. The first one I went to was closed. The second one was tiny – two tables. After making my latte, the owner sat down at my table with me and struck up a conversation. I use the word “conversation” lightly. Her English was as bad as my Thai. We tried to use the phrase book I had, but that only helped a little. We showed pictures of our family. But, no matter how difficult it was, I think she might have sat there all day with me. After I paid for my coffee and was about to get on my motorbike she came running out with a bag of fruit and handed it to me saying Valentine’s day.

I accomplished my 3 things. I have a ton of online stuff I need to do, but can do that later when it’s dark out. I should go explore somewhere else during the day. Wrong – I had no internet that night. But, I didn’t know that would happen so I went home and had some soup that the teachers made for me Friday night. They made me soup that wasn’t too spicy. Shortly after eating the soup, I got a call from Noi. She asked if I would have lunch with her. My past attempts to reschedule have all failed and I know that “No” is not the correct answer so I said yes. She came and picked me up and took me to a restaurant I hadn’t been to yet. She ordered pad thai and I have to say it’s the best tasting meal I’ve had yet in Thailand. So, I ate the whole thing and felt like an umpah lumpah by the time we left. She then took me to the roadside drink stand I had been to with the military students. She showed me a fruit that looked like a tiny grapefruit and asked if I had ever had it. It was a type of citrus. Of course I haven’t. The lady juiced it and added some soda water and a tiny bit of sugar to it. She said she figured I didn’t like too much sugar so she made it less sweet. How did she know that? It was perfect. I tried to pay, but Noi wouldn’t let me. She said next time. Then she laughed and said she thinks she won’t let me pay next time either.

So, after I get dropped back home, I still have daylight left. I had asked Pat where I could get a massage. She said at the golf course. I haven’t had a massage in awhile and I’m hurting, but the golf course is up by the dam and the whole dam area is kind of ritzy so I assumed this would be out of my price range and I might need an appointment. But, it can’t hurt to find out. I needed my phrase book to ask for massage, but it worked and they led me to a small house next to the clubhouse. There were just two mats inside, but one was open. I asked how much bracing myself for what would be cheap by American standards, but probably expensive by Thai standards. 150 baht for an hour. This is 100 baht less than in a bigger city. This is about $4.20 us dollars. DEAL! She was pretty good too. So, I now think that if I can get a massage a week, I might survive living here.

I pretty much forget every bit of Thai I learn within 5 minutes of learning it. This is very frustrating. I’m going to start carrying a notebook and writing things down and see if that helps. My brain is quite foggy and from time to time just tries to shut down altogether. I think if I can either make more of my own meals or somehow get my body to adjust to amazing amounts of carbs, I might be able to use my brain again. Another thought that has come to me is that the foggy brain, wanting to shut down and not remembering anything might actually be part of my awakening process. I’m starting to disengage more from my ego identity and stories and I feel like my brain wants to reboot. I keep getting pulled back into story because I have to teach or I have to buy gas or I have to make a hotel reservation or some type of activity my ego use to do. I just want to lay around and do nothing, but there are things to do so I’m kind of stuck in the middle right now.

Today I was woken up by a man speaking over a loud speaker at 5:00am. My ear plugs wouldn’t block it out. This has happened before and it was the monks telling religious stories during a religious holiday. I’m not sure if it was the monks, but it was an unpleasant time of day to be woken up, especially when I don’t wake up in the best mood to begin with. At lunch, Noi calls me and asks if I am coming down to the cafeteria. They have noodles today. I tried to explain to her that Pat made me lunch and I didn’t want it to go to waste so I was going to eat with Pat. Noi called me a little later asking where I was and I tried to explain it again. I think she got it this time. Nope. About 10 minutes into lunch, a student comes up to where Pat, Mae, and I are sitting and hands me a bowl of noodles. Now I have two lunches again.

20160214_091743 — Yes, That’s a Pikachu Pancake

20160214_091521 — The making of the Pikachu Pancake

20160207_113422 — My new buddy at the coffee shop

20160208_135637 — My first mail from the US!

