Tag: CrittersInMyHouse

School Farm

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I stopped by the school farm today.  The lime trees are budding and most of the dragon fruit has been planted.  I’m not sure any vegetables have been planted, but it makes for a great ghostly kind of picture.  The banana trees are looking sad, but I think they will bounce back if someone waters them.  My kitten buddy is waiting for me almost every day.  He’s so cute and then he tries to destroy my screens.  Too bad he didn’t show up when I first moved here.  I might have took him in.  Oh, and 2 days to go.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Lime Trees
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Dragon Fruit
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Veggie Gardens

New House Critter

On By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I have a new house critter.  Well, he wants to be a house critter, but I won’t let him in.  An adorable kitten.  I’d love to have a house kitten, but he probably has fleas.  He has a salty disposition and just sits outside my door or window and demands that he has the right to come in.  He has already ruined one of my screens trying to get in.  I tried to feed him, but he just wants in the house.  He is adorable.

I woke up Monday with a wicked cold.  I went home early.  Noi was so nice and went out to buy me soup and medicine.  Everyone is very concerned that I have medicine.

If I wasn’t giving final exams next week, I would have skipped Tuesday altogether, but I didn’t think it was fair to give them exams without a exam review class.  It was the longest day ever.

Wednesday still sick.  Now everyone is asking me if I need to go to the doctor.  What is a doctor going to do about a cold?  “Do you have medicine”?  So, I just kept saying I had medicine.  I will go to the hospital if I’m still sick after a week.  Colds usually last a week for me.

Wednesday Pat told me I had to sign a resignation letter.  They also made me sign a copy of each page of my passport.  Awhile ago I had asked Pat about when the school would cancel my work permit and she said they wouldn’t.  I’m pretty sure everything I signed cancels my work permit and I have 24 hours to leave the country.  I was trying to explain to her that this is what we talked about before and this means I have to leave as soon as the work permit is canceled.  I need to know when that date is.  She almost had a melt down.  ‘They have to report correctly and cannot lie.  Thai people don’t lie.  Thai people are nice.  What do I expect her to do?’  She got all defensive and tried to pick a fight with me in the office.  wtf, Pat?  I just want to know the date my permit is being canceled so I can plan accordingly.  She is completely invested in having me believe that Thai people are nice civilized people as if her whole identity depends on it.  What on earth did I do or other Americans before me do to make her think that Americans are such horrible creatures and that we think Thais are?  And what gave her the idea that I was expecting her to do some illegal reporting?  Relax.

So, what is this requirement that you have 24 hours to leave the country after your work permit is over.  I have to work a full day on Friday and be out of the country on Saturday.  “Thank you for your service in teaching our children, the future of our country.  Now get out and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out”.

I just felt like dying, but I had to go do laundry after school.  I have to pack.  I have to finish my last lesson plans and now I have to figure out where to go for 4 days the day after I finish teaching.  I saw a guy limp down the street with no shoes and clothes that were so dirty they looked like they had never been washed.  He was muttering to himself as he walked.  Ok, no matter how horrible I feel, my life is probably 2,000 times better than this guy’s.  Perspective.

Sidenote, Thai washing machines are confusing.  You put the clothes in, the soap in and then the coins in.  There are 20 buttons on the machine, but you don’t push any of them.  Then it flashes 3 or 4 different numbers, the last one I think is the total time the washing will take.  And then it does it’s thing.  I don’t think there are any dryers in the entire country.  This is the second washing in a row for half this load since if it rains, my clothes don’t dry fast enough and then they smell musty and I have to wash them again.  I miss dryers.

It’s been raining a lot.  After about 2 days of rain when it stopped, the sky was so full of dragon flies.  It was kind of like lemon yellow butterfly season, but dragon flies.  I’ve never seen so many at one time.  It’s mesmerizing.

