Grins and Giggles

Any kind of teaching lends itself to some really funny moments. But teaching kids ESL is even funnier, especially young kids. Our students make us laugh every day, sometimes because they mean to be funny, but mostly just by cute little mistakes that they make. Here are some of our favorites.

I have to say I am so impressed with my Kindies. It's astounding how much progress they have made in four months, especially considering that they couldn't even say "Good morning" when I first met them. Now they can actually communicate with me. Granted, sometimes I feel like we're playing a never-ending game of Guesstures, but hey, it's one of my favorite games. Just today, one of my girls came up to tattle on the boys: "Teacher Dana, Bob finger eye Dai: naughty!" (AKA: Bob was being naughty. He poked Dai in the eye.) Or yesterday, one kid said to me, "Teacher. Books, bleurk" (as in "yuck"). He then grabbed my hand and drug me over to the bookshelf, where I discovered a huge cockroach.

Teaching at this level brings me face to face with my ticks and verbal habits, and it forces me to watch every word I say. I realized this when the kids started plopped their books in front of me with a proud, "Are you finished!!" I didn't realize that I asked this question a million times a day, but never taught them how to answer it. Also, when they can't do something or they make a mistake on their worksheets, they shake their heads and sadly say "Uh-oh." The other day, I even overheard someone say "Oh my GOODness" in his cute little Thai accent.

One of the difficulties in teaching ESL is implementing new vocabulary. We can use tons of flash cards, and language structures, and contexts, but sometimes, the vocab still gets misinterpreted, or used in interesting ways. A couple of weeks ago, we learned "full" and "not full" in math class by looking at cups with different amounts of water in them. After the lesson, one of the students exclaimed, "Teacher, I am full hungry!" The next day, one of the girls said, "Teacher, beautifull full full full full" while pointing to my face and eyes and hair, etc.

John's favorite funny kid story falls into this category. One of his students who was so excited to use the new vocabulary told him that his grandma was extinct last year!

And then sometimes, they're just cute because they're kids. On Monday, during their one hour of play time a week, one of the boys was lining up a bunch of toy animals. He showed me one group that was standing apart from the others, and told me it was because they speak English. When I asked him what all the others spoke, and thought for a while and then said, "American!"

It's good to laugh in the classroom, because otherwise we might want to cry sometimes. This kids are so darling!

Second Honeymoon

As I said in the last post, John went back to the US last week for Roman's wedding. He spent 3 days traveling and a little less than 3 days in the US, but he was so happy to be able to see his best friend get married and to see his folks and some of our friends. I stayed here in Bangkok and enjoyed some nice girl time (with friends and also by myself). But 5 days is the longest we've spent apart since we got married, so when John got back at 1 am on Tuesday night, we were VERY VERY happy to see each other! :)

Believe it or not, tomorrow is our three year wedding anniversary. Those of you who were at the wedding are probably wondering where time went, and we are too, but I can honestly say that the past three years have been some of the happiest of my life. John and I have both grown and learned so much, and we have had so many wonderful times together. We have seen God carry us through some really hard times and provide for us financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually (and mentally, I left that one out). So many people go through life looking for their soulmate, and somehow, God saw fit to bless us with ours at the age of 18. We are so lucky to be married to our best friend, and we look forward to many more joyful, full years together. Anyways, Friday and Monday are Buddhist holidays, so we got a four day weekend to celebrate our three years, so John treated me to a short second honeymoon!!! Here's what we did:

After work on Saturday, we drove into Bangkok to spend two nights in a four star hotel downtown (because where else in the world can we afford to do it?). Here was the surprise: we were staying at the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest tower in Thailand, in a superior suite on the 65th floor!

The entire wall was windows looking over the Northern part of town. It was amazing to look out and see landmarks we know; we could even see the neighborhood where we lived last year!

Let's see if I can give you a little perspective about how high up we were... The Baiyoke Tower itself has 84 stories and a large portion above the highest story: it's about 10 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower. It's the 48th tallest building in the world. Our room was in the dark blue section on the right. Crazy, right?

We loved going up to the observation deck on the 77th floor and looking at the signs that explained what everything was.

We've been into Bangkok enough times to have a pretty good idea about the city, and we were finally able to connect the dots and put it all together. The 84th floor is a revolving deck outside that was really impressive, especially at night,

but honestly, the view from our window was our favorite!!

God was with us because we showed up without either of our Passports or our credit card. The ladies at the desk were really mad at us and had to call their manager to see if they could accept my US driver's licence and fortunately, they did. On Saturday night, we got dressed up and headed out to one of our favorite restaurants in Bangkok: Beirut. It serves incredible Lebanese food. We came home full and happy and sat on the couch watching the lights move down below.

Breakfast was an International buffet on the 82nd floor. They had everything from bread products, to omelets, to salad, to Indian food, to Thai food, to baked beans and sushi. It was incredible to listen to all the different languages in one room. We shared the elevator with a woman in full burqa and a teenager with a see-through shirt and "underwear" shorts.

We had a relaxing day on Saturday exploring the hotel and enjoying our room. We ordered room service for lunch and although the food wasn't that incredible, the view sure was!!

On Saturday night, we dressed up for a fancy meal at the restaurant on the top floor, only to find out that it was a buffet (and a very expensive one at that).

In a spur of the moment decision, we decided to take a taxi to our other favorite Bangkok restaurant: Crepes and Company. We had an incredible meal that I'm sure was better than the hotel food, and were amazed at the flexibility we have learned since we've been in Thailand.

