Comedian?

So guys, since teaching, apparently I am the world's most hilarious comedian?  I'll say or do something that I consider kindaaa funny, emphasis on the kinda, and the class of 50 students will be hootin and hollerin, which in turn makes me laugh.  It's pretty fun.
But actually.  We are still talking about restaurant terms, and one of the words is "kitchen".  Many Thais commonly confuse "kitchen" and "chicken" so I made a tongue twister stating, " I ate a chicken in the kitchen!"  What a time we had!
I know it is soooo corny, but times like that, when it is just me and my students in the class, connecting over humor, it is really really special, and I love them for it.  Human connection goes sooooooo much deeper than language and race.

An Effective Formula for Happiness!

Hello all!  I had been feeling a bit funky the past week.  Yesterday I ran, meditated for 25 minutes, had a nice meal with friends and hit the hay early, and I tell you, this is a recipe for contentment!
I woke up this morning, and every little thing has filled me with joy- the cool air from the fan against my skin, savoring those few minutes in bed before heading to school, the soft morning light, the birdies chirping, saying hello to my coworkers, seeing my precious students run around the field like a bunch of baboons, buying some nice pens.  It's the little things I tell ya!  Life is beautiful and meditation directs your awareness towards those little beautiful things that we so easily forget about :)

Rainy day

All of yesterday, I could feel a storm was brewing- the clouds were dark, it was cooler, and the air was humid.  It held off during school and I wondered if it would skip Kalasin, which storms seem to do sometimes. 
I was planning on going on a run and then to the market to find some new jean shorts (cause I lost those too... what is wrong with me??????)  As soon as I got home, the wind began to blow, and within minutes, the rain fell from the skies in buckets.  The air was filled with the roar of gallons upon gallons of water hanmering down onto tin rooves, cars and concrete.
I opened all my windows and doors in an effort to cool my apartnent and a fellow teacher Andrew happenned to walk by my door.  He was on his way to a restaurant and I said "heck I'm bored, I'll go with you"
We walked out to the street, or what was the street, for the entire roadway had converted into a full blown rushing torrent of a river.  There were literal rapids, and cars and motorbikes struggled to push through the flood. 
A crowd of Thais had gathered at the front of our apartment to watch the events.
Now I completely love stuff like this.  When there is water, I am happier than a water buffalo in a mudpit.  I promptly waided in, barefeet and all, and felt the warm dirty water rush past my legs.  It was the best!!!! I had Andrew take some pics and then we took a short rainwalk down the street.   What a sight we were, two giant falangs, wandering down the middle of the street, clad in 20 baht ponchos and barefeet.  A car drove past, and through the tinted window, I could see a girl giggling with her hand over her mouth at how ridiculous we were.
This torrent of water appeared to be heading for the lake, so we went with the flow, literally.  A good amount dumped right into the lake and the rest continued down the road, to only God knows where.
Andrew and I had our meal, and the rain subsided somewhat.  After, we decided to take a walk around the lake, to look at the damage.  About halfway through, the sky lit up in a multitude of colors and then Kalasin went black.  It was so eery, being on the lake, in the soft darkness.  Being that this is Thailand, we were very unsure as to how long it would take for the power to return.  Lo and behold, it only took about 5 minutes. 
We wandered back, I found a mudpit and sloshed around in that for a bit, and then returned to Lucky.  The rain continued through the night, and this morning, it was almostttt cool enough to wear a long sleeved shirt.  But not quite haha. 
Ps every time I try and add photos to a post, the app crashes.  Gonna uninstall abd reinstall, but for now you are just gonna have to use your imagination

Update- as you can clearly see, I have had added photos.  Word to the wise, don't use the blogger app, just access it through a browser, ten times better

Punches

Being that the only way I can write blog posts is on my phone, I decided to make the content more twitter-esque, brief observations that aren't a pain in the rear to write.

I am currently sitting outside my next class, and a bunch if M1's are milling the hallway.  A boy and a girl get in a punching war RIGHT in front of me, and a pretty rough one too.  It always amazes me that the students completely disregard my presence when fighting.

Halfwit alert

You guys!!!!!! I am feeling like such an utter half wit at the moment!!!!

Preface- When I was young, I was a damn good speller (I was even a contender for the school spelling but purposefully spelled some words wrong so I didn't have to be in front a crowd).  And then I took Spanish in high school, and that skill literally went out the window, it was actually quite strange.

ANYWAYS, I am teaching my classes vocabulary about dining out, and one of the words was dessert.  I just had a class, and one of my smarter students was like "oh, ta lai sai" which is desert in Thai.  And I was like "almost!  But not quite"  Then I turn to the board and lo and behold she is completely correct and I have been teaching the incorrect spelling to all my classes thus far this week........
I am SUCH a halfwit, and rather embarrassed!!!! Such is life, I am sorry my sweet students.
PS typing on a phone is THE worst

Busy bee

So I am super behind in grading and literally spend ny entire work day teaching and grading, when I would normally spend some of that time to write.

Life ain't to exciting at the moment but here is a tale to get your heart racing - I went to the market tonight and had a lime smoothie and a wrap, and then bought two used shirts.  Then I showered.  WOAHHHHH I know right, life can be pretty crazy here in Thailand

Midterm Pandemonium!!!!! and pandemonium in general

**This post was originally about midterms, but then turned into a school rant in general.

We arrived back in Kalasin just in time for midterms week, and my what a week it was.