Tired

On February 13, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Yesterday was another long day. It started at 7:30am, but I was the last one there. Some teachers had been up since 5:00am getting the scouts up and moving. They were all in formation and doing morning assembly stuff when I got there. They handed me breakfast (meat and rice). Most of the morning was similar to the other morning. The younger students were only doing the one day and one night. After the singing and tunnel thing, they set off to trek. Pat and I sat by the main road to help them cross the street. They trekked up to the lake I had been to the previous day and then back to school. We had lunch and then sat around for hours watching them set up tents. It was market day so that made me feel better. I decided to eat dinner at home since I had to go back for another long meeting in Thai and the evening campfire activities.

At 7:00pm they were all standing in formation ready for the campfire. There’s no campfire in sight. There is a large white basin in the middle. I assumed this is where the fire would be. There were about 11 older people dressed in their scout uniforms who attended. They had special seats. I assumed they were retired teachers or town officials. There was a full drum set. One of the older men was the MC of the night. He did a lot of talking, singing and getting the kids all fired up. He was also quite funny, as everyone was laughing the whole time. He had so much energy and was jumping around and dancing most of the evening. Some small fireworks went off and the fire was “lit”. It was one of those fabric fires with a fan below it and a red light so the fabric looked like dancing flames. At some point earlier in the day, I was told I could dance with them. There was a group of girls that came out in long silk skirts and Tshirts. They walked around the circle doing a luau type dance. A group of boys followed them, mimicking them. Then, I was pulled out of my seat and shuttled down to the circle to join them. I tried my best, but I’m sure I looked like the farong (foreigner) trying to dance. They loved it. There were more speeches, games, plays, singing, speeches, plays. I figured I could at least follow the plays the students put on – no. It’s funny, but the students don’t sing, the teachers do. The guests (retired teachers?) were the life of the party. They were the band and the singers. The current teachers waited on them, bringing them drinks and snacks. The part I liked the most was when one of my best students came out to introduce his group’s play, he introduced it in perfect English “Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Thai History”. It must have been a play about Thai History. Overall, it was a fun evening, but way too long. About half way through, I thought, “ok, I can live here”. Then the last hour was, “how much longer”? It was done around 11:00pm. And of course, at 11:00pm they tried to feed me rice soup.

I was back at school at 8:00am and morning assembly was underway. Similar breakfast, speeches and singing. It wrapped up around 10:00 and then we “helped” them break camp. Even though it was a long 2.5 days, I think it was good to spend more time with the other teachers and be exposed to some of the school culture.

I made a new best friend. He is Noi’s husband. Noi is the teacher that is my Thai Sister. He has just as much energy as her. He is a retired English Teacher. He kept saying that he gets a headache when he tries to speak English, but then follows me around asking me questions. I enjoyed speaking with him over the past two days. He is in the third video playing the xylophone. The first two videos are of his wife, Noi.

20160205_165715 — That’s a bucket of frogs at the market

20160206_172242 — The best thing I’ve eaten here – ginger and herbs wrapped in leaves

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20160212_092015 — Mixing paint to put on the Scout’s faces

20160212_122832 — Bamboo Rice that I helped make yesterday

20160212_144015 — School dog got hurt – fresh back from the vet

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20160213_095423 — School DJ spinning the tunes

Scout Day is Long

On February 11, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The weird day kept going. One teacher came up to me and asked if I wanted to help make bamboo rice. Sure. I watched them cook the coconut milk, put sugar and salt in it. Then they put rice in the bamboo shoot. I helped pour the coconut milk in after. Then they take a large leaf, roll it up and stick it in the open end so the milk and rice doesn’t come out. Then it’s grilled. After that we went to another area of the school and had a teacher’s meeting about what was going to happen tonight. Huh? I started at 8:00am and it’s now 4:30pm. The meeting went for almost two hours. The best I could tell is there were 15 stations. I was going to be at station 4 with Q, my next door neighbor. They brought out dinner. Pat said all the food was spicy and sent me off with her husband to get dinner at a nearby restaurant. We got back at 7:00pm and the scouts were meeting, getting the lowdown on the activities for the evening. Q and I went to our station. It was about 10 strings of barbed wire near the ground. Each group of scouts had to figure out how to hold up the barbed wire high enough for students in the group to crawl under the barbed wire. This is what I did all night. I have no idea what the other stations had. One was definitely a short zip line because I could see it off in the distance when a group shined their lights on the person zipping. One station was at the top of a very high hill and involved singing. We did this until 10:00pm. Then we went back to the main meeting hall and had rice soup while they spoke to the scouts again. I got home around 11:00pm. Breakfast is at 7:30am tomorrow. I wonder what the day has in store tomorrow – more scout stuff. My missing helmet was sitting next to my door when I got home. Sleepy.

