Thanksgiving and the Kings' Birthday

Chaiyaphum sunset right outside my apartment

Being sick sucks. Being a sick teacher in a foreign country really sucks.  I ended up having to miss a day of work, but it's unavoidable, especially when I'm surrounded by my 250 students I see everyday.   Finally feeling like my old self again, just in time for my visa trip to Laos this weekend. 

I figured I should update on Thanksgiving finally, especially before Christmas.  Obviously I had to work on Thanksgiving, and given one of my classes just had a quiz in their first block with me, it was only fitting to educate them about American Thanksgiving in their second class with me that day.  Naturally, I had my M2 students (13/14 year olds-8th graders) trace their hands and make hand turkeys.  They enjoyed it, and it was the perfect lesson to plan (also I was sick that day, so explaining about American Thanksgiving and turkeys was much easier for my brain to comprehend.  Something about being in a developing country, dust, and germy kids tends to keep getting me sick- who would've thought?). 

My M2s hard at work tracing their hands for hand turkeys

"Hold up your turkeys! I want a picture!" Sometimes it's good to let them be kids.

These kids can draw better than I can. 

That Thursday night, a bunch of teacher farongs from around Chaiyaphum got together at a restaurant we go to a lot for lunch, and had a friendsgiving dinner.  It was delicious-no I didn't eat turkey.  The lady that owns the place, Bun, knows I'm a vegetarian, there are a couple vegetarians here, and made a special vegetable pot pie for me.  My phone died as soon as I got there, so I wasn't able to get a bunch of photos but it was nice to have some Thanksgiving food-mashed potatoes, veggies, meatless stuffing, something other than Thai food.  We had a nice meal, hung out for a few hours, then went home- we still had work the next day.

American Thanksgiving

Friday, December 5th is the King's Birthday.  It's quite a big deal with celebrations running all that week.  December 5th is considered a national holiday, so we had no school and got to have a nice 4 day work week.  That Thursday, there was a giant celebration assembly to honor the King and his birthday.  Thai teachers wore their white uniforms, and the foreign teachers wore yellow.  It's customary to wear yellow because the King was born on a Monday-which is the color yellow  (Thailand has different colors for the days of the week).  For the month of December however, we wear yellow on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday to honor the King.  

The morning assembly was decorated in yellow, golds, and every shade inbetween.  After the assembly, all the teachers waited in line to sign what I could only assume is similar to a guest book for the king.  We- the foreign teachers signed it too.  Long live the King.

The students sitting in their perfect class lines. 

English teachers and the girls in the Thai costumes are actually our students

Some of my students-yes, all 5 rows of them. 

So. Much. Yellow. The King's birthday is also Father's day, we wrote little notes to our fathers and stuck it on the tree.

Next week, the kids have "Sports Week," so there are no classes, but we still come into work to get our grade books in order.  I'm missing Monday and Tuesday for Laos, but it will be nice to have time to work on grades for my students.  Sports week is just like sports day in the states, but this lasts a whole week.  It's a fun week before midterms for students to compete against their classmates with badminton, basketball, table tennis, and other fun sports.  My students have been working hard, they deserve this fun week before I have to cram some review material into their noggins.  

On that note, I will leave you with my Work Permit photo which looks absolutely nothing like me.  One, I'm not smiling, and two, hello photoshop.  I went into get my photo taken the other day, when I was sick, so the original picture looked like death.  The picture came out looking like I wore make up to begin with. Not too shabby, Thailand.  

dat Thai Life

K̄ĥāw p̄hạd kai dao - Fried rice and egg.

First off, this is the second time writing this, as my previous post did not upload for some reason.

Chaiyaphum has been a trip so far.  Although I have only been here a few weeks, it feels as if I have been here forever.  I am extremely happy I switched placement agencies and feel I am in a much better place in life because of it.

I have been working at Satri Chaiyaphum, teaching Matyumum 2, which is secondary, mostly girls school, at a level 2, equivalent to 8^th grade in America.  I teach 20, 50 minute classes a week and also take part of English club as part of a farong (foreigner) requirement.

I teach different levels of M2 as well as IEP/Basic- grammar based classes (I have 2 classes with IEP of which I both see 5 times a week each) and ECD- listening and speaking based.  My students are most definitely a handful, but I do enjoy the challenge of teaching them.  I only see my ECD students once a week so it can be difficult to get lessons in with them, but I'm slowly getting the grove of this teaching thing.

My M2/1 class. "Teacha, Teacha, picta, picta!!"

Weekends have been filled with pop-up markets, wandering, and the night market-one of Chaiyaphum's most visited tourist attraction (according to Google).  Everything is pretty affordable- I especially enjoy the fact I can get a meal for 30 Baht, .90 cents.  Needless to say, I'm getting very well fed.  I haven't gone running yet, because it can be difficult with all the stray dogs chasing you and it's hot, but I'll get around to it.  There's even a free gym around here somewhere.  