Today after lunch, Noi and I went to get coffee.  I’m not allowed to get cold coffee because cold drinks are bad for a cold.  I always thought the idea that you should drink warm liquids when you are sick was just an old wives tale.  I looked it up.  They did research and found that people that drank warm liquids got better faster.  Ok, hot coffee will do.  While I was waiting for my coffee, Noi went behind the counter and cut up some limes and made some concoction for me.  She told me to sip it and it would help my cough.  It was the juice from about 5 limes and a pound of salt.  This is one of the most painful experiences I’ve ever had.  It burned my throat and my stomach.  I got instant heartburn, felt weak and dizzy and an instant headache.  Yep – cold symptoms gone, replaced with heart attach symptoms instead.  Did it help the cough?  Maybe.  She told me I should drink this at home every day.  Will I ever drink this again?  No.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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must…..have….laundry….

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, Uncategorized1 Comment

Laundry Frog was sitting on top of my laundry bag this morning.  I zipped up the bag or he might have been in it.  I dumped him off and watched him start to puff up, but I quickly swept him out the front door again.  I assume that won’t do much good, he obviously snuck back in and headed straight for the dirty laundry.  It’s funny, but at the same time it’s more than I want to deal with in the morning. Thank god it’s not a snake.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

Laundry Frog

On By rrainefioreIn Thailand, Uncategorized1 Comment

So, it’s been a week since I saw the disappearing frog in my bathroom.  I don’t know how they get in or where they go after I see them.  I never bought a laundry basket because it would be just one more thing I can’t take with me when I leave.  Plus, I’m not up for riding a motorbike with a laundry basket.  I use my duffel bag as a laundry basket.  I stuff dirty clothes in there as I go and when it’s full, I do laundry.  This morning, I went to throw some clothes in there and looked down into the bag and saw a black ball.  I don’t own a black ball.  I wasn’t sure what it was, but I was sure it was not pretty.  I suspected it was the frog.  I dumped the bag out and carefully put the clothes back in one piece at a time until all that was left was the black ball.  I couldn’t tell if this was the same frog I saw a week ago, but something was terribly wrong.  This frog was so round it couldn’t bring its feet in.  You could barely see its front feet or head.  I used a broom to sweep it outside.  I didn’t get good pictures because I was afraid to get too close in case it exploded or turned into a demon.  So I used the zoom on the camera which made for a bad photo.  By the time I left for school, the frog was gone.  So, I looked it up.  He’s a banded bullfrog and can expand when threatened and produce a toxic glue like substance.  He must have puffed up when I dumped him.  I hope I don’t have toxic glue on my clothes now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_bullfrog

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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Triple the Butterflies

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Earlier this week, Pat came to me and told me we needed to tutor a student to help him get ready for an English competition in two weeks.  So now one free period a day for the next two weeks is taken up doing this.  I’m exhausted thinking about it, but how do you say no to that?  We met with him on Friday.  Still, I feel bad for him as he didn’t have any more notice than we did and the school he will be competing at has known for over a month.  He has to do an impromptu speech on any number of subjects he might draw from a hat.  It’s not very impromptu as they have given us the subjects and most kids just memorize all the possible speeches they might have to do.  The speech is 5 minutes.  I’d have trouble talking for 5 minutes on any of the subjects….  The other category is storytelling and a girl is doing that one.  She was memorizing an Aesop’s fable.  I read over it and it was grammatically wrong.  Ugh, Thailand.

I’m caught up on lesson planning for this week and one ahead for next week.  I was hoping to a whole week ahead, but I had some engineering work available so I worked on that most of the weekend.  It pays better.  I think I can get everything done for next week before the weekend.  I’m going to Chaing Mai next weekend.  One of my friends from Colorado is on vacation and will be there.  It will be nice to play tourist for the weekend.  Plus I will get to try my hand at catching a bus on the side of the highway late in the day on Friday.  I’ve only left in the morning.  Fingers crossed.

I did another reading lesson for Fai on Friday night.  She really doesn’t want to do this for more than a half hour.  I can’t blame her.  She’s in kindergarten, drawing and coloring is far more fun than reading.  But I did learn how to tell the difference between a girl dragon and a boy dragon.  The girl dragon has a bow on her head.  Similar for boy and girl cars – the girl car has the bling.  Just in case you were wondering.

