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!
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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?
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?
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
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.
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.
Monday, December 05, 2005
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...
Thursday, December 01, 2005
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...
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...
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