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...