Not sure what happened

On February 11, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today was weird. I was supposed to go out with the military students to do military training. But when I got to school it was all scouts, no military. The scouts raised the flag and sang the national anthem twice. Then they had announcements or meeting or who knows. After that a bunch of the teachers got together with drums, microphones, and cymbals and sang Scout songs. They gave me a set of symbols. While the teachers were singing the scouts went through a tunnel and then got their face painted with mud. Then the Scouts headed out to go trekking. Just as I was about to go back to the house to get my computer so I could work on lesson plans, a couple of the military students came by to pick me up. They took me out on a motorbike. For about an hour we went down trails that a mountain bike shouldn’t even be on. The student driving me was a good driver. At some point we came across a bunch of other military students all with black painted faces. They dropped me off with them and we hiked for a little while. Then we came to a lake where most of the other military students were. I’m guessing the ones with the black faces were the new military students and the ones on the motorbikes were older. I watched as some of the military students took a metal tin and some hay and used it to cook a chicken. They had coconuts and opened one up for me to eat . Just about the time the chicken was done, a car shows up with some of the teachers and the rest of the food. After lunch, they asked if I wanted to go back by car, motorbike or walk. I said it didn’t matter. Somehow between that and trying to find my helmet, I ended up on a motorbike with one of the students. We drove to a small coffee shop and got coffee and then I got in the car and they dropped me back off at school. Now I’m sitting here not sure what to do. I have no idea where my helmet is.

20160211_121609 — The cooked chicken is to the left of the two boys

20160211_122123

20160211_133813 — These were at the coffee stand

Dam

On February 8, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Since I have a motor bike now, I took it Saturday to the top of the dam. It was beautiful, but not as pretty as I had seen in pictures. The sky is constantly hazy here from the smoke of everyone burning stuff. I wanted to see mountains and lake going on forever. However, it was beautiful in an eerie kind of way. I got a few pictures that captured it pretty well. I had heard that there was an island not too far away with a temple on top. It should just be a matter of walking down to the water and hiring a boat. So, I went into the gift shop to get a snack. Potato chips here are just horrible. The flavors are all spicy and/or meat. I found a bag with a picture of cheese! Yay! Oh, wait, there was also a picture of a chili pepper. That would probably kill me. So, I opted for the one flavored Hot Pot. I like steak. Steak flavored chips can’t be bad. Then I got a strawberry flavored soda, because, why not?

I headed down the hill to where I saw a bunch of floating buildings with boats attached to them. As I walked by a bunch of men sitting on a bench they all called Good Morning and Good Afternoon out to me. It was morning so I said Good Morning back. I get down to the floating buildings and watch groups of people get on to them. Then a boat drags the floating building out into the lake. Then another comes in and another leaves. I try to ask someone how to get a boat, but the whole conversation fails. I have no idea what is going on. I decide this is a challenge for another day and head back up the hill. I see a man coming up from a building/boat combo and manage to say boat for hire in Thai. He motions to the dam and then his motorbike. So, I let him take me on his motorbike back up to the good morning good afternoon guys. Now I feel silly. I say boat for hire again. They say 1? and ask where? I mention temple. One guy puts his hands over his head making a triangle shape with his arms. That could be the international sign for temple so I said yes. The price is 600 baht which is a lot on a Thai salary, but is about $17. I don’t plan on doing this again so it all seems fair. Then another guy takes me back down the hill on his motorbike and goes to get the boat.

The boat driver keeps asking me “Chaing Mai”? I keep saying No. Does he want to know if I’m from Chaing Mai or if I want to go there? Technically, you can get from the dam to Chaing Mai by boat, but it would be a long long way. So, I’m either going to an island temple, Chaing Mai or somewhere else. I decide to eat my snack on the boat. You guessed it, steak flavored chips are not good. A little while later I see an island with a temple at the top of a giant hill. Whew. It was a long trek up the hill. It was windy which set off all the wind chimes. It had a main temple and 7 or 8 other smaller temples. I wandered around for awhile and then headed back down. I had lunch on the floating building that was docked next to the island and then headed back to the dam. As the boat driver was taking me back up the hill on his motorbike, he asked me again “Chaing Mai”. I responded with kru (teacher) Sam Ngao Wit (name of my school). He got a look of understanding and was quite satisfied with my answer.

