Ok so now I have been in Thailand for 26 days and still the excitement is rolling in :)
Ok so this last week started out with all of the usual of having to go to college and just carry on relaxing. :) Not as much has happened like the other weeks but I shall sum up the interesting things for you all.
Though it might not sound interesting, I am actually beginning to get away with having rice free breakfasts! Shocking I know. Nowadays I only have rice for lunch and dinner, although next on my list is to have less rice for lunch. Who knows, it might work! :p
We went to teach at the primary school again although this time we had the older children and we taught them body parts. They wee really good and learnt it really quick but were really shy when we taught them heads, shoulders, knees and toes :p it was mainly just myself and Clem singing and the kids doing the actions! They may have been shy with that song but they loved the 'hokey cokey'! To start with they were really shy but when they saw myself and Clem making fools of ourselves dancing along to what we were singing, they joined in and some of them even started to sing all of the words! :) They also loved the games we played and ended up getting really competitive when we put them into teams.
One of the other main things that happened this week was that both Clem and I learnt a dance to show in front of visitors. We learnt it for about an hour on Wednesday and had to show it on Thursday! It was to a Korean pop song and was really funny. We started off by dancing in front of the first set of visitors and the whole school up on-stage! :P I think everyone screamed when we started dancing as we were all teachers and teachers don't often do that sort of thing :p Thankfully it went ok :) I didn't mess up even though they pushed me to the front because I was 'special' (basically white and foreign). You would think that that was it though. I don't think so! We were then told that we had to do the dance again in front of more special visitors and yet again, Myself and Clem were put right at the front! When we got up to dance, because we were white people and dancing, so many people took pictures of us! There were flashes everywhere! We felt like celebrities and ended up being blinded for a few seconds while the flashes went away! As this dance was in front of the Director as well, there was a bit of pressure but it went really well! On the plus side, after we had finished dancing, a few of the male teachers did a dance as well! It was hilarious!
At the weekend we went to see some of our host families friends who have these two little boys who are the cutest things in the world. They were really shy at first but after a while, they let us play with them and they were so sweet :)We also had a musical evening where all the other people who are volenteering came over and we sat there messing around on the guitar, keyboard and harmonicas! Lots of fun and our host father even came and played the guitar for us which as so funny :)
The last thing to tell you about is the car free day we went to on Sunday. We had to get up in the middle of the night (5.15am) and go to the front of the college with our bikes. Unfortunately our bikes were already at college but no one would let us walk the 5 minute walk there! They it would be dark, but it was light! (We get taken everywhere in cars even though nearly everywhere is walkable!). This meant that we started of our car free day by being driven in a car to the college. We were there on time and had to pose for a lot more pictures as we were the two white people :p We were also filmed and found out later that day that we had been on TV! We started of by cycling around the town but it finished really early. I had expected for it to last until early afternoon but it started at 7.30 and finished at 8.30! I think they should change the name to car free hour! Especially as when we were cycling back, people were loading up their bikes onto their pick-up trucks and driving home! I thought it was a bit ironic :p
Well they are the main things which have happened this week. Tune in next week for the next instalment! :p
Monday 20 September 2010
Thursday 9 September 2010
A week and a bit in Si Saket
Ok, first of all i'm sorry about the long wait but thereis limited internet connection which I can only get at the college where I am doing a lot of other stuff.
Due to the face that this past week and a bit has had a lot of things in it, I am going to split this posting into what I have done in and out of the college.
During college hours both Clem and I tend to relax and not do much to start with but now we are gradually beginning to join classes like textiles and helping other english teachers. We both introduced outselves to the textiles teacher in the college who is such a nice person and she is teaching us how to make a skirt which I shall wear for teaching so you will probably see a photo of it on Flicker st some point. (I recently got Flicker and am slowly putting up photos so everyone can see them). Also when we have helped out in classes, we have always been asked the boyfriend question! Every class! I never knew that it was such an interesting topic and question. :p
Also, the two of us have been asked to help out in the English competitions that take place in Thailand. They involve public speaking, storry telling, crossword (which we just found out was scrabble) and a demonstration such as cooking.
We have also gone to a couple of meetings as well even though we don't understamd Thai! The first one was with the English department and social department where we had to introduce ourselves again! The other meeting was with the whole school staff and included the director. This meeting started at 3pm and did not end untill 7.30!! This was lucky too as sometimes the meeting goes on till about 11pm! I have never been so bored because even though we had to introduce ourselves (again) to everyone and to say a speach about ourselves on the spot (not pleasent) the rest of the meeting was all in Thai which I don't understand yet and I left my book at home so I just sat there for 4 hours not doing much! Thankfully these meeting are only about once a month so its not that bad.
