Overnight Trip w/ Foreign Language Dept.

The Foreign Language Department of Sri Racha School took us on an end of the year/ goodbye overnight trip.  The destination was held "top secret" up until we pulled into the place: Chomwana Resort and Horse Club, about an hour south of Sri Racha, and inland from Pattaya. 

I am deathly allergic to horses, so I was a little nervous to discover that not only were we staying at a Horse Club Resort, but also the jumping ring was directly across from our accommodation.  There weren't any horses out and about, so it turned out to be just fine.  In fact, we were about the only ones at the Resort. 

We went paddle boating in the man-made lake (Bee's first time), walked around taking delicately posed photographs (as the Thais do), and laughed our pants off while trying to ride bicycles with two people.  It's common in Thailand to have up to three people on a bicycle (and up to five, as I've seen, on motorbikes!).  So, Jacqueline, Rachel and I were greatly amused by our sad, and sometimes successful, attempts at cycling with a passenger in the back.  Note:  I never actually tried the front seat, only the back.  Rachel and I couldn't handle it.  And then there was the scene of me trying to get on the back of Pi-Aews' bicycle.  I fumbled along Pi-Aew's bike, trying to jump on the back seat (meant for baggage).  We all broke down in laughter, when Pi-Aew took off and told me to hop on, so after a very awkward running start, I managed to jump on. 

At dinner, we heard a lot of drumming and chants in the distance.  Every few moments or so, the teachers would chant back in unison.  Rachel, Jacqueline and I just looked at each other and muttered, "Oh, well, clearly they know what's going on; it must be some calling that Thais just know how to respond to."  We discussed how there must've been some show in the distance.  The sounds got closer.  And all of the sudden, a parade of Thai dancers and drummers appeared just across the bridge from our dinner pavilion.  The department had organized this surprise for us - a traditional northeastern Thai performance coming our way.  We danced with them, and probably looked absolutely ridiculous. 

They also arranged for a fire dancer to perform on a raft floating in the middle of the man-made lake, which we viewed from our dinner pavilion. 

We exchanged slideshows.  They put together a slidshow of pictures and 'goodbye/ thank you' notes from the department's teachers.  We managed to pull together a slideshow full of pictures from the year, appropriately set with music that made them laugh out loud, sing along and cry.  We shared gifts, hugs and tears.  It's been a most awesome year with these women - and I will never forget them. 

Below: The dinner pavilion

Cycling with two

Dinner Extravaganza

The traditional Thai performers and dept.

With the drummers

One of our gifts: Sri Racha School gym shirts

Last Week of Classes

My last week of classes.  I cannot believe it!  The year went by so fast.  There's a part of me that wants to stay on as Miss Lia at Sri Racha School, and see my students grow up through the years.  But, it is time to move on to a new adventure.  I will get to that later - when I change the title of my blog - but, for now, I just want to focus on the almost 1,000 students that I've spent five days out of the week with for an entire school year. 

Monday morning, the beginning of the end - morning assembly runs overtime, and there's 10 minutes left in the first period.  I rush to class, hurry the slow-moving students in, explain my plans for the next few months, share contact information, and frantically rush to take photos of the class.  After the class group picture, I say 'goodbye'.  The students just sit there.  I say 'goodbye' again, and they look confused.  I then notice the Thai numbers on their student shirts, which are labeled with their class section.  Oops.  This is 4/3, which is my second period class.  4/6, my first period on Monday morning, never showed up and must've went straight to their second period classroom.  Here I was, rushing the students into the class ten minutes before we were supposed to have even started, and now I've already said my rushed 'goodbyes'.  Once I realized, I apologized for my silly confusion, and continued the class with a game.  I am sad to have not been able to properly say goodbe to 4/6, but some of the students tracked me down on Friday afternoon (the end of the end) to share contact information and pose for pictures.

Thursday afternoon - I have M1/5.  These are 12-13 year olds.  1/5 gave me a lot of problems in the beginning of year, way back in May and June, but after a talk with their homeroom teacher, our relationship developed into a promising one.  In fact, over the year, I've grown to love this class in a special way, and they completely turned around 100% by second semester, stepping up to become one of my favorite M1 classes (out of twelve).  That is... until the very last class.  And I want to stop right here and just say that I regret what happened, and feel really sad about the whole situation.  But, it's over now, so I suppose dwelling on it won't get me anywhere.  Here's what happened:

Many students crawled in 5, 10, 15 minutes late.  Half the class could not sit still in their chairs for more than five minutes.  There was a lot of talking and shouting.  They wouldn't listen for two minutes while I asked them which game they would prefer to play: BINGO or Hangman.  They didn't care to listen to my 'goodbye, I love you, I will never forget you' speech.  And then, one boy suddenly popped up out of his desk and went full fist-thrusting at another boy.  Nearby students pulled the two boys away from each other, and they sat back down.  Tentatively.  I could see that at any moment, it could flair up again.  So, why I should have put a stop to the situation right then and there, I instead was overcome by sadness that the class was not feeling my 'goodbye' class activity and was not listening to me.  So, I said 'forget the game', took some pictures, and walked out of the class.  I sat on the bench just outside of the classroom.  I could hear the students yelling at each other to 'shut up'. 