I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, rearranging my bedroom and cooking. Sunday I decided to go to the coffee shop and then to the next village to explore. The fuel gauge on the motorbike said almost empty and it wouldn’t start. I know it was half full when I returned on Saturday. So, my motorbike has a leak. I took the bicycle to the coffee shop, but the village is more than I want to do on that bicycle. By the time I got home from the coffee shop, the bicycle had a flat tire. I tried to take the bicycle to the mechanic nearby but he wasn’t in. A woman was there and she pointed down the street I just came up and said a bunch of stuff, basically motioning me to go that way. I have no idea how far down the road he might be. I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him. Is he just hanging out with a friend? Is he working somewhere else? At a loss of what to do, I just walked my sad bike back home. I had a half a day of freedom and now I’m stranded again.

The wifi doesn’t work at all this weekend, which is why you didn’t see a blog until now. My portable wifi doesn’t work either. I know I have to put more money on it, but I have no idea how to. The sim card doesn’t have the phone number. There’s no buttons so I can’t dial the number that tells you what your phone number is. I’ve left messages on line with the phone company. Someone suggested putting the sim card in my phone and then getting the number. That didn’t work. Someone suggested going to the phone store. We don’t have a phone store and the electronics store that has a few phones is in the village I can’t get to.

Today – same as most – morning dreads. I almost didn’t get up because of the dreads and because it was cold again. I got up. By mid morning I felt ok, so that’s actually a huge improvement. Someone is working on my motorbike today. I don’t know what they found, but I know someone is on it. Last week they asked if I wanted to go trekking with the scouts Thursday and Friday this week. I said sure. Then today I found out I am going to military training on Thursday with the military students. They asked if I was ok wearing a mask and crawling under things. I think they mean an obstacle course. I said sure. I’m not sure I am ok with that. Curiosity is winning this one so I guess I’m going and will report back later. I’m still going trekking on Friday. Is trekking hiking?

I had my first M6 (oldest grade) class today. They have been in test prep since I got here so I hadn’t taught to them yet. I did introductions mostly. Since I will only see them a few more times before they graduate, I asked them what they wanted me to teach them. They said things like reading, conversation, vocabulary. I asked what topics? They came up with the topics of Crime and Travel, not together, just two separate topics. This should be fun. I don’t know where to start.

I got a post card today from Colorado. Eeeeeeeee! Thanks Jay!

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Motor Bike

On February 4, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’m still waking up with the dreads. But, at least I’m doing better by mid day. Pat makes me lunch every day. Then I get all foggy brained in the afternoon from all the rice. Can’t win.

Yesterday I didn’t have any classes because the ones I was supposed to teach were in tutoring all week. They are getting ready for the end of the year exams. Some of the English teachers brought me test examples (last year’s test) and asked me questions on some of the ones that didn’t make sense to them. They didn’t make sense to me either. One of them was written so badly that none of the answers were correct grammar. Another one said something to the effect of “Why did the wife suggest her husband shouldn’t bring his camera to the concert? a. They don’t allow cameras at the concert. b. She didn’t want to end up carrying it. c. She thought he might forget it. or d. she thought he might take pictures the whole time instead of enjoying the concert”. wtf? How is this a question on an English exam?

Yesterday after school, Pat took me to get the School’s motorbike which was at the mechanic’s. It’s old, but the school is going to lend it to me for free. The mechanic turned it on using a screwdriver because it didn’t have a key. It also didn’t have a battery so the horn and lights barely worked. He asked if I wanted a key and a battery. Um, yea. I got to test drive it though. It has 4 gears. I’ve never driven a motorbike with gears so I was nervous. A shaky start, but it’s easy enough.

I spent most of the evening texting with my roomies from Hua Hin. We are going to go to Vietnam in March! We figured out where we wanted to go. But, we haven’t figured out dates yet.

Today, as with every day, I’m awake before the alarm goes off. Not wide awake, but awake enough to be aware that there are a lot of roosters in this area. A lot. They are so noisy and just non-stop. Then, after my alarm goes off, I take my ear plugs out. OMG there is so much going on in the woods. There are pigeons living under the roof. They are making so much noise in the morning. Thank got I have bug screens on the windows or they would be in my house. There’s always something running around in circles. I can hear it rustling the leaves. I think it’s a stray dog, but who knows? There a ton of other birds trying to out cry the roosters. I should try to get a sound clip.