My sink has decided to pull away from the wall and looks like it might fall at any moment.  I was told maybe someone would come look at it on Saturday.  I stayed home most of the day and no one came.  I gave up and went to get a massage in the afternoon.  I got there and the guy was in and no other people.  I’ve been lucky lately.  Well, he’s been working on me for a month now and I’m still just as tight.  I think he decided he’d had enough of it.  He got out the oil (traditional Thai massage doesn’t use oil) and dug so deep into my lats that I thought he might snap my spine.  Then he went to town on my calves.  It was so painful and even though I cried, he didn’t let up.  He did ask if I was ok.  He was going to work the knots out of my calves no matter what.  I could barely walk last night and it’s still difficult when I first stand up today.  I almost fell just getting out of be this morning.  Then he worked on my diaphragm and psoas.  I’ve never had Thai massage that worked on those muscles directly.  OMG those were tight.  As painful as it was, I found it fascinating to watch him basically go “ok no more fooling around, we are going get down to business”.  I also feel even more confident that he knows what he’s doing (not that I didn’t already), but knowing that the back of the hips won’t relax if the calves and the psoas are tight…..  I think that maybe the shoes I’ve been wearing to work are part of the problem.  They don’t have a huge high heel, but they have a heel.  They are very comfortable so I don’t notice they are making my calves tight.  Then add on top of that that I’m not loving my job and that stress probably gets transferred to my calves and is getting stuck in there.  Some teachers wear slippers in the classroom.  I have slippers.  I’m going to try wearing them this week and see what happens.

I had a conversation this weekend with Xploreasia about the whole agent issue and I feel much better after that.  Also, they will help me find a job somewhere else next semester if I want.  I don’t think I want to teach anymore, but if I haven’t figured something else out, I’ll see what options they may have and decide then.

I don’t want to say it out loud in case I jinx it, but the weather was comfortable all weekend.  Between the cooler weather and the butterflies, I’m a fan of the rainy season.  Now we have orange butterflies too.  Triple the butterflies!  They are so pretty, but it does make for quite painful motorbike riding.  I did find a very large dead yellow centepede under my table in the kitchen.  I saw it, shuttered, sprayed it with bug spray just in case and decided to deal with it tomorrow.  It seems like a task for the daylight hours.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

 

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One of my advanced classes and one of the math teachers
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mosquitoes 😦
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The girl dragon has a bow
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The girl car has bling, although the boy car has hearts and flowers?

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Ha! New Critters!

On By rrainefioreIn Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

So, if you add it all up, I think I’ve had every critter possible in my house.  I can’t even think of what else there could be.  Here’s one category of critters that never came to mind: worms that fall from trees.  Yes, that is a thing.  So, now is the season of worms that fall from trees.  Thankfully, there are only a few in the house and I think they came in on my clothes or shoes.  There are at least 20 to 100 on my door and on the wall next to the door at all times.  I sweep them away and five minutes later it looks like I never swept.  I drove under a tree today with about 30 of them just hanging in mid air from tiny cords. I find them kind of fun to watch as they inch along, but I’m not too fond of their ability to hang from trees and then try to catch a ride on you.  I also saw a giant (about 1′ long) yellow centipede last night zipping down the road.  It was quite alarming in the light of my headlamp as I walked up to my house, but since he was not in my house, I don’t think he counts as a horror.  Still, he is burned into my memory and I can’t get him out so I thought I’d share (picture from internet).

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

 

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download

A butterfly tried to kill me

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today my alarm woke me.  It was way too early and I wasn’t ready.  But, this is the first morning in a long time that I wasn’t awake at dawn.  Usually I the birds wake me at dawn even though I have ear plugs and white noise.  I don’t get up, when I hear them, but I grumble and try to go back to sleep.  I’m not actually sure if I have slept until my alarm once since I moved here.  Today, I slept until my alarm went off.  I assume indifference is conducive for sleeping.

One of the biggest causes of motorbike accidents in Thailand is due to dogs.  There are so many stray dogs here.  I am very observant anytime I go anywhere, looking off to the side for any surprise dogs.  I never thought that one of those sweet lemon yellow butterflies my be my end.  Yesterday, I hit one while going to get printer ink.  Or it hit me, I’m not sure.  It hit me on the cheek and it’s wing hit my eyeball.  For a few seconds I couldn’t see and was stunned.  I swerved, but managed to keep the swerve minimal and regain my focus on the road.  I thought, really?  All these terrifying critters and my undoing would be a lemon yellow butterfly?  Not today.

