Week in Review...

Sometimes I don't feel like typing. That's why it's been so long since I've updated. Just wanted to summarize what I've been up to since last week.

Friday: After school I head over to a nearby mall. Go to post net cafe, read my book (The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan)and have a couple milkshakes. Nathan drops by after playing video games with Mike one floor up. We go for supper at a place called Rice & Noodles. Are meal tastes freshly microwaved. After supper we split up and I decided to get another buzz cut. On my way back I buy speakers for my laptop, and then listen to sweet music in my room and read.

Saturday: Get up late, read. Work. Read. Watch Discovery Channel and eat pizza. Read. Go to bed.

Sunday: Alarm goes off at 7:30. Feeling tired with sore throat and end up sleeping till 11. Get up. Read. Work. etc.

Monday: Nothing overly interesting.

Tuesday: After school decide to go back to post net cafe and write postcards. Mail 13 of them (before that I had only sent 1 postcard since I've been here) After I go to a Thai movie called Hello Yasothorn. " Basically a rural love story that takes place in Thailand in 1967. Very weird but pretty funny. Still got a cold so go to bed as soon as I get home.

Wednesday: Feel pretty crappy all day. After tutoring I walk to Big C to buy cough syrup (mmmm grape flavour). Head to bed at 8:30.

Thursday: Also feel pretty crappy all day. After chapel, I have grade 9's write lines for an entire hour straight, no breaks. "I will stop acting like I am in kindergarten. I will respect others. I will try to set a good example for the younger students." Drink some more cough syrup. Go to bed at 8:30.

Friday: Feeling a bit better. Leave for field trip at around 10. Go to some Institute of Technology and watch a presentation about solar power. Teachers take a sweet go-kart for a spin in the parking lot. Get back around noon. At 1:30 go to fire fighter presentation in parking lot at school (gr. 1-9). Firefighters play with fire. Firefighters get student volunteers to help them play with fire. Firefighters take out giant propane tank, shoot gas straight out of it to make big flames. Repeat a couple dozen times. Get student volunteers to help them play with giant propane tank and shoot flame. Antique fire extinguisher breaks. Wrap some tape around the nozzle to fix it. Take home message: fire is really fun to play with. Good news: no student gets burnt. After school, work on report cards. At 7 head to the Sky Train with Mike, Craig and Michelle. Take it downtown. Go to Fabb Italian Restaurant and Jazz Club. Fancier then expected. All the staff wearing fancy suits and stuff. I wear blue jeans and tee shirt. Have some lasagna and Singha. Go to Starbucks. Coffee of the day and carrot cake. Pee in a bush with Mr. Craig. Take sky train back. Buy some bacon. Breakfast at Mike's tomorrow at 9.

Substitute...

Today, after I teach grade 7 math, they stay in the classroom and Kru Nong comes in to teach Thai language. I knew she wasn't here today so I got out of there as soon as I could so that I would not have to babysit them. I told another Thai teacher, Kru Tak, that there was noone to teach grade 7 Thai language, so she called across the yard to this guy who does random yardwork and errands around the school and told him to go substitute teach. I thought that was pretty funny. Anyways, went to a barbecue on Sunday at a family called the Hansons. They are originally from California, live in Thailand a few years, moved to Alaska, and are now back in Thailand. They live in Nichada which is where a lot of expats live so they had a pretty nice place with a pool in their back yard. Had some sweet food and hung out by the pool. After this week only two more weeks till October break. Since I don't really like planning things in advance, I still don't know what I will do during our three weeks off. Next week is midterms and we need to have report cards finished by October 3.

Spider...

A couple nights ago I found a giant spider in our bathroom (the biggest I had ever seen other than on tv or in an aquarium). I showed Nathan and then we asked Goh if it was poisonous but he didn't know. We decided to see what effect bug spray would have on it so Nathan sprayed it while I recorded with my camera. It started running around after he spray it which got us both running out of the bathroom screaming like girls. I then got out my mosquito bat and zapped the spider which seemed to take care of it. Tim then came and sprayed it good with Off! and then lit it on fire. It was good times, and the end result was a charred spider. Last night I went downtown with a few teachers to an Irish pub called O'Reilly's. I had a coffee and an ovaltine before leaving, and the taxi ride took forever (the first taxi stalled so we had to get another). The subway station did not have a bathroom (why would you bother to put a bathroom in a giant subway station?) and I didn't think I would be able to last the a subway ride downtown so I ended up finding a tree in the pouring rain and peeing on it. The subway ride was pretty fun. It's only like a year old so it's pretty nice. Although it has crashed and killed people it seems to work pretty good now. The pub was pretty nice and the band was singing Beatles' songs. Tomorrow after church at CCC I'm going to go to a barbecue at the Hansons, a family who goes to CCC and invited all the GES teachers over. This week I have to speak at chapel so I have to come up with 35 minutes worth of stuff.

Dream World...