Before I had left for my vacation, I had written three midterms, one for M1, one for M5 and one for 5/10, who have an exceptionally high english level.  The head of our department had asked us to write them out and give them to him, and we assumed this was so he had time to look them over, check for any mistakes and make suggestions if need be.  All the foreign teachers had their's written and turned in in time, and heard nothing, so we assumed we were in the clear.

Being that I had a 10 day vacation ahead, midterm protocol was the last thing on my mind.  I had written what they asked me too, and figured if they needed anything else they would let me know.  One thing that I have found SO GRATING about the Thai education system is the complete lack of communication.. It is non-existent.  So whenever the teachers need something done, we are informed the day of, and even then are given the most minimal amount of information possible.  So we all returned to school at the beginning of this week without the slightest idea of how midterms worked.  Would we be attending all our classes as usual and be giving them then?  Would there be designated days for each test, or designated days for each grade?  Would they all test in the same space, or in their given classrooms?  How would they be graded?  Did they have a computer scanning system, or would they need to be hand graded?  If so, who would be grading them?  The list of unknowns goes onnnnnnnnnnnn.

I have found that at Anukoolnaree, it is much easier to just sit back and relax and when the time comes do as you are told.  So I came to school with that mindset exactly.  I figured that they would let us know if they needed anything.  Apparently my M1's were testing that day.  At about 10:30, one of the student teachers comes in with a question about my test.  I had made sure to reread and edit all my tests, but it always helps to have a second pair of eyes to edit, which I had assumed was gonna happen when we gave our drafts to the head of our department.  FALSE.  Only AFTER they had printed 700 tests, on the DAY of the test, only then do they have questions and things to point out................ Fortunately it wasn't anything too severe, so the test went ahead as planned.  Shelby was not so lucky.  There was some confusion and the test she had written for her M4's was given to her M1s.  So that was fun.  But oh no, that's not all.  Part of Shelby's test was fill in the blank format, and for some reason, because of this, she had to hand grade her tests.  ALL 1200 of her tests.  Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy had they not informed her of this before the day of the test, before they had printed all of them, and if anything, she could have hand graded the first part, and the rest could have been graded by the computer..... Logic doesn't exist in Thailand.  And mistakes like this just kept happening throughout the week.  And I got my M1 results back, and over half of them failed..... And even though I know it is not my fault, I still want my students to do well!!  And it makes me wonder if I could have done anything to improve their scores.  But I later learned that there were some classes  taught by Thai Student teachers where none of the students passed.  So even the Thai teachers have been struggling to teach their students english.

Sidenote- every once in a while, the teachers will have us edit English tests, or essays.  On Monday, one of the teachers had me edit a test (was not told what for, just that I should edit).  I actually enjoy doing this because I like writing and reading, and feeling like I am the true expert in the field haha.  BUT YOU GUYS, this test, this test was a JOKE.  The test contained short conversations, with fill in the blank responses.  So like question one would be "pick the best way to express an apology" and the  answer options would be A.  I'm sorry B. I apologize C. Please forgive me D. I hope we can make up................. ALL THE ANSWERS MEAN THE SAME THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just didn't even know what to do.  And every single question was like this, like another example "pick the best way to express a warning" A. Don't touch! B. Be careful! C. Watch out! D. It's hot!  The fact that every single question was like this, I just didn't have the energy.  If I had received this test at the beginning of my stay, I would have made the effort to point it out.  But I have found that the Thai teachers ask for your suggestions more as a form of show, and they actually have the answers they want all along, and ignore your suggestions.

But yea, I came to this school with a lot of optimism and really wanting to do my best.  But the school has consistently fallen through .  We had to miss a day of school to sort out our visa, and so we all wrote lesson plans for the substitute teachers.  We come back the next day, and they were untouched.  And the entire visa trip was for not because they were missing an essential document.  So we missed ANOTHER day a few weeks later, wrote another set of lesson plans, in which I expressedly asked them to collect the work because I was missing some grades.  Nothing.

  

When we first arrived, all the Thai English teachers were studying for an annual English proficiency test.  Apparently over half of them failed so they were hosting a workshop at our school during each weekend in the month of August. Near the end of June, one of the teachers approached us about working that event because 6 native english speakers were required.  We were all very glad to help!  So we said sure, we can each do 1 or 2 weekends, because all four is a bit much on top of our 24 class a week workload.  And they said sorry, it's all or nothing.... okay??? If that is what you want, then okay.  But then we hear a few weeks later, that they had gone to Becky's school, desperate and asked her to help out for one or two weekends?!?!  The exact thing we had offered.  They were sooo desperate, yet too worried about saving face, to re ask us..  That was kind of another nail in the coffin, I must say.

Basically, with the continued inefficient and backwards experiences, I really don't have much sympathy left for the school.  All of the foreign teachers have consistently done their part, and the school falls through again and again.  It is pointless for me to stress, I can't change anything, so I'm just gonna try and make the rest of my time here as easy as I can.  I really don't like to be negative, and I'm sorry if this post appears like a complain fest, but it is simply reality.  From the get go, we were left to fend for ourselves.  None of the teachers showed us around the town, helped us open a bank account, or showed a general interest in us.  And honestly, it's kind of freeing, because I don't feel a loyalty or obligation to the school.  I hate how negative this post looks.  I genuinely am happy, and grateful for the experience.  I really have made some great friends and connections, and absolutely love my students.  There are so many amazing things about Thailand.  It has been life changing.  BUT, the school itself is a bit of a joke. I think my next post will be a Thai appreciation post.  Okay bye!!!!