I mailed a package from Vietnam in March.  It got to Colorado last week.  Wow.

School was ok today.  I was exhausted by the end of the day, but had my monk class tonight.  I really just wanted to come home and crash instead of teach.  Still, the class went by fairly quickly.  I spent most of the day in the indifference place.

A week or so ago, I decided it was time to try some high tech pest control measures.  I stuffed plastic bags in some of the suspect holes in the house.  It seems like a useless attempt, but I have no other ideas.  Then, I wasn’t sure if I was trapping critters in or out because I didn’t know where they were at the time. Tonight, I noticed that there seems to be a lot less rat poop on the floors (or is it tokay poop?).  The bags have not moved.  So maybe it’s actually working.

The school just hired a Chinese language teacher.  He is now sharing and office with me, Mae, and the screaming cat.  He’s real nice and is excited to practice English with me.  I know they put us all in the same office because they aren’t quite sure what to do with us, but I enjoy having office mates.  I got so much gift fruit today.  I got two guavas, some mystery goo made from a fruit I’ve never seen before, dragon fruit, lychee flavored yogurt and 5 mangos.

Today Tip told me her daughter has lice.  Oh lovely, do I have lice again?  I used the straight iron tonight just in case – fry those eggs before they can hatch.  My hair is finally getting longer.  It’s hard to tell when it’s curly, but after I straightened it, it looks so long.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

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High Tech plastic bag pest control
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Look – longer hair

 

Just Lesson Planning

On By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Friday night I tried to work on lesson plans, but by 7:30pm I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I was real dizzy so I went to bed.  I slept for 12 hours.  And by sleep, I mean toss and turn, but that’s normal for me.  Wow, I never knew giving blood would put me down for days.

I did laundry and mopped the house Saturday morning.  I find that I have to mop every 3 or 4 days since there is all kinds of dead bugs, mouse and lizzard poop everywhere.  I hadn’t cleaned up after the termite invasion so it was good to mop.  I went to the coffee shop and worked on lesson plans all day.  I promised I myself I would leave by 4:00pm even if I wasn’t done with lesson plans.  I tried to leave at 4:00pm but it kept raining and it wasn’t a light rain, but a downpour.  So, I didn’t leave until 5:00pm.  It was still raining, but not bad.  I rode up to the massage place and the guy was in!  I’ve had massages from him and his wife.  She’s good, but he’s better so I was glad she wasn’t there.  Two hours of pain.  Everything hurts.  I really need this as part of my daily routine right now, but I just don’t have the time.  I feel like bodywork is an important part of working through some of the stuff that I’m trying to work through.  I’ve been doing conscious movement every day as well and trying to get my body to stop holding all this stuff it’s holding.  It feels like it’s holding more than usual, but I don’t think it’s actually more.  I think it’s just different stuff, stuff that can’t be worked through cognitively.  I wonder too, what taking blood and forcing my body to make a lot of new blood is doing.  It kind of feels like I had described before when I got sick and lost a lot of muscle weight.  I had felt I was at muscle zero and rebuilding from there was a good thing.  What if this is a rebuilding of the blood system?

Today, I went to the Sunday market.  I didn’t walk around for long, but long enough to run into the really nice guy that is always excited to talk to me.  He sells veggies.  He said he had missed seeing me at the market and was glad I was back.  I was going to cook today, but didn’t.  I spent the entire rest of the day getting all the lesson plans for this week in order.  I was hoping to get ahead of lesson planning today.  So, I’m a bit disappointed.  I’m also concerned that I will never be ahead and that I will spend all my free time doing lesson plans.  I’m also concerned that I might get behind at some point.  On one hand, I don’t have a ton else to do.  But, this isn’t how I want to spend the next 4 months either.  Everyone that offers me advice says stuff like just play more games.  But, I have to come up with the game and how does it teach English?  How does it teach English that isn’t too easy or too hard?  Half the games I’ve tried were a total fail.  Then people offer ideas that seem like they would be a ton more work and not actually make things easier.  Plus, people forget that the game has to be easy enough to explain with out using Thai. One person suggested I just go to Bangkok and buy some books.  With what money?  Bangkok is a 9-12 bus ride from here.  There is an overwhelming amount of information on line.  Half of it would work for kindergartners and the other half would work for university students.  The in between stuff is not useful.  I just hope that I get faster/better at this soon so that I can get ahead.  Or maybe sports week will happen again and I’ll have a whole week with no classes and I can get ahead.

