Is it really Christmas?

You know that feeling around Christmas time when you reach your limit and you think to yourself: if I have to spend any more time in the Body Shop or Bed bath and Beyond to select a 'token' smelly gift I will die? If I hear Jingle Bells one more time I'll shove them where the sun don't shine? (I bet most of you ar there already right?)

and then... you spend a Christmas away from home in a country that doesn't even know what Christmas is and you realise that you miss the incessant Carols and the annoying Jemimas.

now mix the two sensations together and ...voila! Christmas in Thailand.

It doesn't feel like xmas, it doesn't look like xmas but one of my K2 will be maimed tomorrow if they continue to spontaneously burst into Jingle Bells or rather:

Jingooo bear, Jingoo bear, Jingoo aww away,
oh what fur i' i' oo oo on a w or o'e lay OH!

and to top it all off, there is a big hoo ha at the mo because they have some special do ON Xmas day and so they are practicing their plays and their dances for it. I feel like I am teaching at a performing arts school. The kids do nothing all day but dance and then half of them come to our classes and it is all a bit pointless. And the music, yes of course, the music is incessant. And maybe, just maybe someone should tell them that it really isn't a good idea to have 30 6-year-olds dancing to Gwen Stefani holler back girl remix which includes a long spell of "I'm the shit, you ain't no shit". They are also wondering why we wouldn't want to go to the big do on xmas day - I shall be eating, drinking and getting very Merry.

so far this week we have made Snowflakes, Christmas cards, we've written letters to Santa, we've also drawn what we want Santa to bring, we've coloured in pictures of Santa and frankly I'm all out of ideas and I still have to teach them for two more days! I think on Friday we'll play pin the tail on the reindeer...

Top requests from kids for xmas:

Barbie
Robot
Gameboy
Game play (no idea what that is!)
Gloria Dress (pass!)
Bike
Pencil
Pencil Case
Rubber
Ruler
House (a real one apparently and surprisingly a common addition to the wish list!)

Bah humbug!

What's under Orion's belt?

Yeah, yeah, I know you are probably expecting some inter-planaterial filth from my good self detailing the absence of stars under the belt thus indicating the lack of endowment so to speak, but, no, I simply found myself staring at Orion's belt on Saturday evening at a fabulous sound and light extravaganza.

Now, those of you astute enough to think that the very fact that I could even see stars would suggest that I was nowhere near the heavily polluted and smoke-ridden sky of BKK, would indeed be right. I was in Ayuthaya.

Ayuthaya? Where is that? I hear you cry! Well, let me tell you. It is a whole 2 hours on a train to the North of Bangkok. Nothing but luscious green fields, swamps and some dodgy looking abodes seperate it from it's rather large and smelly brother BKK. It was once the capital of Thailand back in 113...erm 12..3.... a long time ago and has many remnants from that era. Yes, more temples. But not sparkly golden Buddha ones like in BKK rather more demure bits of stone poking out of the ground in various formations. I bet you are also wondering why I managed to see so much of the landscape whilst leaning out (don't do that you'll get your head chopped off - sorry I've come over all teachery) of the window. Well, I noticed that at every station there was a marker to say how far you were from where you had been and where you were going, 60Kms we travelled. 60, in TWO HOURS! That's 15 miles an hour on average. Still, can't complain the journey cost a staggering... 22pence/40cents.

Anyway, we got there. See http://www.terragalleria.com/theravada/thailand/ayuthaya/ayuthaya.html for an idea of what the place looks like. I was cursing myself enough for forgetting my camera this time.

On Saturday during the day we went to Lopburi which is a further 15 miles down the road - an hour and 20 by train, it was great. So nice to get into the countryside and savour a little peace and tranquility and be jumped on by monkeys. There are more temples of course, even a cluster of mudhuts in the arse end of nowhere in Thailand cannot be built without a temple but these temples have monkeys living in them. TB was accosted of course and I was scowling so much that they daren't come anywhere near me. It's just great when your evil look works on animals and not just children.

We arrived back in Ayuthaya to attend the amazing sound and light show of the evening commemorating the ancient Kings of Thailand (cue lots of loud patriotic music and flowery descriptions) and the settling of Ayuthaya and wait for it "the battle of the one elephant on back" which clearly was the highlight of the programme for me.

