Okay it's been a while

Alright so it is now day 3 of Summer school here. I will make a short update of my travels these past two weeks while I was on break: brief synopsis:

1. I went to Cambodia by train and stayed the night in the Thai border town called Aranyaprathet and stayed in a very nice hotel, my favorite 200 baht spent on a hotel, that equals about 6 dollars. It had nice rooms, hot water, AND the best part: a resort style swimming pool: very big and had a slide and had plants surrounding it. I got off the hot long train ride and jumped in and swam for over an hour until I had to go eat some pad thai from the local market because I was starving. I then went first thing in the morning to the border to get my passport stamped and get my visa renewed- after 4 attempts at scamming me with visa stuff I made it across the border and got in a shared taxi with locals and went to the town called Battambang. I arrived in the afternoon and grabbed a hamburger (they have lots of beef in cambodia, which i miss. its still not the same as nebraskan beef though). then I hired a nice motorcycle driver who worked at the hotel to drive me around to some tourist spots of old Angkor temples and caves, and historical, infamous Khmer Rouge areas. I also saw the Bamboo trains that they use to get around on the rails when trains arent going by and we mingled with some friendly villagers and ate really good Khmer Food (all beef). It's like thai food only not as much chili, and beef instead of pork. it was a nice change. we were out all day on this tour i paid 10 dollars for, having my own driver i thought was worth it.

I then mingled with some foreigners at a small australian owned bar/restaurant and gave them tips on thailand (their next stop). i had a Cambodian style beer as well, called Angkor. it was pretty good. I shared a taxi to the border with some of these foreigners the next morning and then hopped on a train back to bangkok.

2. the next day I went on the trip to Ko Kret with the other teachers from my school. it was VERY nice. we stayed in a very nice resort-supposedly the best on the island. we ate TONS of good food- the owner of the school paid for everything. we swam, we rode on a boat around the whole island snorkeling in the cool areas and looking at the coral and the fish. we ate at a restaurant that was in the middle of the water held up by stilts- we had to get to the restaurant by a wooden boat on a zip line type device. we ate lots of fresh seafood.

it was a lot of fun to mingle with the teachers because we are normally so busy during the day and dont get to talk. it also forced me to use my thai since i was the only foreigner on the whole trip.

3. then i spent most of the week at thammasat university thai boxing every day and hanging out in the old area i used to live. it takes about 4 hours out of my day to go to thammasat by bus from my town, but it'd worth it for the thai boxing with friends at the school.

4. then i got really sick, i had an eye problem- went to the doctor and he said i had conjunctivitis- basically pink eye i think, so i had some medicine for that. at the same time i had a stomach problem going on and after a few un-fun days of staying inside my room really sick, i went to the doctor and he said i have a infection in my intestines so i had to take 5 different medicines he prescribed. then i got a cold after that.

5. once i finally got better i went to Hua Hin with one of my Thai friends and we stayed a night there and swam a lot in the sea. just relaxed.

6. then this last weekend i went with the rest of the Thammasat Thai Boxing Team to Ayutthaya where there was an International Thai Boxing Festival/Gathering/Conference deal. And there were tons of people there from all countries who were thai boxers. there were big fights on monday and tuesday but we only went for the first day which was sunday. we participated in traditional ceremonies that honored our coaches and the ancient sport of thai boxing. we also ate a LOT of traditional thai food- tasty. and saw exhibitions of traditional thai bamboo tattoos in the making, and how they made the swords, etc. we all had to dress in the same attire, thai boxing outfits, they are fun.

now it is summer school, which is more fun and more relaxed than normal school days, so that is nice. i have control over what i teach them and what we do in class, so we have fun and play games and do outdoor activities. its been raining a lot lately though. but i have a soccer club and we meet once a week. it is fun, but hard to keep their little attention spans occupied!

cambodia soon

update: thursday morning i am leaving for cambodia because i have to go do a visa run so that i can stay in thailand for sixty more days. i will bus it from bangkok to aranyaprathet, and then cross the border to cambodia in the town called Poi Pet. then i think i will travel to Battambang and stay a few nights there and then go to Koh Samed island with the school teachers and boss on sunday.