Today I got the motor bike. Made it home ok. I have a little trouble starting it so I have to practice that.

I taught teachers again tonight. I went over pronouns. I also went over some of the sounds we have in English that they don’t have in Thai so they struggle. They have trouble with B so Crab becomes Crap. V is difficult so Volleyball becomes Wolleyball. Th is a mystery. Last week when I was teaching the word Athlete, the kids kept saying Asslete. They can’t say S followed by a consonant. Sweet becomes Saweet. Then they asked a bunch of questions. What’s the difference between street, road and esplanade. How do they even know the word esplanade? They wanted to know about idioms. I used “It’s raining cats and dogs” as an example. Blank confused stares. I’ll have to work on that.

After class a different teacher took me out to dinner. Mae, is a young teacher fresh out of college. She joined us tonight and Monday night too. They are taking me to dinner as payment for teaching. But, I think they are just taking Mae because she’s young and they are taking her under their wing and trying to take care of her. It’s beautiful to watch.

Today’s pictures are random:

20160203_171610 — ugh toilet seat spider = nightmares

20160204_140047 — Thai students are great artists. This is my favorite

20160204_150545 — The mechanic’s house/shop

Sticky Rice

On February 2, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Back to teaching. My lesson that I planned for this week was way to easy for the M5s (high school Jr). They have a great grasp of English vocabulary. They do great repeating if I give them a dialogue to say. Then, if I have them try to come up with sentences or dialog on their own, it breaks down. I have to come up with ways to get them to try experiment/play around with what they know. Now, I feel dumb. How do I do that? Then I think, I can’t say in Thai what I’m asking them to learn in English. It’s hard to wrap my brain around that.

After school yesterday I did an English class for the teachers that were interested. There were 6 teachers. I had no idea how many would show up and how much they would already know so I basically didn’t prepare anything and hoped it would go well. I started with “How are you”? They know this well, but the answer always is “I am fine”. I tried to show them that the answer could be good, great, not good, hungry, cold, hot, etc. They came up with great questions, like what is the difference between “How do you do”? and “How are you”? I had trouble explaining that someone could be funny or fun, but if you answer “How are you” with “I am funny”, it might not mean funny ha ha, it might mean funny not right. I didn’t quite explain this one well. They had questions like what’s the difference between cool and cold. My favorite was what’s the difference between “I’m thinking of you” and “I miss you”. I pointed to my head and said in a calm tone “I’m thinking of you”. Then I pointed to my heart, collapsed around my heart a little and said with feeling “I miss you”. They got it. I’m also trying to show them that there is formal/polite ways of saying things, but we don’t use them that often. “How do you do”? is more formal, but hardly anyone says it. There is a common way of saying things that isn’t as personal as just with friends, but isn’t as formal as what is usually taught as polite. Then one of the teachers took me and another teacher out to dinner. I’ve only been to one restaurant here, 3 times, taken there by 3 different teachers. They all love that restaurant. It probably was one of the best Thai meals I’ve had yet.

Last night I was woken up several times by a lot of noise coming from the kitchen. It sounded like someone was throwing plastic water jugs around. I’ve heard this before and wondered what my next door neighbor was doing in the middle of the night. My next door neighbor isn’t home. Crap, something else is making this noise. It was a rat. I don’t know what the heck was doing to make that noise, but I came downstairs to find him in the kitchen looking very confused as to why I was there looking at him. It didn’t appear that he had been in the food. wtf was he doing to make that noise? Why do I have to have so many visitors? I’d rather have the frog back than a rat. Today Pat took me to get “chemicals” that rats don’t like the smell of. They look like moth balls. I plan to put them around the kitchen floor and see if they work.

Today was similar where I just don’t want to get out of bed and I just don’t want to do anything, but go home. But, by the end of the day, I feel better. I wish I could get rid of this morning dread, but I don’t know how. It’s not a new thing. I had it for years when I lived in the US. I’ve had it off and on for most of my life. It had disappeared completely over the past 3 years so I figured I had worked through it. I thought it was part of the not wanting to be here issue from a young age, being adopted. So, either I still have more work to do on that issue or it’s something similar, but slightly different.