9 Elephants, 9 whole elephants prancing about 'pretending' to fight, squirting water on people, pushing 'actors' into the moat (and looking rather pleased with themselves when they did so) complete with swords that sparks flew off when they clashed - how amazing is that? I was mightily impressed, it even started on time which is a feat in itself in this country. Clearly traffic is a lot lighter than round those parts. It was great, we had been promised that Thais would start crying at the re-inactment of the sacrifice of the Queen to save her people, but it appears that there were only dry eyes in the house. Damn and blast. We couldn't really make out what kind of sacrifice she made, it looked like she was on top of a volcano (well smoke was billowing out from underneath her) and then there were laser tears eminating from the dark and descending the stone she was crouched upon. Any ideas? she jumped into an attacking volcano? She exuded rather large luminous green tears which can only be done once in your lifetime adn then you die? I don't know. Course, I could look it up on the internet and find out in seconds but that is far less fun.

Am afraid have been lacking in the entries this week. I also brought back with me some sort of weird tummy bug (worst Indian food I have ever had in my life). It appears antibiotics zap the old creative juices as it were. As long as that is all they zap, eh?

My first pet...

I remember my first pet. Do you? Well, mine was as much of a pet as can be in the Welsh farmery sense of the word. A sheepdog called Meg. Lovely dog she was, you could just point in the general direction of where the sheep were and off she would disappear like lightning and ten mins later the sheep would be in the pen. She went everywhere with me, was a Princess or a horse for example if I needed her to be (these things happen when you are an only child) and I always remember my Mum saying that if I fell and started crying she would growl at my Mum and blame her. Ahhhh. She never came in the house although desperately wanted to when there was a storm and lived to the ripe old age of 14 and was a trooper till the end.

You may right now be wondering what the hell has made me so nostalgic, but let's face it we all have fond memories of pets coz they are fun, I mean, none of you have ever actually taken one to school when you were a kid and killed it, have you?

Now you are beginning to see my point, aren't you? Horrifying as it may seem. Depending on how quickly the direction this story is taking is dawning on you.

So, couple of months back, having lunch with TB (sushi probably) discussing the finer points of trying to get a child to stay in it's seat for more than a millisecond he mentions that one of his P4 brought a hamster to class no less. Needless to say it was a little distracting. At the time he voiced concerns for the safety of the animal but in all seriousness we didn't think it was possible that harm would truly come to the poor thing.

Cue following lunchtime and TB points out that our worst fears had come true as the hamster indeed was attending class again but this time it was being hurled around the room in a ziploc bag. Nice. Apparently "the bad boys" had killed it. They threw it on the floor. I don't really think I need to put exclamation marks anywhere in the texts I shall allow your eyebrows to do the talking.

...yeah, yeah, I wish I were joking too...

Shocking and unbelievable as it all was we thought that was the end of it. Oh, did I mention they tried to offload the dead little critter onto TB? No? Well, they did.

Last week. P5 bring a Hamster into TB's class and this one is presumed dead on arrival until they spot it twitch and discover it is indeed breathing despite lying on the table legs splayed. This too was also maimed by "the bad boys". Also, they tried to sell it to TB for about 25pence/50cents. Lovely. Dunno about you, but I'm not convinced Thais have the same feelings for animals as we do...could be wrong.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions. I did find one of my kids trying to throw a cat into a tree the other day and was stared at by adults for telling him off. I mean, it's a cat, not a bird, it doesn't live in a tree right? Whatever.

finally...

Finally, I have the internet at home again -but who knows how long this false sense of security will last?

Tip: ludicrously, the new windows XP service 2 version actually has a bug in it which prevents you from accessing the internet. Of course, there is a patch available to solve the problem however you can only download it from the internet - hand up anyone who sees a vicious circle appearing?! I said hand, you dirty thing in the back there!

Anyway, can also finally post those Loy Krathong pics...

