For those who might be following international politics, big things are happening in Thailand.  A vote on a new constitution is tomorrow.  There is much controversy over it and the results in either direction might cause big changes in Thai government.  I don’t want to go into it much as it can be illegal to express opinions on the subject.  But, I don’t feel I am in any danger as I don’t live in a big city where there might be protests and I’m not planning on travelling in the near future.  But, the near future should be interesting if international politics interests you.

The rest of this week I think I lost a lot of brain cells trying to figure out this grading system.  Everything Pat explained to me is different from what Q explained to me and Noi spent hours translating the forms into English for me.  Still, I have 11 indicators that I am supposed to teach to and grade the students on.  I just received these yesterday so now I have to figure out how to fit my previous lessons and exam to indicators I should have had before making lesson plans.  Logically, none of it matches so I’m just going to wing it.  But, by the end of Friday as Noi was trying to explain it to me again, I just couldn’t take it any more.  My head was spinning and nothing made sense.  I had a mini melt down.  This is so much work and it’s all bogus!  I guess a lot of jobs have stupid reporting processes.  I’ve heard teachers in the US complain about similar things.

Thursday after school, I saw a bunch of students with sticks and one of the teachers with a sling shot standing around a tree and bush.  Robin explained to me that a large snake (ngoo) had just dropped out of the tree and they were trying to get it out of the bush so the teacher could eat it.  Great, remind me that snakes can climb trees.  I knew that, but that fact was safely tucked in a back fold of my brain.  Now it’s been brought up to the surface and every time I see a tree I’m wondering if a snake is going to fall out of it on me.  There are billions of trees here.  The students poked at the bush with the sticks and finally the snake came out.  Two wacks with a stick and it was dead.  The teacher rushed in and grabbed it and threw it in his motorbike basket and drove off.  This all happened in about 3 seconds.

The closing date of my house got moved up a week.  I’m not sure why there is a huge rush on this, but that means moving my furniture out has to be moved up a week.  I awoke Friday morning to a bunch of hectic messages on the subject. I thought it was very unfair to put all of this on my friend Jay who is just helping me out, but it seems like it’s all a go.  Next week I will no longer be a homeowner.  Unfortunately, I will be a car owner.  The car is supposed to be in transit to Denver, but hasn’t arrived yet.

This might seem like a small victory, but I’m quite happy about it.  I did laundry and it dried that night.  Some of those clothes had been washed 4 times already because it’s been so humid that I hang the clothes to dry and 3 days later they are still not dry and they smell moldy.  So, I successfully washed and dried a load of laundry this week!

I think I posted about it before, but Q has been working turning this shack near our house into a mushroom farm.  It use to be four posts and a roof, but no walls.  Now it has black fabric walls.  Today I heard a lot of commotion.  Q and Noi were helping a guy unload plastic bags off a truck.  I went to investigate.  The mushroom house now has a gravel floor and shelves.  They are putting plastic bags of soil and mushroom seeds (?) on the shelves.  The guy was watering them with a hose, but a drip irrigation system has been installed in the ceiling.  One of the bags even has a mushroom coming out.  I’ve never seen mushrooms grown before.  It’s fun to watch it come together.

Here’s some random photos for you:

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