At the school there are students who do army training! Its amazing to watch and when we are in the office, we can always hear them shouting "huh" and other motivation phrases. Both Clem and I thought it would be funny to join them for a day but I doubt I could run in that amount of clothing in that heat!
Outside of school both of us have been doing a number of different things. Last Saturday we went to a couple of temples which was an amazing experience as we were able to watch the people give the monks their daily meal and listen to their chants while evryone prayed. At the second temple we were actually able to meet a monk! We weren't allowed to touch him but he gave us a red woven bracelet which is meant to be special amoung the Thai people.
The food here is divine but having rice for every meal for every day gets a bit too much! Rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner! And to add to all of that, we recently had ice cream with rice on it too! Its too much at times so we have asked really polietly to be given something else as all Thai people eat rice for every day for every meal! Sometimes I just end up craving a potato! To top it all off, I am going to come back home to England at the end of the year and all of my family is going to want me to cook them rice and Thai dishes and I am just going to be wanting crisps and pasta :p.
I think that the best thing that happened to me this week was when both Clem and I went to a Primary school and taught the whole school numbers and colours! We were there for about a hour and a half and we played a number of games with them and taught them some songs such as the rainbow song we learnt as a kid! We were both rally nervous and it was made even worse when we got there to see the whole school sat outside waiting for us! There were about 80 kids who were all really small and tiny and they loved the games we played with them :) I cant wait to go back next week as the kids are so happy and entusiastic!
Ok, so this is the main overview of the past week and a bit. There is probably a lot more that I could have put in but this will probably take you a decade to read anyway so you will just have to wait untill next week.
xXxXx
Due to the face that this past week and a bit has had a lot of things in it, I am going to split this posting into what I have done in and out of the college.
During college hours both Clem and I tend to relax and not do much to start with but now we are gradually beginning to join classes like textiles and helping other english teachers. We both introduced outselves to the textiles teacher in the college who is such a nice person and she is teaching us how to make a skirt which I shall wear for teaching so you will probably see a photo of it on Flicker st some point. (I recently got Flicker and am slowly putting up photos so everyone can see them). Also when we have helped out in classes, we have always been asked the boyfriend question! Every class! I never knew that it was such an interesting topic and question. :p
Also, the two of us have been asked to help out in the English competitions that take place in Thailand. They involve public speaking, storry telling, crossword (which we just found out was scrabble) and a demonstration such as cooking.
We have also gone to a couple of meetings as well even though we don't understamd Thai! The first one was with the English department and social department where we had to introduce ourselves again! The other meeting was with the whole school staff and included the director. This meeting started at 3pm and did not end untill 7.30!! This was lucky too as sometimes the meeting goes on till about 11pm! I have never been so bored because even though we had to introduce ourselves (again) to everyone and to say a speach about ourselves on the spot (not pleasent) the rest of the meeting was all in Thai which I don't understand yet and I left my book at home so I just sat there for 4 hours not doing much! Thankfully these meeting are only about once a month so its not that bad.
At the school there are students who do army training! Its amazing to watch and when we are in the office, we can always hear them shouting "huh" and other motivation phrases. Both Clem and I thought it would be funny to join them for a day but I doubt I could run in that amount of clothing in that heat!
Outside of school both of us have been doing a number of different things. Last Saturday we went to a couple of temples which was an amazing experience as we were able to watch the people give the monks their daily meal and listen to their chants while evryone prayed. At the second temple we were actually able to meet a monk! We weren't allowed to touch him but he gave us a red woven bracelet which is meant to be special amoung the Thai people.
The food here is divine but having rice for every meal for every day gets a bit too much! Rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner! And to add to all of that, we recently had ice cream with rice on it too! Its too much at times so we have asked really polietly to be given something else as all Thai people eat rice for every day for every meal! Sometimes I just end up craving a potato! To top it all off, I am going to come back home to England at the end of the year and all of my family is going to want me to cook them rice and Thai dishes and I am just going to be wanting crisps and pasta :p.
I think that the best thing that happened to me this week was when both Clem and I went to a Primary school and taught the whole school numbers and colours! We were there for about a hour and a half and we played a number of games with them and taught them some songs such as the rainbow song we learnt as a kid! We were both rally nervous and it was made even worse when we got there to see the whole school sat outside waiting for us! There were about 80 kids who were all really small and tiny and they loved the games we played with them :) I cant wait to go back next week as the kids are so happy and entusiastic!
Ok, so this is the main overview of the past week and a bit. There is probably a lot more that I could have put in but this will probably take you a decade to read anyway so you will just have to wait untill next week.
xXxXx
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