First of all, I presume I ought to actually explain what Loy Krathong is all about however, I am not 100 percent sure myself as noone tells us anything. Two weeks ago I was under the impression it was to commemorate the dead however last week I found out it was to give thanks so, you know, don't quote me on this. So, at present, it is to give thanks and they celebrate by making Krathong which are like floating things made of what looks like grass and leaves and they put a candle and some flowers in the middle of it and send it down the river. We had the entire day off teaching, which was nice and the kids had beauty competitions where the girls dressed up in traditional Thai dress and singing and dancing competitions which necessitated cheerlederesque co-ordination but, they are like 10 years old so I'm not sure the dancing was quite the extravaganza they thought it was. It certainly has become apparent that Thais like to put on a show but the effort is somewhat half hearted, the end result being a whole day of laughable routines and techincal mishaps and kids scratching their arses on stage and what-not. I found it the greatest teaching day in Thailand ever of course but possibly not for the desired reasons of the hosts of the event.

A nice thing to come of it was that we truly felt like we were part of the school for the day. All the parents in attendance were eager to oggle us and seemed very excited to meet us and I had the pleasure of meeting the British father of my little goody two shoes!

As an aside, incidentally when I asked him on Friday what he was doing for the long weekend he replied thus: "well Miss Hardcastle, I might have a spot of breakfast and then mainly I shall be reading during the weekend. I love books, especially science books, that's my passion, you see I want to be a scientist" This kid is a riot. I was just thinking to myself the other day how I truly have never come across such an honest and particularly forthright person, I mean he loses points for his own team by reporting them, he doesn't do it in any way because he is an arse he does it simply because they are doing something wrong and he feels this strong pull to do something about it. And he is only 9!

Back to meeting the parents...

So, TB and I were approached, I teach the son and TB teaches the 5-year-old daughter, and it was nice to have the father thank us for teaching his kids and comment on what an honourable job it is and then he looks at me and smiles and I just know something is coming. He chuckles to himself and says the first day his son returned from school he said "Dad, I think my new English teacher is a Celt" when asked why he replied "because she got really angry at one point and started banging the board!". Clearly, TB thought it was super amusing but then the tables were turned when he mentioned what the girl said after her first day of school. They asked what her teacher's name was and she couldn't remember she knew it was Mr Something so she told them it was Mr Donut! (which is the name of a donut store here).

The first pic is of one of my P1 students. Ordinarily, she is the most demure little creature in the world. Firstly, I wondered who the hell it was waving at me shouting teacher! teacher! 1. they never tire of doing it no matter how many times they see you in a day and 2. I have discovered that you don't actually have to be their teacher to warrant being shouted at enthusiastically, and I just didn't recoginse her with all that make-up on. It is quite scary how a tonne of make-up on a 7-year-old can drastically alter their appearance and boost them up to at least 13.

I'll only put a couple of pics each time as I find if I put more they all get crapmed up the top and it looks a bit silly. Plus, I took 58 pics on this day alone, we ahve a lot of ground to cover.

The second picture is of a bunch of my P1 girls. These it hs to be said are some of my nicest students, funny, enthusiastic, they take their time colouring inside the lines, that kind of thing. They are wearing the school uniform which makes them look like they should be attending some sort of early learner's marine corps and honestly the things they wear on scout day - Thursday -is unbelievable.

Well, I'm pretty much all Loy Krathong'ed out for the moment. I have a fantastic video of my kid doing the singing dancing thing but it won't attach, I'll have to keep trying...

till the next time...

The Proverbial fan...

Well, I bet you didn't think there would be an addition so soon. I didn't think that my last wrods of seeing what tomorrow will bring would indeed yeild some surprises.

Monday we have the day off becuase it is the King's birthday. Consequently it is then also Father's day and ingeniously Mother's day is on the Queen's birthday - see how that works? The school had a little ceremony they have clearly been practicing for for a while, not that we were told when it would be or whether it would affect any of classes, they are considerate like that.

As usual thus, we were in the wrong uniform looking like right clueless dingbats and the ceremonies began whenever anyone chose - there never seems to be a starting time for these thigns they jsut ease into them slowly. TB and I spent a lot of time just sat outside trying to figure out the order of the day with one of Kindergarten periodicllty comping up to us and giving us leaves or placing them into my pockets. She then spent the rest of the morning with me and couldn't really seem to find any of her class members until they showed up 20 mins late for class....so we DO have classes while all of this is going on. I realised I had class when my ever-so-lovely aide poked me in the back and grunted. She then proceeded to dump the kids in the calssroom and bog off. with every day, she just gets that little bit worse. thankfully the other one is a delight and knows what she is supposed to be doing. Anyway, I continued with a shortened and hastened version fo the lesson - one must be prepared to change all plans at the last minute in this job - and TB joined me coz his kids never showed and I was minus an aide. The minute he set foot in the classroom it was deathly silent. Hilarious. they just stared at him. Took them a while tog et used to him and they didn't really do much until he left because they were paralysed with wonder that there would be two whole foreigners in the room! Same applies for when you see them outside school, they jsut stare at you because as far as they are concerned you only exist within the parameters of the English classroom at school.

