Final Friday Explanation Point!
Today is my last Friday as a kindergarten teacher in Nonthaburi. You'd think that would be the same same as my last day as a kindergarten teacher, but no, I still have to work four more days next week. However, the finals have all been taken, the grading is about halfway done, and all thats left is for me to spend hours and hours wasting away at my desk, organizing picture cards and dreaming about the next 7 weeks of adventures.
Looking back on this semester, I am honestly amazed at how much my students have learned. All of them say "Good Morning, Teacher!" when I walk into the room. 75 percent of them can say the words "cat," "ice cream," and "fish" when they see a picture of that item. When they say the word "kangaroo," they jump up and down (sometimes I wonder if I've just trained them to do things that make me laugh - I also have them make lots of silly faces every day). Three year olds have a much huger capacity to learn and remember than I ever expected.
Even now, when I'm not quite done with my job, I look back on it and think, "well, that wasn't so bad, I probably ought to do this again sometime." That thought in my head is a funny thing, because I honestly have to force myself to remember the times when I was so frustrated I wanted to walk right out of the classroom and out of the school, the times when all of the assistant teachers left and I was stuck with 36 screaming children hitting each other in a pile on the floor or jumping up and down on top of their desks. Memory is such a wonderful, crazy thing that those moments are already fading.
Yup, I think I want to do this again sometime.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Some thoughts about Bangkok:
The ugliness of the stray street dogs put those weird zombie ones from Resident Evil to shame (why did anyone let me watch that movie?)
I can get a two-hour long Thai massage at the spa on the first floor of my building that is the best feeling my body has ever had (it is like having someone lovingly do yoga to your body) for ten bucks.
The Bangkok Art and Culture Center is a contemporary gallery but also a space for collective community art organizations to exist and promote themselves and their artists, and going there makes me feel like a hipster again.
I can get the best papaya salad in Thailand from the lady outside my apartment who sometimes lets me taste it before she sells it to me, and sometimes chases me with tiny blue crabs.
Every single day I step outside and feel assaulted by pollution and concrete, and somehow, I'm already starting to feel nostalgic for it.
The bus system here is as confusing and convoluted as the traffic jams themselves. But I love paying 25 cents to go anywhere in the city and feeling like I'm on the slowest moving tour in the world at the same time.
Yesterday I saw two rats fighting in a trashcan.
The ugliness of the stray street dogs put those weird zombie ones from Resident Evil to shame (why did anyone let me watch that movie?)
I can get a two-hour long Thai massage at the spa on the first floor of my building that is the best feeling my body has ever had (it is like having someone lovingly do yoga to your body) for ten bucks.
The Bangkok Art and Culture Center is a contemporary gallery but also a space for collective community art organizations to exist and promote themselves and their artists, and going there makes me feel like a hipster again.
I can get the best papaya salad in Thailand from the lady outside my apartment who sometimes lets me taste it before she sells it to me, and sometimes chases me with tiny blue crabs.
Every single day I step outside and feel assaulted by pollution and concrete, and somehow, I'm already starting to feel nostalgic for it.
The bus system here is as confusing and convoluted as the traffic jams themselves. But I love paying 25 cents to go anywhere in the city and feeling like I'm on the slowest moving tour in the world at the same time.
Yesterday I saw two rats fighting in a trashcan.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
On Saturday I went to what is supposedly the largest market in the entire world (in terms of the largest number of vendors, I believe), Bangkok's Chatuchak Weekend Market. Vendors at the market sell new and used clothing, handicrafts, food, collectibles, and live animals. It was an incredible place to wander around, I saw something new and interesting every time I turned my head.
We took a city bus there, so after about 45 minutes of slowing creeping through Bangkok traffic we made it to the market, which is in a park, so it was surrounded not only by big city buildings, but also green trees and a little pond with rowboats.
The market had everything and more than you could ever possibly want. I was expecting more of the same cheap, tourist-y stuff that we see everywhere, but there was actually an incredible selection of handmade items, used clothes, antiques, stationary supplies, fake flowers, and lots and lots of puppies (that I still wasn't allowed to touch!)
We snacked as we walked, on shaved ice topped with condensed milk and fresh mangoes and coconut ice cream served in a coconut shell. There were big stalls and little ones. Some people sold sunglasses and fake perfumes off of mats on the ground, while others had shops with two or three interconnected rooms and atmospheric lighting. One section of the market entirely sold vintage western shirts and leather goods, another corner was full of local art, with contemporary paintings lining the white walls of mini galleries.
If you could imagine something, some impossible, crazy thing, I have no doubt it would exist somewhere within the winding aisles of Chatuhak Market.
The other excitement from this weekend is that yesterday, the census-people came knocking on my apartment door! After a moment of confusion for all of us when I opened it, from me, because no one ever knocks on my door, from the census takers because they weren't expecting my farang face, they found me a form that was written in English and handed it over.
So as of yesterday, the Thai government now knows that I am the only resident of my apartment. They know I have a college degree but am unable to read or write in Thai. They know I have a tv, a fridge, and air conditioning (they don't know I lack a chair, a spoon, and actual sheets). They know that I have an actual flushing sit toilet in the house and that I don't drink water from the tap. They know everything there is to know about me!
I was out of the country when the US census happened back home, so all this time I've been worried that maybe I didn't actually exist, but now I definitely do! I exist as a foreigner who doesn't even know her address or phone number to fill them in on the census form! I exist in Thailand!
We took a city bus there, so after about 45 minutes of slowing creeping through Bangkok traffic we made it to the market, which is in a park, so it was surrounded not only by big city buildings, but also green trees and a little pond with rowboats.
The market had everything and more than you could ever possibly want. I was expecting more of the same cheap, tourist-y stuff that we see everywhere, but there was actually an incredible selection of handmade items, used clothes, antiques, stationary supplies, fake flowers, and lots and lots of puppies (that I still wasn't allowed to touch!)
We snacked as we walked, on shaved ice topped with condensed milk and fresh mangoes and coconut ice cream served in a coconut shell. There were big stalls and little ones. Some people sold sunglasses and fake perfumes off of mats on the ground, while others had shops with two or three interconnected rooms and atmospheric lighting. One section of the market entirely sold vintage western shirts and leather goods, another corner was full of local art, with contemporary paintings lining the white walls of mini galleries.
If you could imagine something, some impossible, crazy thing, I have no doubt it would exist somewhere within the winding aisles of Chatuhak Market.
The other excitement from this weekend is that yesterday, the census-people came knocking on my apartment door! After a moment of confusion for all of us when I opened it, from me, because no one ever knocks on my door, from the census takers because they weren't expecting my farang face, they found me a form that was written in English and handed it over.
So as of yesterday, the Thai government now knows that I am the only resident of my apartment. They know I have a college degree but am unable to read or write in Thai. They know I have a tv, a fridge, and air conditioning (they don't know I lack a chair, a spoon, and actual sheets). They know that I have an actual flushing sit toilet in the house and that I don't drink water from the tap. They know everything there is to know about me!
I was out of the country when the US census happened back home, so all this time I've been worried that maybe I didn't actually exist, but now I definitely do! I exist as a foreigner who doesn't even know her address or phone number to fill them in on the census form! I exist in Thailand!
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