This past weekend some of the English teachers in my building, Val, who works at the primary school down the street from mine, and Alison, who works at my school walked down the street to the second hand market –holy crap galore.  I managed to get 2 skirts and a blouse for a little under 100 Baht –about $3 USD, I love Thailand.

Second hand market galore! Myself, Val, and Alison-teachers weekend shopping trip

Sunday my friends Val, Sam, and I drove to Tattone Waterfalls, about 30 minutes away on the motorbike.  I was supposed to be following Sam and Val on Sam’s motorbike, (yes, I have a motorbike, it’s blue and pretty and matches my orange helmet.  Almost everyone here has a motorbike, you kind of need one to get around town and go anywhere.  I also found out I like driving motorbikes, who knew, because I always swore I'd never get one...) but Sam decided to drive like a bat out of Hell, so I lost them and got lost trying to get there.  2 hours and a beautiful drive later, I finally arrived, and just as soon slipped and fell on my butt on a flat, dry surface near the waterfall—In true Marissa fashion.  And yes, everyone saw.  As they say in Thailand, Mai Pen Rai- the Hakuna Matata of Thais, meaning no worries, or eh whatevs. 

We went on one of the nice last days for the waterfall before it dries up.  Although Tattone Waterfalls is no Multnomah Falls (Portland friends and loved ones, you will completely agree with me on this one), the drive and experience was just as beautiful.  

Val, Sam, and myself

Tadttone Waterfalls, Chaiyaphum

Chaiyaphum

Life happens and situations change.  I have switched placement agencies in Thailand and am no longer in the south. I wasn't getting the best guidence or placement I was promised so I decided to switch to another company, for the better. I flew to Bangkok, had a brief orientation, and the next day I was off on a short 5 hour bus ride to Chaiyaphum where I will be teaching English  to the primary level.
When I got to my apartment, it was brand new. Nothing made me feel better than to finally be able to unpack and settle into my new home.

Even better, I got to decorate my fridge with love from home. 

 Yesterday, Monday was my first class. I taught 3 classes yesterday and will be teaching 5 today. I'll be teaching 20 classes a week, which will take a while to get used to as there are like 10-15 different class types with different learning levels. So far everyone is incredibly nice and helpful.  I wasn't exactly sure where my school was yesterday, so the lady who owns the restaurant below my apartment drove me to school on her scooter.

I also got a ride home from another foreign English teacher at my school. Thailand really does have the nicest people. 

Last night, I met the two other foreign teachers in my building, and they work at the primary schools down the street (I'm at the Secondary school, Satri).  

There are a bunch of farang  (foreigners) in Chaiyaphum, which is exactly what I wanted.

I'm sitting at my office desk as I have my first two periods of the day classless, trying to put together lesson plans and remember how I was taught in elementary school. Even though these girls are in high school, they still speak English at at lower level - which is to be expected as this is a foreign language to them. All I can say is, thank you to my fabulous teachers at Vienna Elementary. Fairfax County Public Schools has truly prepared me for this.

Koh Samui and Tha Sala

Koh Samui has been a trip since day one. I forgot to add a couple things, so instea of editing my blog, I'm making a new one, deal. :)

 I forgot to add this photo, curiosity of Martin, from our taxi ride from the ferry to our first hostel. In the front is Cherry and Martin, followed by Siobhan, myself, Loo (our placement's son), with Illandra and Carl in the way back. We were so beat from our long trip from Bangkok, we slept the way there. I swear we do more than eat and sleep...maybe. 

After we all got settled in, we walked around and found the night market, even better, food. 

Again, I stole Martin's picture. 

I got pad thai and a coconut shake, but are we really surprised? My favorite dish!

Fast forward past the elephant ride, Big Boodah and our 5/6 day stay in Samui....

Koh Samui, an island of Thailand has some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen in my life. On our last day in Koh Samui, we soaked up the sun and bought coconuts from a super sweet lady walking up and down the beach with buckets of food. It was super hot, so we were one water the majority of the time before heading to Nakhon Si Thammarat the next day. We got a nice surprise, one of our friends from Bangkok decided to join us in Samui for a few days. 

Sonia and I (thanks Martin!) on the rooftop of our hotel on our last night. 

Districts of Nakhon Si Thammarat. We got off the ferry, got in a van and ended up in Tha Sala, wanting to get to Nakhon early, so we could get settled in before placement at our schools. 

While we are in a little bit of a rural area, it's not nearly as bad or too rural as some villages I've seen around vietnam, Cambodia, Mocronesia, even Hawaii. We have hot water and air conditioning in our hotel, so it's not bad at all. 