Anyway, taught lessons, ceremony finished, planned following lessons, had lunch and then at the end of the lunch hour there is a knock at the door.
of course I'm thinking, "who the hell is this disturbing my one and only hour of peace?"
da da da!!!!! the dreaded of all dreads............. a parent! AAARRRGGGGHHH!
With lightning speed my brain scans for any obvious resemblences to any of my kids and finds none, I relax a little, and then she introduces herself as the mother of one of John's kids...yet more sighs of relief. Then she explains why she is here and angry - the father, an American strangely enough decided to support his kid today and attend the father's day ceremony as indeed many other Thai fathers did. We met him. Had a little chat, nice chap by all accounts. Only, he was told that today was not for foreigners and was told to leave the school by one of the Thai teachers.

beep, beep, beep racism alert! Racism alert!

She was undeniably and rightfully furious and decided that she ought to let us know and wanted to know how we felt and explain a few things that she saw going on (Thai English teachers at the school blatantly teaching incorrect English and so on so forth) and that she was very angry and was going to complain to the school and moaned about Thai attitudes, said her kid was always happy with TB's calsses and that she loves Mr Shelton (sighs of relief from across the table) and by the way would we like to come over for Christmas dinner?

Weird. Weird. Weird. I knew we were largely ignored and often wondered why. Maybe I just got a glimpse of it, who knows. Either way someon is in touble becuase I went to do some copying and there were copious amounts of teachers in the room arranged in what looked like a meeting stance talking rather loudly and I heard the word foreigner repeated several times, although bear in mind it could also mean saddle or tulip covered in carob chocolate depending on which tone is used to produce said word.

Must dash....

may the fan ever be whirring...

A typical slice....

Not to disappoint the ever growing fanbase, well, it's gone from like three to eight in the past 5 weeks surely that is better than the average JLo album, I endeavour to 'pen' an entry....

Computer at home now working - clearly pressing the odd button every 20 mins works! however now the internet is out, on the bright side we have been assured that a technician shall be along in 2 days, that was on Sunday but you know, maybe days in Thailand are 48 hrs long. who bloody knows really.

With lack of photographic evidence to hand I shall give you a brief update on what my day was like with the kids today, you may well instantly understand why some days I simply can't face being cyber-humourous coz I jsut don't have it in me anymore.

The day kicked off with my K2 turning up 10 mins early, which may not seem alot but entertaining 18 4 year-olds for an hour is hard let alone an hour and ten, especially when you are not preapred.Anyway, I huffed and puffed at my 'aide' and looked at my watch several times, she spends more time playing on her mobile phone than she does any aiding in any way and proceeded with my "hello, Hello" song (soon to be released with a B side of "goodbye, goodbye it's time to go" song including a leaflet with the actions). During this catchy tune I was wondering what on earth was tickling my arse when I discovered it was one of my Kindergarten ferreting away up there! They have become rather more tactile recently.

Their latest thing: Poking my bum when my back is turned, trying to sneak their pencil into my hand as I walk past in the vague hope that I might do their work for them, sweeping the classroom to find all manner of minute crap to give me ranging from pencil lead to pencil shavings and trying to sneak things in my pocket. All in all though, Kindergatren is mighty entertaining to teach but possibly now more for them than it is for me - got to get that balance back!

Along come my P2 class, not my favourite, and I have recently worked out why. There are 25 boys and 7 girls in this class. Say no more. A brief overview of how that went - one was chucked out during the game towards the end of the class, another was sat aside at a desk facing the wall and one team lost around 200 points. The work eventually was completed though.