if you dont have facebook, here are public links to my photo albums from thailand:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025605&id=165401361&l=ccac1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024618&id=165401361&l=5bb76

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2024104&id=165401361&l=392e1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023658&id=165401361&l=383af

Coming soon

Well nothing new around here really. Just hanging out at school during the day and trying to pass the time by- reading and using the internet, and learning thai (mostly practicing writing) and spanish (online). (I've been finished with all of my work for the semester but i still have to physically be at the school for the next week).

Then on next thursday or friday i have to go to cambodia to do a visa run- probably take the train. go there and come back right away, because i will be by myself and have already traveled for a week there to the hot spots.

then on sunday our head of school is taking us teachers to Ko Samet island to stay at a resort for a couple days (someone she knows owns it). so we are meeting at the school sunday morning and someone is driving a van there full of us i think. that should be fun. and i was looking up the beach and area we will be staying and it says

"One of the only beaches on Ko Samet's west coast, Ao Phrao is a scenic bay with a sweeping shallow beach. It's also the most luxurious beach on Ko Samet, with just three top-end resorts."

It's supposed to be an exclusive beach with a great view of the sunset. i love islands. im excited for this. we will all actually get to mingle for a chance, because throughout the school days we are all so busy-mostly the thai teachers chasing kids around.

this weekend: going to a movie, thai boxing, playing frisbee and doing some shopping maybe at Chatuchak.

Racing in the BKK

This last weekend I ran a “mini-marathon”, 10.5 km, in Bangkok at Suan Luang Rama 9 Park. The race started at 6am, which meant that me and one of my thai friends had to get a taxi at 3am so that we could make it there at 4:30am to warm up and get our racing stuff. So I had to wake up at 2:45am to get ready for the race, which is crazy. When I left my apartment complex at 3am, the security guard asked me in thai where I was going, cuz im sure I looked funny leaving at 3am in skimpy (in thai standards) running clothes. I went with one of my thai friends from my town and met a couple of my other English teacher friends there at the race too.
The Prime Minister came to the race and made a speech and then he came to the front of the runners at the start line and got his picture taken- I was in the front so I am probably in some of the pictures of him at the race- wherever those pictures went- but I was inches from him, it was crazy. He had body guards all around him though. Fun politics in Thailand.

The race started at 6:15… Thai time I suppose (it was supposed to start at 6am), and the starting gun was a fog horn. It was still dark out for most of the race, the sun started coming up around 6:30am. The park was nice to run through, and 10.5k went pretty fast. It wasn’t too hot out yet either, but still humid. I finished 1st in my age category and 2nd overall- but 1st place was only 200 meters ahead of me- I probably could have got 1st place but I didn’t sleep much and I went thai boxing the day before- excuses. I was happy with 1st in my group though. I got a trophy. One of my English teaching friends, Claire, got 2nd place in our age group. She wants to start training with me, so maybe we’ll start doing that.

After the race it was awesome because there was so much free food. At Lincoln races it is just a few bagels, a pop, water and a banana, maybe a cookie. But here it was soymilk, milk, donuts, thai rice dish, thai noodle dish, seaweed snacks, tuna sandwiches, pop, water, Gatorade, cereal, oranges, and bananas (and you could take whole bundles home with you.) And it was free for participants as well as spectators- then I understood why so many people were there to watch!
It was also interesting/weird that one of the only stands that they had at the race that was selling stuff was a sauce stand selling stuff like fish sauce, so it smelled like fish sauce after the race- gross. They love that stuff here though and its in everything. Yesterday at my school they were eating raw mango dipped in a spicy fish sauce thing- it smelled horrible and tasted worse. Yuck. I told them I like my mangoes sweet and ripe.