We woke up Monday morning in the glow of not having to teach on a work day, and enjoyed another amazing breakfast. During our stay, we tried to enjoy as many aspects of the hotel as we could. We got a complimentary 20 minute foot massage, took showers in our really nice bathroom, ordered room service, and had fun in the elevators. These are some smoothies we got at one of the restaurants. This is only the 18th floor, but it's still a great view.

There was a driving range on the 19th floor, and we couldn't resist making fools of ourselves trying to hit some balls...

We had a delicious lunch at an Iranian restaurant on Monday, and then drove home. Neither of us had ever had Iranian food before, but our co-teacher who is from Iran has been telling us about it, and it was really yummy!

Here is a great picture of the streets of Bangkok that we took from our room.

I cannot believe we drive on these on our bike! Mom, try not to think about that too much... :)

It was an amazing weekend of luxury. Now it's time to head back to the real world..

School Uniforms

I thought Saint Francis was strict as far as dress code went: all female teachers were required to wear a dark skirt and a light dress shirt. It took me a long time to adjust to wearing a skirt every single day, I've never been that much of a skirt/dress person, but I guess it is more comfortable with the hot weather. I now realize that the Saint Francis dress code meant freedom.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Kasintorn has a uniform which I am required to follow every day. And unlike Saint Francis were we often bent the rules a bit, if I don't follow dress code here, I get fined! At the beginning of the year, ladies had to wear black and white (no color), and of course always a skirt and dress shirt. But they gave us two months to buy the uniforms (we have to foot the bill), and the two months are up. Fortunately some of the fabrics are cute, and I got to design my own clothes, so I could make them cute. Here they are, except that I don't have a picture of the Thursday dress yet.

Monday and Friday:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

In truth, it's not that big of a deal (although you all know me, I like to dramatize everything). Actually, the part of irks me the most is that guys have to strict rules to follow. They just have to wear pants, a button-up shirt, and a tie. Just like last year. No black and white only. No solids only. No black pants only. Which means the guys are always more colorful and varied than the ladies, and somehow, that just doesn't seem fair to me... Oh well. :)

Prayer

John is heading to the US this weekend for his best friend Roman's wedding. He will leave Bangkok very early on Friday morning and get back late on Tuesday night. Please pray for safe travels for him, and that he will be able to enjoy the wedding despite jetlag. He will have to teach on Wednesday, so please pray for that as well.

Please pray for our health. We have both been sick with the same thing for more than two weeks now. We just finished one antibiotic treatment that didn't make any difference. We will go to the doctor this week to hopefully get something else to help. We are so sick of being sick!!

Thanks a lot!

The Fourth of July

Hello all, and happy Independence Day to our fellow Americans! It's hard for us to believe that it is summer there for most of you now, and that means it's time for vacation, camps, barbecue, and air conditioning. It's strange because it's always summer for us, so I guess we assume that it's always winter for you, but I'm sure you're glad that's not true! :)

After church yesterday, we were actually invited to a real, honest to goodness 4th of July BBQ at some friends' house. We had amazing burgers with bacon and homemade guacamole, stuff we haven't had at all in the past year. We ended up watching some of Miss USA 2011, which was funny, but appropriate in a way, I suppose.

Tonight, after work, John and I came home and crashed, had dinner and watched a movie, and then decided to be spontaneous (a pretty rare thing, recently). We jumped on our motor bike, grabbed some yummy Magnum ice cream bars from 7-11 and went for a drive. We found a construction site at the end of a road and enjoyed dessert and good conversation atop some large cement blocks. We saw some amazing lighting that filled the whole sky, and when it got too close for comfort, we left the natural fireworks behind and headed home to get some sleep. Tuesday tomorrow. Yikes!

Sorry I have no pictures...

The Answers to the fruit game

Alright, I've left you waiting long enough; I'll give you the answers to the name that fruit and you can see how well you did...

1. The King of the Tropics: coconut. It has so many wonderful uses: a refreshing drink, a tasty snack, delicious milk (used in so many Thai dishes), a topic for desserts, and many uses around the house (such as bowls, utensils, decorations, and jewelry).

2. Dragonfruit: There are two varieties, one is white on the inside with tons of tiny black seeds, my favorite is the bright fuchsia inside. Tasty and juicy.

3. Rambutans: I first knew them as mamon chinos in Costa Rica, but apparently they are called rambutans. For those of you who watch veggie tales, I'm pretty sure that the dancing aliens in "Where's God when I'm scared" are rambutans. You crack them open to reveal a white, semi see-through inside.

4. I actually don't know the English name for this fruit. They are called "salat" in Thai. They are really sour!

5. Pomelo: the mother of all grapefruit. I don't know if I can ever go back to regular grapefruit again. Pomelos are huge, for one thing, but they're sweet and fun to eat. I will miss pomelo when we leave Thailand.

6. Longans are my new favorite fruit. They look like oversized, brown grapes, but you actually have to peel them individually. It's another white fruit, but they are sweet and tangy and they melt in your mouth. Yum!

7. Mangosteens are possibly the most exotic fruit here. Also white on the inside (what a surprise), they are so rich that you can eat them by themselves for dessert.

8. And last, but certainly not least, durian, the Thai national fruit. As Jack from small group says: "If you can get past the smell, texture, and flavor, it's not so bad." But the Thais love it, for some reason. It's funny that they would choose the durian as their national fruit, but they actually will not allow you to take it to school, on buses or in taxis, and in most public places....

There you go! There are many more, some of which we still haven't tried, but at least now you get a feel for what we see every time we walk out the door or go to the market.

Name that Fruit

Let's play a game of "Name that Tropical Fruit." Test your knowledge of all things random and see how many you can recognize... if any. If not, you can use the Internet and try to find the answers. I'll post them in a few days. Have fun!

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