P1 are a bunch of cuties is has to be said and I decided that they were due a craft and there are so many for the current topic of food. After about 20 weeks of asking and teaching at this place I have finally been given 10 pairs of scissors which avoids the previous problem of me having to cut everytying out for 30 kids - not that it seems to be any quicker having them do it themselves! all was going rather swimmingly bits of watermelon were being coloured, refrigerators decorated and they were being relatively responsible with the glue, 5 mins before the end of class, shock horror, I hear an almighty crash and raise my head to see a bunch of chilren by desk pointing at each other. They had only gone and broken a glass. The worst thing was they just don't really understand me and couldn't get the concept that you shouldn't really stand on shrds of glass etc. It was a nightmare navigating them out of class, some were ignoring me and trying to pick it up - a shambles basically and my boss had arrived and was waiting to have a meeting with me. ... it never rains it pours...

Needless to say by the time my P3 showed up I wasn't in the best of moods. They were warned, nevertheless I'm helping a kid out with his work, look up and find one of them hurling rubbers at one of the kids. I literally picked him up and deposited him outside with his work. He was a bit shocked. The daft thing is he is hurling rubbers at a kid who is a little, hmm how can I put this 'special'? I don't know what is wrong with her, this is typical of Thailand to ignore it and then it doesn't really exist, of course noone warned me that she might need a little extra help. She has a tendency to shout and scream like a banshee and roll around on the floor, today she had trouble with her pens and kept dropping them on the floor adn it drove her mad and the kdis were laughing at her (main problem) and so she picked up a chair and attacked one of the boys. She has also on numerous occasions made a beeline for a kid with no reason that I can see but suspected that something was said and literally gone for the jugular. Usually though, if I just tell her to sit down she stops and sits down and she has an amazing sense for English, she is one fo the few students I have who actually does the work on their own and tries to be creative. I am constantly telling me kids to stop asking me for the answers and to use their brains. I praised her work the other day and she tapped her temple, said 'brain' and winked at me. She is all there that is for sure!

well, I had better get back to things, who knows what is in store for me tomorrow.

Technical Difficulties

Yet again I find myself reduced to typing this on the school computer as ours is making weird whirring noises and is clearly buggered for the time being. Never fear, TB is on the case, which as far as I can tell involves presing abutton every so often seeing the comp. process stuff for 20 mins and then pressing another button, not that I would ever suggest that the world of computer teachnology is not a fascainating one!

Last week was Loy Krathong and I have some fab photos from it (Thai thanksgiving) however you will just have to wait until the next installment when hopefully all will be fully functional to see them!

As always, plenty enough has been going on that doesn't require photographic representation, I believe my imagery alone will conjure up a fair idea of what is going on....

I also thought it time I explained a few things. My school is called PPM1 (it is just too long to write Praphamontree) this is where TB and I work. The other school where 16 foreign teachers work is PPM2. We teach from K2 - P6.

I teach: TB teaches:
K2 4/5 years old K3 5/6
P1 6/7 P4 9/10
P2 7/8 P5 10/11
p3 8/9 P6 11/12

These ages are only approximate as parents are allowed to enter their children to school at any age they want, so in actual fact they could enter Kindergarten at age 8 if they wanted to which might eplain why I have a kid in my P3 class who is taller than me. Not that that is saying much I know, but still, last I knew I was the average height of a 15 year-old!

As for my kindergarten I am still trying to ween them off stickers. I only dish out two in a class and that is it. They latched on to this pretty quickly and are now trying all the tricks they know to get them out of me. They tend to lurk around my desk and stare at the stickers in the hope that I might randomly hand one out on a whim. They spend a lot of time tugging at my jacket calling me closer and then whispering "sticker" into my ear and a personal favourite the all out ridiculing of each othr's colouring and writing efforts in order to make theirs appear more sticker-worthy. One of them even thinks that he can get away with casually placing his pencil in my hand as I walk past thus getting me to do the work for him and guaranteeing a sticker! Who knows where this is going to end but I have a feeling it won't be any time soon... At least Krittanut has stopped wailing in that class and has rturned to his old disruptive ways, I often find myself wondering which one was better.

It is cold here it has to be said - it is 25C which is I-don't-care Farenheit - I know most of you re dealing with the onset of winter but seeing as I booked flights for TB and I over our rather short xmas break to Shanghai because I was desperate for some cold xmassy weather I am a little concerned. Possibly the fact that I have no winter clothes was an oversight on my part but at least I get to see Mr Pope and I am rather looking forward to seeing teh Chinese idea of Christmas decorations including Father Chrsitmas nailed to a cross.