Here I am sitting in my room. Apparently one of our neighbors have a wireless router because sometimes I can access the Internet on my laptop here. Today was the junior high field trip to dreamworld. Dreamworld is kinda like an amusement park about an hour and a half from here. Last night, it rained all night. This morning we knew that it was gonna rain the entire day (it doesn't usually rain for entire days here, usually just an hour or two at a time. We were supposed to leave at 8:30, but around this time we decided to forget Dream World and instead see a movie. With people coming late and handing in their money late, it wasn't until 9:30 that we actually left. It took about an hour and a half to get to the theatre due to the rain and traffic. Once there we gave them the option of seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Cave, or Tom Yum Goong. 9 wanted to see Tom Yum Goong and the rest wanted to see The Cave. I went with the Tom Yum Goong group (all grade 7's) The movie ended at about 2:15 and they had 45 minutes of free time to do whatever they wanted in the mall. Some of the grade 7 girls went bowling so Mr. Mike and myself went and watched. We got back at the school at 3:35. Overall, a very chaotic day. We ended up being 900 Baht short for the movie tickets so us three teachers had to cover that. Oh well, mai pen rai. Gotta get prepared to teach tomorrow, go to Big C to get pop and chips for Life Groups tomorrow, and then have Bible Study at 7. And its still raining.

Moving Day...

Fairly uneventful week. On Monday I had to go back to the hospital (because on Friday they told me to and made an appointment) but all they did was change the bandage on my stitches and clean it a bit. After that I checked out The Cave which was lamer than Herbie. Yesterday I had to back to the hospital to get my stitches taken out. So that was my 9th time at that hospital, 8 for myself and once to visit my roommate. After getting the stitches out I headed over to Pizza Company at The Mall and then watched Dark Water. Pretty suspenseful movie. Most of the day (9-6) was spent movie. After we moved most of the stuff by hand, they decided to get a pickup truck. I'm not sure why they couldn't get one a few hours earlier. It was a pain movie couches, wardrobes, beds, desks, etc. up and down flights of stairs. But a couple Thai guys were helping and they did most of the heavy lifting. The expression "everything but the kitchen sink" doesn't really make any sense here in Thailand. Its not too rare to move your kitchen sink here, and we moved ours. Our new house is pretty cool. We get in through the tennis court and walk into a "kitchen" (right now it has a fridge and a kitchen sink that is not connected to water). Next to the kitchen is a living area. Goh (our Thai housemate) has this big fish tank with a dragon fish which makes the living room look pretty cool. From the living room are sliding doors that go out onto a small soi. The stairs take you up to the second floor which is shared by me and Nathan. Our room are pretty big. It was nice having to think of where I should put my bed...in my old room there was only one way you could position the bed. My room is pretty sweet with a bed, a bookshelf, a wardrobe, a little storage thing, a big reading chair, air con, and a sweet ceiling fan (although it vibrates funny and I hope it doesn't fall off in the middle of the night and chop me up) with lots of room to spare). It also has a mini-balcony overlooking the tennis court. Tim and Goh live up on the third floor. Each floor has a bathroom which is nice, and the 2nd floor bathroom has a sweet digital water heater, so you can set the exact temperature of the water (they don't seem to use the same kind of water heaters that we have in North America; they just have a little unit attached to the shower). A lot of work moving, but in the end I think it will be worth it. It has rained pretty much every day this week. All this rain is nice because it makes things feel a lot cooler (if you consider 30 °C cooler) At least in our new house we don't have to walk through muddy puddles to get to the sidewalk.

7 Stitches...

Yesterday afternoon was school spirit day. The school is divided into 4 house teams: Ruth, David, Moses, and Esther. Throughout the year the teams get points and the winner gets a trophy at the end of the year. So yesterday we just had a bunch of games and stuff. A nice change of pace from usual classes. After school we had a mandatory aerobics thing with the Thai staff at 5. So I was waiting for it to start and Craig started rolling hula hoops, and then I had this great idea that it would be fun to try to jump through a rolling hula hoop without knocking it over. I almost didn't knock it over but my feet caught it and then I landed on my jaw. I hit the gym floor pretty good and was happy that I didn't break my jaw but then Emily told me I was bleeding pretty good. Ajarn Sahat said he would take me to the hospital in 15 minutes so I waited around a bit for that. Then we got into some guy's truck and he drove us to the hospital. On the way there we picked up a Thai guy named Tim and then drove down some side streets and dropped him off and waited while he checked his car. Then we drove down a bunch more side streets and finally ended up at the hospital. The nurse and doctor started asking me if I had had something done before but I couldn't figure out what they were saying, then Tim showed up and tried to translate but I couldn't understand what he was saying later. Later I found out that they were asking me if I had had a tetanus shot before. I had already had it but now I've had another one. I ended up getting 7 stitches in my chin. So this was my 6th time in the hospital as a patient, plus the time I visited my roommate in the hospital, so I am starting to learn my way around it. I was a bit disappointed because I was supposed to go out for dinner with a student (Tam, the guy I tutor in Math) and his mom and some other teachers. Oh well, mai pen rai. I got out of the hospital by about 7:30. I knew some people were gonna go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Major Non, but I knew I wouldn't get back in time to go with them so I ended up watching Skeleton Key at The Mall. It was a pretty interesting movie with a sweet ending.

Hula Hoops...

Hula hoops are evil. We were supposed to meet in the gym at 5 to do aerobics with the Thai staff. While waiting, I tried to show off by jumping through a rolling hula hoop. I split my chin open on the ground and now I'm headed to the hospital to see if it needs stitches. :(