Then, all of the sudden, there was an intense raucous coming from the classroom, and desks were being shoved aside amidst shouts.  The Thai teacher whose office is below the classroom must've heard all the uncontrolled commotion (of which, essentially, I had just run out on), because she came stomping up the stairs, walked straight into the classroom, and in a very Thai teacher manner, put the class in its place.  Within two minutes, she had sent four students outside of the classroom on their knees - two of which were the boys whom had just started beating each other up again, and the other two were A+ student girls who were only trying to take control of a situation that I should've been there for).  Within two minutes, she also had the entire class push aside the desks, sweep and clean the classroom floors, wipe down the chalkboard, and have the trash taken out.  After all the desks were put back in an orderly fashion, and all the students were submissively and quietly sitting in them, she invited me back in.  Yikes.  She took away the four students, and here I was left with 45 very apologetic twelve year olds, and fifteen minutes left off class.  I passed around the BINGO sheets, and had enough time to get through one round.  It took a few minutes for the class to get their personality back, but once they did - it was love all over again.  The four students returned, got on their knees and deeply wai'ed to me and apologized.  One boy could not stop crying. 

I later found out why the two boys, Tel and Nat, had gotten into a fight.  Nat had been talking about how he wanted to have his picture taken with me and was excited to play the game.  Tel made fun of him for it, and called him a "ladyboy".  And it escalated.  Apparently, when Tel and Nat were brought to the office, Nat could not stop crying, for all he wanted to do was say goodbye and play the class activity.  He was extremely upset that he didn't get to be there for the last class. 

Now... imagine how I felt after hearing that.  If I had known what the argument was about, I could have put a stop to it.  If I had been just a bit more patient and understanding, I could've handled the outbreak in a more diplomatic way, at least, so I feel now. 

Moving on...

I have over 400 pictures from my last week of school - probably all of which will mean absolutely nothing to you, but you can pretend by scrolling through the album anyway: Last Week of School.  And because I can't help myself, I'm also posting some photos of me with my students below. 

Liverpool and FebRuary

A visitor for nine days!! In the short time that Rob visited me and/ in Sri Racha, he became closer with the guys at Cheer Bar (our local drinking establishment) than I could ever be.

Let me pause right here and tell you that Rob is a Liverpool fan. Thailand, just as every part of the world except for us crazy Americans, lives for soccer, or football, as the game is known throughout the world (except for, once again, in America). Why have we, Americans, not jumped on the football train? What's wrong with us? How do I continuously find myself in die-hard soccer/ football countries? From Spain to South Africa to Korea to Thailand... and now dating an Englishman. And why do Buckeyes annoy the shit out of me? (Apologies to my peeps in C-bus.) Sorry for the tangent.

So, we're sitting at Cheer Bar watching a Liverpool game on the big projector screen. We're surrounded by Thai men drinking whiskey and soda (the way to properly drink in Thailand). They discover that Rob is from nearby Liverpool... and now they're all BFF with Rob. Other than the frequent and repetitive question, "What is your name?" asked of me over and over again, my existence faded into the background. Thank god Rachel and Heather showed up. Aww, it wasn't that bad, not that bad at all. In fact, it was amusing... and very cultural. Soccer/ football, along with all night whiskey binges, are part of the man's world here in Thailand. Us girls are commonly the only females out drinking in local establishments.

Another Rob visit highlight: I took Rob in as a show-and-tell to two of my M1 classes. It went over better than expected. It could have gone one of two ways. Either they would have completely shut down as a class, embarrassed and shy, or they would get all excited and hyper and jumpy. Both classes fell into the latter category. And I just loved it when Rob incorrectly corrected me on the board. (Sorry, Rob, if you're reading this... it had to be mentioned.) I wrote "February" on the board, as we were finishing up "The Calendar" unit. And as I walked away, Rob came up to the board and erased the first "r", making it "Febuary". The students in the front row began re-correcting his incorrect correction. I quickly returned to the board and replaced the "r", shot him a tilted head, wide-eyed, we'll talk about it later glance. OK, so he was not the star student in English class. He was a math/ science student... hence he's an engineer, and I (who would rather shoot myself in the foot than ever look at a science book again) am currently an English teacher.