School Life

So, I finally got around to taking my camera with me to school to snap a few photos.  Without further adieu, here they are!

Random outside shots of the school.  Yup.  Sure is a Catholic school in Thailand.

One of my students.  As I was taking photos I just heard "Hello Teacha!  Teacha Bee!" so I snapped one of him.  Because the school has me speak every morning at the morning assembly, every student in Prathom 1-6 knows my name.  This makes for a lot of high fives when I try to walk to the copy room.  And to answer your question, the reason they have me speak every morning is because I'm a pretty white girl.  Thai people prefer women to teach, and they place a high value on it being an attractive woman, preferably from 27ish to 40ish.  It doesn't bother me, I actually think it's kind of cute now that the little kids have a name to call out instead of just a "HELLO!"

We were learning about parts of the body, and I sent kids up to "draw teacher's eyes" etc.  This was the result.  I didn't take pictures of the other three classes, because I didn't have my camera.  It's too bad.  One of them gave me braces.  The only thing I find alarming in this picture is that my hair is in pigtails.  I don't remember seeing the girl that drew my hair outside of school ever.  The thought that my students may see me milling around town and acting like a jackass (as I am wont to do), and not even say anything is a mite scary.  Oh well.

My 5/7 class.  These are the little monsters who drew the picture of me.  Oh well, little monsters they may be, but they're really cute and I love em to bits.

My 6/7 class.  They hadn't noticed the camera in the first shot.  Most of them were not so foolish as to miss the opportunity to pose for the second shot.  Thai people looooooooove taking pictures.  They take tons of em.  One of my students asked me to sit still for a "click click memory" once.

My 5/6 class.  These kids are really smart.  Looks like someone in the back there is doing one of the little asian symbols for love.  Sometimes they throw up "I love you" in sign language.  Sometimes they make a little heart out of their hands and hold it out to you.  Sometimes they put their hands on top of their head so their arms make a little heart.  I appreciate it any way they decide to put it.  Earlier today, one of the students stole my marker and wrote "LOUE" on the whiteboard, pointed and said "Teacha Bee!"

My 6/6 class.  These guys are like little geniuses.  Some of them don't even want to play games, which shocks the heck out of me, cause what 11 year old would rather study?  Well there's your answer.  Some Thai children.  I teach these guys all sorts of crazy stuff about the US.  When I explained to them that in the US, sometimes you had to fly a little bit east even if your final destination was out west.  They couldn't really understand the sense behind that, and I have to agree with them.  I taught them the term "bling bling" which the girls really love and comment on whenever they see anything sparkly.  One of the girls in this class bought me a really fabulous keychain with the letter B and rhinestones on it.  These guys really love learning, and to that kids, I say good job.  You will not have to travel to a foreign country with your only qualification being that you're a native speaker of a language to get a decent paying job.  Haha.

And there you have my students and my school.  The school was a little unsure about me at first, but they asked the students and the students voted me in, so they started putting my work permit through.  They're an interesting bunch, though.  Kat lives by her stickyball in her classes, and most teacher agree with the sentiment.  These kids could not possibly care less about throwing the stickyball, but they go into fits when I start handing out my markers and letting them draw and write on the board.  The newest game is making a huge circle of chairs with one kid standing in the middle, calling out for everyone who loves _______ to change seats.  This kids will say and do any ridiculous thing for the chance to run a little.  Or write on the board.  Or show off their English vocabulary.

So there you have my life these days!  School pretty much eats up all my time Mon-Fri, on the weekends the farong tend to gather.  Kat and Jacques are having a party this weekend as one of Kat's friends from Taiwan will be visiting.  I'll try to remember to snap some photos of everybody, but it's really not all that interesting.  For the most part, outside of school, we all look like trailer trash in short shorts or baggy pants.  Torn teeshirts with bad English.  And bottles of Hong Thong or Leo in our hands.  ESL is not a viable method of travel, I'm sad to say.  And Thailand just doesn't pay well enough to save up and travel.  I've entertained serious thoughts of working in Korea for a year to save up the money to take a few months and backpack around Thailand.  I've really only seen a few places here (granted, those are good places), but some time to really travel would be just lovely.  The only thing that stops me is, well... there's snow in Korea.  It snows a lot in Korea.  I really don't like snow.