I had a massage last night which nearly killed me. I finally broke my vow of silence. I often jsut grimace and bear it but blimey or reilly the woman last night was mean! She stood on my arse (something I still can't work out how they do) and then proceeded to wrap my legs around hers and then lean forward and land on my back whilst wrenching my legs into rather an uncomfortable position - does it hurt? is a question I learnt pretty quickly in Thai and yet stubborn pride only allows me to reply "only a little" rather than "Yes woman can't you see you dislocated my hip?" Although it does bode well that should I indeed decide to go ahead and get trained to give Thai massages it could prove a rather useful trade.

The beauty industry here is cheap that is for sure but there are times when I do wonder about quite what I am getting. Of course the massage place I go to is highly professional or painful whichever way you look at it and all things are so cheap it is hard to resist. Most of you are aware i have already been scarred for life by my one and only waxing incident where I was concerned when the woman emerged with a saucepan and a wooden spoon and then proceeded to remove half the skin on my shin. Last week I thought I'd get a facial (about 3 pounds for an hour) which usually runs rather smoothly however this time I found my face being rubbed with a fresh lemon - no idea what it is supposed to do and stinks of course! - and then she took an implement to my face and after it was all over I wasn't the radiant beauty I was hoping for I had lumps the size of red golf balls on my face. I think Beauty mishaps are common but it is hard to resist the temptations of cheap pampering.

Well, I really need to get on with some work. I was actually pleased to receive a phone call from my DOS this morning (usually my blood runs cold when I see the name and I freeze debating whether I should answer or not knowing full well it is bound to be bad news) thankfully today it was to say that I shall not have to go into work ON SUNDAY and do this stupid open day at the other school to which I replied "oh excellent" however he didn't know when it would be, possibly Monday, but he can't get a definite answer on that to which I replied "that's not a surprise".

continue enjoying my misfortunes...

Sticker madness

This is going to be a quick one, I didn't want to fail on my weekly entries. My internet is out at home so I am reduced to diong this surrounded by 30 kids getting a computer lesson. Shame they can't understand anything I am writing about them!

All is relatively well in the land of smiles. I have shot myself in the proverbial teaching foot however by introducing the concept of stickers as a reward to my Kindergarten class - why oh why did I think that was a good idea? TB does in his and they seem relatively ok with it but mine... I just spend the whole hour dealing with this:


"bla bla blee blee bloo bloo sticker, bla bla bla sticker, colour beautiful sticker, writing beautiful sticker bla bla ble ble sticker bloo!"

It's a nightmare. I have now got to condition them into the idea that there are only two stickers issued per class and that is it NO MORE AFTER THAT I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! I assumed they wouldn't be too bothered by them because they have stickers with their books which they don't give two hoots about so why suddenly mushroom stickers are the thing to have I simply don't get. That, and the fact that one of them won't stop crying makes for a trying hour. Idon't know what is wrong with him. He used to be a little shit and run around causing havoc and now he is wailing before he even enters the classroom and doesn't stop. It breaks my heart a little (I shall touch upon this weird phenomenon later) because he still does his work he just wails while he is doin it! He refuses stickers (if only they all did this is gonna cost me big time!), I can't bribe him to stop, I can't tickle him or distract him, if I ignoe him he doesn't stop either and the Thai teachers hit him for crying! No points for guessing that method doesn't prove too effective. I was hoping he would have got over it by now but it is already week 3 of this semester. It is actually now just getting annoying.

speaking of Kindergarten, my one hilarious moment last week: I was minding my own business making photocopies when I look out the window and I see one of TB's Kindergarten walking back to class after having been to the bog. I think to myself "oh that one is quite cute" and he proceeds to stick his hand down his pants (the UK type of pants) pull his hand out and sniff it - twice! and jump into class and no doubt give TB a big hug. Minging.

Honestly I don't know what has come over me of late. I have my suspicions it is to do with turning 28 and dread the effect it will have on me as time continues to go by. The other day I found myself pondering the significance of being on the blob and the loss of an egg - what the hell? Clearly, I caught myself and immediately made sure the loo brush was bashed copiously about and the bugger was quite dead. I fear for the balance in the world should I suddenly become all gooey and nice. I promise I shall keep myself in check and alert the relevant people should there be anymore warning signs. Anyway, teaching these little ghouls guarantees that I'm not going to desire one of my own any time soon.