The only downside is, on our first day, we only found one restaurant, and no vegitarian ("jay" in thai) options. For the first time in 5 years, I ate a little crab. It upset my stomach, but when you're hungry, you eat. 

Dim Sum with egg scrambled with some crab on top of tofu. 

Afterwards, we walked around and a couple miles later, found a Tesco, pretty much a Walmart of the area. Yesterday, Martin and I found a shortcut which knocked a good couple miles off, lazy people life!! 

I found out I will be teaching in Sichon, a district right above where I am currently in, making it easy to get to my new destination. I'm starting on November 10th, so I'm anxiously awaiting my acommendations to be ready. Not sure yet what grade, guess I'll find out when I start, all part of the adventure! 

I leave y'all with an adorable picture of a butterfly that landed on my hand. 

Big Buddha

I saw Big Buddha, and he is quite big, enmorous, actually.  I was expecting to pay some Baht, but it was free to walk up these steep stairs and look at this amazing statue which overlooks the entire island of Koh Samui. There were a bunch of little tourist shops around the little town and it over looked the water. 

Big Buddha is pictured above while other Buddhas are below, surrounding him. According to Google Machine, "the Buddha statue depicts Buddha in a state of calm and purity and resolve, having overcome temptation and fear sent at him by Mara, Lord of Illusion. Known as the Mara posture, the left hand rests palm open and up in the statue's lap, the right hand facing down over the right knee, almost to the ground."

Big Buddha looks over the entire island, it was such an amazing view. There were bells surrounding the outskirts of the temple, in which people were allowed to ring with provided sticks. Below is the view I got to see of the island from the temple. Pictures don't do this any justice. 

When we stopped for a little cold treat, my friends and I could almost touch the water from the balcony we were on. 

On our way back to Chaweng Beach, the town we are staying in, we rode in the back of someone's truck for 200 Baht total for the 3 of us, $7 USD total, or $2.30 per person, so much cheaper than the taxi there, which cost us 300 Baht. It's super popular to ride in these trucks, and you just let them know when you want to get off- exactly like a taxi, yet more communal. 

 I had an idea of what I might expect, but actually being able to see it, is, in and of itself, breathtaking. 

Elephants!!

This morning we woke up, changed hostels, and went searching for some delicious breakfast.  The thing about Thailand is, there really isn't a specific "breakfast," it's just their normal food.  We ended up at an adorable little restaurant, and I got pineapple fried rice, served in a pineapple, so tropical! Meanwhile, I've been off coffee for a couple days so my caffeine withdrawal is beginning to kick in.

Today, we also went to Namuang Safari Park in Koh Samui to go elephant trekking.  When we got there, it was actually quite sad because they were all chained up.  This was most likely for safety reasons, but it was still sad nevertheless.  We took a 30 minute tour around the park with a tour and what an experience.  It was almost like a roller coaster ride, sitting on these majestic creatures, that are so strong yet delicate at the same time.  It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.  At the end of the tour, we ended up at this beautiful waterfall.  Everything about this day was life changing.

Elephant Selfie!!

  We are all still waiting to find out what school we are going to be placed at, which won't happen until Tuesday, so we are playing tourists for the next couple days until we find out.  After we find out our school, which will all be in Nakhon Si Thammarat, we will be able to move into our housing accommodations beginning on November 1st.  I can't wait to finally start teaching, but all this relaxing is quite nice.  

The journey continues...

Breakfast in Bangkok is delicious. I got this at a stand for about a quarter. This is some sort of deep fried, coconut-tapioca magical. 

On our last night in Bangkok, after we presented our lesson plans to some education officials, a bunch of us headed out to Khao San Road for a night on the town. Much needed, and so much fun. 

Suda Palace in Bangkok where we stayed for orientation. It's much prettier on the outside, but it worked. My hotel room ended up flooding during one of the rainstorms along with a busted air conditioner, but that's the experience of a traveler. 

After Bangkok, we took a trip to Koh Samui, others are taking a trip up to Chang Mai for the lantern festival, where we will be for a couple days until we are placed in Nakhon Si Thammarat. 

Cue the 12 hour double decker party bus. But really, we slept most of the way. 

After our "short" commute, we hopped on a 6am ferry to Koh Samui where I saw the most beautiful sunrise, it was so incredibly breathtaking. 

After settling in to our hostel, a couple of us ventures out for the most important thing, food. 140 Baht, $4 for delicious curry and a coconut shake. I could really get used to this. 

We also wandered around town in search of beach access and I got to dip my toes in the magic that is the Indian Ocean. It completly reminded me of Mexico, white soft sand, breezy beach air, and people walking up and down the beach selling you crap you don't need. I bought sunglasses. Somehow I've already managed to loose 2 pairs. Oh well, it's cheap here. :)

Our plan tomorrow is elephant trekking. I'm so excited not only for the fact we get to play with such magical animals, but we are getting a good deal. :)