The afternoon market is Tuesday and Fridays. We went after school. I like the market. I love the idea of buying food from the people that grew or cooked it. I much prefer this to a grocery store back home. It also has fascinating and weird things which I like too. For instance, tonight I saw 5 lizards tied together so they couldn’t run off. They were alive and for sale for food. On one hand, I find it gross, on the other, I find it sad and yet so fascinating. I asked Pat if she eats lizards. She said no, but some do. I saw two catfish jump out of a bucket and try to get away. They got pretty far before someone scooped them up and put them back in the bucket. I saw what looked like pig skin, but the entire pig head. I have seen them cooking stuff in bamboo and heard it was sticky rice. You see the bamboo grilling and you want it even before you know what is in it. Tonight Pat’s husband bought me one. I had it with dinner. The rice was sweet and had black beans in it. If I have to eat rice, I vote for bamboo sticky rice.

I am probably just as interesting a sight at the market. I tower over everyone. I have to duck constantly because I am taller than the fabric they have hung between the food stalls. One kid about 6 or 7 almost fell over staring at me with a confused look on his face. I often get this stare from younger kids. Some people don’t pay attention to me. Some look surprised and delighted when I smile or wai. Some come up to Pat and tell her they want to talk to me. One guy always wants to talk with me and has pretty good English. Tonight he told Pat he didn’t want to talk to her he wanted to talk to the other teacher (me).

Restaurant Cat

RraineThai – Sausage salad and sticky rice

Sticky rice

Same Same

On January 27, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I am still waking up every morning with “I don’t want to”. It got a little better as the day went on. It was so cold this morning and pouring rain. This is the third day of cold that I don’t have the right clothes for. I did a wet wipe bath this morning – there is no way I am taking a shower – I don’t have hot water. It is supposed to warm up tomorrow so there is hope for a shower in my near future. I can’t wait to wash my hair.

I signed paperwork for my work permit today. Friday they are going to take me to Tak for a health physical. I think this is part of the work permit process? Then Pat said she’s show me the bus station in Tak. I will take a bus to Sukohthai and hang out there Friday night. Sukohthai use to be a kingdom from 1238 until 1583. The old city is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and they made a park out of it. I want to go see that. Plus, this will give me practice trying to navigate the bus system. I’m a bit nervous about that, but it’s got to be done sooner or later.

Not much else to report on today – still the same as yesterday. It’s early, but I’m going to go curl up in bed soon and do some reading or lesson planning or something. Here’s some random photos for your entertainment. The video is of a green jelly dessert.

20160126_212401 — The solution to the ever wet Thai bathroom

20160126_193340 — Green gelatinous stuff in milk

12647768_552046198292678_797507879_n — Cheerleaders from Sports Day. Pat is the teacher on the left in the upper photo

Hell Froze Over

On January 26, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized2 Comments

Yesterday I got up and it was chilly. It has been chilly most mornings and by mid day I’m sweating, so I didn’t think much of it. It never got warmer. By noon, I could barely feel my fingers. Most of the students didn’t bring long sleeves and were running around in shorts. They were miserable. My tolerance for cold is much higher and I was quite unhappy.

I had two older classes that were fun. Did I say that? They were the 16-17 year olds (Matthayom 5). They were at least 3 levels better with their English than the grade below them. In each class I take pictures with the hope that a teacher will help me in the future with names. They all love taking photos. The M5s were not only excited to take pictures, but they wanted me to post them on facebook. Then the second M5 class made me sing. A few of them got up and sang their favorite songs too. They have amazing voices. I’m going to have to find songs to incorporate with their lessons.

I got home and was so cold. I made dinner and crawled into bed. A concrete house is cold. I set up a new facebook account so I don’t have to share my current one with the students – I just don’t believe in crossing that line and there are too many photos I’d have to delete or filter. I now have 85 friends on my new facebook account. So, I posted some travel photos and photos from home too. I think I’m going to start posting English stuff too, not sure what, maybe tongue twisters or famous quotes. It was so cold that I went to sleep early only because my hands were too cold being outside the covers. Thank god I’m a good little girl scout – I brought a small sleeping bag with me from home – small, but better than no extra blanket. I also slept with my down jacket on.

Today I didn’t want to get up for anything. This was one of the hardest mornings yet. It was pouring rain and colder than yesterday. I don’t want to be a teacher. Who’s idea was this? I did go, mostly because I’m stuck here with no way to leave. I wore my down jacket most of the day. It was 52 degrees most of the day. At least the kids were slightly better dressed, but I felt so bad for them. Today’s classes weren’t as much fun, but seemed to go ok.