So yeah all in all the race was a lot of fun and I will do it again. Everyone was asking me where I was from and stuff, and we had to put something down for our “team” we run on, so we put Team USA. We were representing the USA at the Don Bosco Mini-Marathon in Bangkok on February 22nd 2009. Yep. 1st and 2nd place.

Koh Chang

Okay, so I haven’t written in here in a while, and uncle mark called me while I was on an island and reminded me of that. Here’s for you uncle mark! J I’ve been keeping busy with writing up assessments for the 100 kids, then testing all of the kids individually, and then grading them all and typing up written English Assessments for each kid. It’s been keeping me pretty busy. But as of today, I am probably going to be finished with it all by next Tuesday at the latest. Which means I will have 2 weeks of “nothing” really to do at school- I just have to physically be here from 7:30am-4:30pm everyday. I still have to teach my after school English clubs, but that isn’t much work. The last week of the month is parent teacher conferences, so that will be interesting too.

This last weekend I decided that I needed a break and that I needed to get out of the Bangkok area. So me and my friend Lindsey went to an island called Koh Chang with 11 other “farangs” (foreigners) working in Thailand- mostly English teachers. It was a very fun time. We stayed in bungalows on the beach and spent our days relaxing- swimming in the ocean, playing Frisbee, tennis, running on the beach, getting thai massages on the beach, and hiking to waterfalls. I found one of my new favorite dishes too on the island at a really good restaurant/bar- fried rice with chicken with yellow curry powder and raisins- it was so good!

I’m also glad I went on the trip because I got to meet 11 other really cool people (they were Lindsey’s friends). They all play ultimate Frisbee on Sundays on a team and invited me to come play with them. A couple of the girls are also runners, which is fun, and they told me about some cool races coming up. So this Sunday I am running a 10k in Bangkok with them, and then in march there is a duathlon in Koh Phagnan that I am going to run. The other duathlon is in northern Thailand and I might still do that too.

That’s what I’ve been up to. I’m not thinking I will be a superstar at this race on Sunday, but it will be fun. I’m going to thai boxing practice on Saturday, which isn’t something I would normally do before a race, but I don’t care, I need to get my thai boxing fix in while I’m here. More later! Take care everyone!

assessment week. surprise!

This Monday when I arrived at school at 7am the principal informed me that this week is assessment week- last Thursday she told me it was review week and assessment week was in 2 weeks. The syllabus also said I had 2 weeks until assessment week- I had not made tests yet and I had full lesson plans made up for a review week.

Apparently the Thai teachers decided to make assessment week a week earlier, and no one told me until that week. So I made 2 days be packed with review and wrote up tests for all 6 classes overnight and today I started testing the kids- which to me sounds silly almost to test 3-6 year olds- they’re so little!

So far its been a headache and it is really tiring. I pull the kids out of their Thai classes and do their tests with them one-on-one, and I have 100 KIDS to test! Today I got through about 33 kids. The nursery kids were the hardest because they just wanted to play, 3 year olds aren’t meant to take tests of any sort. Normally I have a Thai teacher with me, but they didn’t accompany me today, so I was all alone with 5 nursery kids at a time trying to test them.

In my kindergarten 3 class the bully kid was beating up on another kid and totally punched him really hard against the wall. It was bad, but the kid was alright. The bully kid (his name is First) started freaking out and crying as I carried him to his teacher’s room, and he was telling me in Thai that he didn’t want to go to the teacher, so I made him go back once he calmed down and apologize, so he did. It went very well. I was very surprised. Then I got them both to do their tests even after that.

Well, 70 tests left to go in the next two days, wish me luck!

p.s. I’m probably really tired today also because I woke up at 4:30am and went on a 5 mile run at 5am. I was woken up by mosquitoes eating me. I need to find a mosquito net because I sleep with my window open, and my window has a screen on it, but it doesn’t seal, so mosquitoes get in and love to suck my blood while I sleep, then I wake up to buzzing in my ear and itching all over. It is really annoying. Sometimes I wake up and spray bug spray all over myself, but then I just wake up in the morning feeling really gross from inhaling all the bug spray and having it all over me.