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Trying to make Bali Cold Chocolate

Butterflies

On By rrainefioreIn Teaching, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s been raining everyday in the afternoon and sometimes at night.  This is bringing out a lot of lemon yellow butterflies.  They are very pretty.  How come lemon yellow butterflies are nice to see and termites, cockroaches, spiders or other bugs are not?  Why is one bug a positive thing and another is not?  Opposites – duality – not truth.  Now every time I see the butterflies, I question this belief system.  The long winged bugs in my house the other night were termites and are normal.  Noi told me she had to turn off all her lights and use only a flashlight.

Pat’s turned kind of cranky lately.  She’s been very unfriendly.  I assume I did something to upset her.  As much as people talk about how nice the Thai people are, the issue I have with that is that if something is wrong, they won’t tell you.  They will just smile and pretend to be nice.  I know a lot of people find this a pleasant thing, but I don’t.  So, I probably will never know what upset her.

Today someone brought me bananas and I have no idea who.  One was another double banana – two bananas in one peel.  This makes me happy.  Noi brought me a Chinese dumpling thing and a can of mystery milk.  I drank the milk and still don’t know what flavor it was.  The can says white malt, but it didn’t taste like malt.  It has a bear and wheat on it.  Maybe it was wheat flavored or bear flavored.

Today I saw two girls walking into the language building with their hands tied together.  At first I thought it was some friendship thing.  Then I saw them sitting on the floor talking to Pat and they were both almost in tears and appeared very shameful as if they being tied together was some price they paid for doing something wrong.  I assume they spent the whole lunch period tied together and were telling Pat what they learned so they could get untied.  They were sitting on the floor because Pat was sitting.  Any time a student passes in front of a teacher, they bow their head lower so if they want to talk to the teacher and the teacher is sitting, they have to sit on the floor so they will be lower.  I find this custom to be both respectful and annoying.  I still can’t get use to students doing this to me.  Or when they wai to me I’m not supposed to wai back, but I feel that I have just as much respect for them and I want to wai back.  I usually just nod my head back.  I’ve also seen some other punishment that I’ve found either disturbing, or at least strange.  If a boy’s hair is too long, a teacher will take scissors to it and cut huge patches out in front of all the other students.  Then they walk around with some short hair, some shorter and patches missing altogether.  None of them actually have long hair to begin with.  Then they have to go home and shave it to get it back to all one length.  I’ve seen students hit with a cane.  I’ve seen them doing pushups – and they were the worst form I’ve ever seen.  I saw one student get a sign stapled to his shirt and he had to go through lunch with it on.  I asked Pat what it was for and she said he had tried to touch a girl’s boobs so they put the sign on him.

Near the end of the school day, Tip texted me to tell me she was getting ready to go to yoga.  What?  There’s a yoga class here?  How come I don’t know about this?  Is there a gym no one’s told me about?  No.  I got excited over nothing.  Tip is friends with the Chinese Medicine doctor and her assistant at the hospital.  Ton is the assistant and has been teaching Tip yoga.  Jeab and Ton are in my class with the monk so I went after school to join Tip for yoga.  They started at 4:00 and I was late since I’m in school until 4:00 so I only had 20 minutes of yoga. It was just Ton, Tip and I.  It kind of resembled yoga as I know it.  The only reason I broke a sweat is because there is no air con in that part of the hospital.  Still, better than no exercise which has been my exercise plan lately.

Tip took me to a shop with a really nice lady that makes salads, burgers and coffee.  She was really nice and gave me her number so I can call ahead next time I want a salad.  She makes her own dressings too.  This means I can get a salad without that mayonnaise like dressing that is all I can find elsewhere!  Score.  We went to the market.  Tip has a little golf cart like thing that we drove from her house to the other side of the hospital where the market it is.  It was like speed walking through the market.  She was on a mission and didn’t want to do much else.  I was ok with this as I was getting tired and wanted to go home.

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Termite aftermath
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Yay! Double bananas.

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