I got home and decided to go do laundry even though that sounded like the coldest, dumbest thing I could do. Actually, the clothes felt warm when they were done. I wanted to crawl in the washer and turn it back on. They don’t have dryers here so it’s all hanging in my laundry room. I have 4 rooms – one has my “kitchen” and desk. One is a bed room. The other bedroom is empty and now the 4th room is my laundry room. Hopefully, by Friday, my clothes might be dry.

As laundry was happening I read some AH Almaas. I don’t know how he does it, but a long time ago, he wrote a chapter that I was supposed to read exactly when I did. It always feels like he just wrote that chapter an hour before I read it. Tonight’s chapter was Chapter 10 of Diamond Heart Book 4. “We will talk today about a perspective that will help you to be nicer to yourselves in doing your work, and not push yourselves too hard. The Work we are engaged in is not easy; in fact, it is very difficult, more difficult even than you know yet”. “To be a student in this Work, you need these two motivations – love and compassion – from beginning to end. This is very tough work. To do the Work with love and compassion means to appreciate that this process is tough; it is an almost impossible task we are undertaking. So it is best not to give yourself a hard time about it. You need to learn to be patient, to not judge or criticize yourself when things do not happen the way you think they should”. “It is not useful to look at yourself from one day or one week to the next and make a judgement”. “This is not being kind to yourself. You are not taking the nature of the task into consideration. If you want to consider changes, or improvement, you need to not look from one week to the next, but consider a span of several years”.

So, I’m frozen, so off to bed to hide from the cold.

meh.

On January 24, 2016July 24, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized

They had parent day at school today. Parent day included a lot of speeches about what, I don’t know. It also included some strange video that looked like it was about on-line predators, but again, I don’t know. And it included an introduction of and a speech by their new western teacher – yep – me. Don’t sign me up for the speaking tour. All in all, it was about 4 hours long. They fed me lunch – guess?

After, I was going to work on lesson plans, but the internet wasn’t working. So, I decided to take my nook up to the dam and read. There are two entrances to the dam. The one I went to was closed. It just so happens to be next to the stairs that go up to what looked like a temple on the top of the hill. I debated taking the challenge since it was overcast. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it if I couldn’t get photos. But, my other choice was to go back home and sit in my house.

The stairs looked like they went on for ever, but they didn’t. In fact, the stairs ended too soon. Then it turned to log stairs and then to steep switchbacks not meant for humans to walk up. It wasn’t a wat, but a stupa (or maybe a pagoda – not sure of the difference). There was an older lady sweeping the floor that insisted in asking me questions even though I had no idea what she was saying. There was another lady there also sweeping. I took some pictures and enjoyed the breeze. Even though it was overcast, the view was amazing. The lady kept talking. Coming down the trail/stairs was even sketchier than going up, but I survived it. At that point I gave up and went home.

I read for awhile on my porch until too many bug bites said to go in. I made a salad with the stuff I got from the market the other night. I didn’t have salad dressing, but put some watermelon in there and it worked quite well. Then I ate what I thought were doughnuts that I got the other night as well. They were fried dough with sugar and scallions on the out side. There was something that looked like meat on the inside, but might be red bean? And it had a spicy after taste. Why? Why would anyone think those things go good together?

I booked a flight to Bali for two weeks of my upcoming break.

This evening’s house guests are ants and very large cockroaches. I should work on lesson plans, but I’m giving up on the day and going to crawl into bed at 7:30pm.

20160124_082016 — Every chair was full later

20160124_141953 — At the bottom of the long set of “stairs”

20160124_141958 — That’s a lot of stairs

20160124_142123 — No more stairs, just logs

20160124_142250 — Steeper and less like stairs

20160124_143006 — Steeper and no stairs at all

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20160124_143547 — But the views are not too bad

20160124_143633

20160124_143721 — Looks like they are building a temple

20160124_143801 — Looks like they are building a temple

20160124_143945 20160124_143952 20160124_143959 20160124_144103 20160124_144116 20160124_144209 20160124_144212 20160124_144217 20160124_150748

20160124_161220 — Uninvited House Guests

	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Icebergs
	delicately4f6d967f14 on ATV Tour
	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Kluane

Rraine Drops

Category: Teaching