I shall make more of a decent contribution when my internet at home is working again although who know when that could be... plus, I believe you have quite enough food for thought at the moment!

I always want to write one of those really meaningful quotes at the end of these posts and then realise how rubbish I think some of them are when I get some at the end of emails so I shall refrain.

goody two shoes

I'm quite impressed that I have managed to find myself writing a new post one week after I started. This is a good sign. The pic, if you haven't already guessed, is of my fantabulous school uniform which I must don four times a week. There are two combos of this delectable style, the other being in baby blue with a cream shirt. Although, the shirts are so versatile that they can be worn with both shades of blue to create the appearance that in actual fact you are wearing a different unifrom every day of the week, isn't that just great? And of course the school logo is emblazoned across my heart...ahh. I can hear rounds of excited applause across the globe - ooh what a lovely tremor. Oh and on Wednesdays Thai traditional dress is worn. Indeed, I was fitted for the uniform and it was tailor made - two sizes too big because Thais are convinced that foreigners are fat and even when confronted with the naked truth that we aren't that big, they just give you a bigger size in order to satisfy their beliefs. Nice. What does TB wear I hear you ask? The same thing but with trousers and no shirt. Now, it isn't a bad thing, all teachers wear it and it helps the children see us as being on the same level as Thai teachers (although I fear that little psychological trick wore off a long time ago) but it is made of the weirdest material I have ever come across. Were it cotton - the sensible option for a climate such as this, it is the cool season and it only just dipped to 29C/5678F - then it would be fine, alas this is not the case. I have given up wearing the shirt and bought my own as it makes me smell like a Camembert that has been left in a greenhouse for 5 days. Clearly, what one would be doing eating a Camembert in a greenhouse is questionable but it is the nasal imagery here which is important.
The first week of school went swimmingly. The kids showed up true to form on Tuesday and one proceeded to puke in my class. Nothing like the retchings of a 7-year-old to put you off your lunch. I thought she was having snot troubles as she was rubbing her nose so much I told her to grab some bog roll from my desk - a necessary accoutrement for so many reasons - and she proceeded to sbionk in my bin. I had to momentarily neglect 28 other students (never a good idea, they've discovered I'd rather make a plaster out of a piece of tissue and sellotape than drag them to the nurse and leave them unattended) and take her to the nurse, who is never there or asleep on the bed. Surprisingly nothing was broken or drawn upon in my 2 inute absence from class, possibly at first.
I have a couple of new students most of whom can actually string a sentence together which is a breath of fresh air and I've discovered that my meanie "Nutty clearly struggles in English and has made little progress this semester" reports have made a difference and most of the worst students have not returned. Unfortunately the worst at English are not always my least favourite pupils. Interestingly, I have a battle of the goody-two-shoes in my P3. Last semester I had one kid who has a British father and so spent his time thus:
"Miss Hardcastle, Miss Hardcastle, shall I write the names of all the students who are talking in class on the board so I can report them later"
Me, struggling to explain something to a kid "if you've finished your work of course you can"

two minutes later...

"Miss Hardcastle, Miss Hardcastle, does it count if they are playing with their hair?"

Me: No, I don't think so as long as they aren't being disruptive.

two minutes later...

"Miss Hardcastle, Miss Hardcastle, does it count if they are sharpening their pencils instead of working?"

Me: No, just if they are talking.

and the list goes on...you get the picture.

That was when there was just one...now there are two! I am mildly concerned although there doesn't appear to be any squabbling for attention just yet but I'm interested to see how it will pan out. They wanted to be on the same team in class, I said no - they really do think you are stupid sometimes! Speaking of competition, it is weird how the different ages react to it. They all get excited about team games, but for example my P1 class help members of the other team and don't notice when I blatently award unecessary points to a team who is miles behind. However, my P2 wouldn't dream of helping each other and get quite pissy if mumble a letter to help a kid who is trying to spell a word on the board and with my P3s it is all out war. They check the score boards as they come in and leave and get V. excited when the leader is announced at the end of class. My kindergarten of course don't really seem bothered at all with the notion of competition.

Ah, my kindergarten, the best behaved and loveliest clas of them all. They just go through "how can I mess with my teacher fads" and find the daftest things hilarious. This week the latest thing is that anything they have in their hands that I am collecting they hold on to when they give it to me so I have to tug at it. This generates a huge amount of giggles. With speaking, we have moved from speaking in funny voices, now they like to simply combine stuff. Every day I ask them how they are and now I get "happysad" or "angrytired" followed again by raucous fits of laughter. Who knows what I will have to deal with next week.

Oh, latest Thai kids obsession: pencil cases that have a string that you pull and it spins a weird thing in the pencil case which makes lots of noise. I think I shall be confiscating a fair few this week....

anyway, dinner time, enough of my ramblings.

take care allxx

It's halloween and evil lurks...

Here is the view from our balcony. As you can see Samut Prakan clearly resembles the "quiet fishing village" described in lonely planet. Dunno bout you, but I'm not convinced they ever came here. After all, it boasts one of the largest crocodile farms in the world including a 6m croc. These pics are as of ten mins ago and surprisingly I managed to take them in the split second that there was no traffic around. Weird. This road is one of the main arteries feeding BKK and is usually a nightmare. You can probably tell why I'd rather move to BKK and spend 90 percent of my weekends at the beach or at least away from home. Tis not rain cloud, tis pollution.

These impressive images are brought to you instead of the pics of the kids I was planning to take but unfortunately there were none today and noone bothered to tell us that they weren't coming to school until tomorrow. Normally, I would be thanking my lucky stars whilst expecting the little so-and-sos to come round the corner any minute yelling "teacher, teacher" (honestly I haven't even taught my kindergarten the word teacher yet just so that I have one hour a day when I don't hear that word repetitively!) but the printer wasn't working and the computers sucked and after I'd made my huge "where is spot?" poster book I really was rather bored. I'm not joking, I did make it and it is quite impressive.

Those are the ramblings for today, I had much more to say but I think my brain is turning to mush and I've adopted the concentration span of a 4-year-old.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake bakers man, oooh look spider! can I eat it?

End of hols, boo hoo

Have just finished up 3 blissful weeks of time away from the kids. Well, I did bump into one yesterday unexpectedly in the mall. Poor thing, he got all excited and then didn't know what to do with himself
"teacher! teacher! Hello! Hello!"


(this is long beach on Phi Phi)

cue much pointing and nudging of parents and then even more shock as I wai (for the culturally challenged that's when you raise your hands like you are praying to greet Thais), then utter confusion as kid is clearly wondering to himself "ok, she's seen me, I've said hello, now what do I do?, I know"

"hello!, hello teacher"

"yes hello Supachai absolutely spiffing to see you, but we'll have a more in depth conversation in class on Monday shall we? don't forget your 5000 word essay on the advantages of your parents paying an exhorbitant amount of money to have a fully-qualified foreign teacher educating their child in the simple pleasures of linguistic acquisition and all you can muster is hello after one semester.

Can't wait to get to work on "how are you" with them this semester.

ah well, back to the holiday. Relive it one more time before the ugly reality of work raises it's head.

Did both Northern and Southern Thailand this time. Travelled in far more style and luxury than usual as TB's (The Boy's) parents came to visit for the first ten days. Went on a Thai cooking course which was great fun, in fact for more fun than I had anticipated as we were the only two learning thus avoiding sharing valuable learning time with drongos. It was fairly foolproof however, and lots of bashing of ingredients (which was my fave part) rather than artsy fartsy chopping of vegetables into equal size cubes which I've never thought particularly necessary to add taste to a dish.


Down in the South I had my first real beach holiday. I am not well versed in beach holidays as was burnt within 3 days. TB is far more susceptible than myself, no mention of rednecks here, so the last couple of days were spent hiding from the sun and peeling each other - woo that was some holiday! Did eat King fish, no idea what it is but it was nice, quite like the extensive choice of seafood in this country and did much snorkelling (main reason for aforementioned burnedness - yep, I'm just making up words as I go along, fab generally accepted trick I picked up from watching American television) and will definately be learning to dive in another upcoming holiday.


Well, I just had a computer mishap and lost half the text attaching the photo so shall leave for now as can't face doing it all again.


Important lesson learnt today: do photos first.