Ajarn Forum - Teaching and Living In Thailand - Blogs - Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/ Living and Teaching in Thailand Expat Forum en Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:54:10 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/images/misc/rss.jpg Ajarn Forum - Teaching and Living In Thailand - Blogs - Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/ Shopping Trip http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/85-shopping-trip.html Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:59:33 GMT We are studying occupations and workplaces this month at school, and I went out to get some props for this week's activities. I probably could have saved my money and used flashcards, but I think props will be more fun for what I want to do and they cost me less than 300 baht total. Purchases made during this afternoon's shopping trip...

One "Powerful Police Super Weapon" toy set... complete with a sticker gun that fires its impotent pink darts a grand total of three feet. (No comment on how relevant this is to the real Thai police).

One "Function Toys Doctor Set" complete with a tiny plastic clipboard to fill in your patient's name, age, blood group, heart rats [sic], eye sight [sic], etc. Also contains a stethoscope that "can send out heartbeat voice manifestation light" and an "Elucidation" note at the bottom of the box, explaining that "This design is used as the representative with two samples. Below the usage that plenty more is same alike."

One "Kitchen Series" cooking set promising its users "Amused play", "Enjoy the cooking" and "Handsome appearance. Special style. Once own."

One "Jiu Long Idea-Man Vogue Leather" canvas purse... for me, obviously, not for school. ]]> Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/85-shopping-trip.html Field Trip http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/79-field-trip.html Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:22:04 GMT Last week P1 went on a field trip to Safari World. I wasn't required to go, but they asked if I wanted to and, really, they had me at "animals". Besides, I didn't want to sit around school doing nothing all day and I figured I could spend the day asking my kids questions like, "Pat, do you like zebras?" or "Pun, what's that?" and then watching them giggle and run away even though they knew the answers perfectly well.

I wore my dorky red school polo shirt to school and was promptly told that we were meant to be wearing dorky white school polo shirts and not dorky red school polo shirts. A dorky white polo shirt was provided for me, so now I have them in red, white and yellow, so I'm pretty well set up for dorky "casual" work attire... at least until next sports day when they decide we all have to wear purple or something.

We set off in a convoy of six big, gaudily painted buses and soon arrived at our destination, where our first visit was to the safari park. Each new animal was greeted with shrieks of delight from the kids and more and more gratitude that I'd brought Advil from me.

Next we saw an orangutan boxing show, which made me shudder more than a bit. Thankfully the "boxing" was all scripted and they weren't actually beating each other up. On the other hand, the orangutan pole dancers set off all sorts of wtf in my brain.

The sea lion and dolphin shows were better.

The day was full of vendors selling all manner of unhealthy food and thus little boys sipping Pepsi or Fanta or eating ice cream, cookies or candy. If I had remembered my camera there would have been a really good picture of a group of small boys clustered around a woman selling ice cream with syrup on top, and it would have been entitled, "Impending Disaster". I also completely missed the chance to take a photo of the sign saying, "We apologize for any convenience caused by the construction" or the dunk tank with the sign reading, "Get the girl wet and win a prize".

There's also a statue of a woman that squirts water out of her nipples. Words fail me on that one. The kids thought it was the funniest thing ever and it was hard to keep them moving; they all wanted to stop and stand in the spray.

We left around 2:30, much to my surprise, as the schedule said we were meant to arrive back at school around five. I started to worry that I'd get back before signout time at 3:45 and then have to sit around doing nothing for a while. By 3:00 we were back in Bangkok, just about within walking distance of my school.

By 3:10 we were stuck in traffic.

By 3:45 we were still stuck in traffic.

By 4:15 we were still stuck in traffic.

Around 4:45 we finally got back to school.

I hate Bangkok.

All in all, though, not such a bad day. ]]> Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/79-field-trip.html Speaking tests and conveniently timed gifts... http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/58-speaking-tests-and-conveniently-timed-gifts.html Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:58:00 GMT My kids have had speaking and listening tests the past two weeks. That means they watch a movie to keep them occupied while I call them up one at a...
My kids have had speaking and listening tests the past two weeks. That means they watch a movie to keep them occupied while I call them up one at a time to do the test. Since my room is carpeted, they like to stretch out on the carpet during the movies, and I don't really care... except it does worry me a bit when they lie there cuddling. One kid sat down between his two friends and gave them both a kiss on the cheek.

What makes this even weirder is that if there happens to be a kiss in the movie, there's a collective "EEEWWW!!!" from the crowd.

Asking the same set of questions to 220 kids gets tedious mighty fast. Then, as I was finishing up one class yesterday, one of the kids ran up and sat in the testing chair again, grinning at me. I gave him the test again, with a bit more help this time, but didn't mark it. Then his friend did the same. Then another kid from that class came back at recess and pointed to the testing flashcards I still had laid out on my desk and said, "Miss, I want to play this game again!" well, okay. I'm glad you enjoyed it so much the first time. sigh. so make that 223 times.

Today I found a bag with some "sausage pies", Ovaltine and a note from one boy's grandmother thanking me for teaching him. I was touched until it occurred to me that the timing of this, just before report cards come out, was convenient. She wasted her money; I'd sent in my grades yesterday, and her grandson got a perfect score on the test anyway. In fact, he was the same kid who did the test twice, and he got a perfect score both times. I wrote her a nice little thank you note and resisted the temptation to suggest her son's English skills would really shoot up if she enclosed a 500 baht note in her next gift :grin:

My coteacher, who's really mean and hits his students, got cake from one boy's parents. That's possibly the most compelling argument in favour of corporal punishment that I've heard yet. Hit kids, get cake. Don't hit kids, get sausage pies. Hmmm... :rock:
]]> Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/58-speaking-tests-and-conveniently-timed-gifts.html Sports Day http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/57-sports-day.html Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:57:41 GMT Our school has a "sports day" coming up soon. We all got bright new polo shirts. I looked at it and thought, well, at least it's not an awful colour. Between that, the yellow shirt and the uniforms which were promised to arrive soon, I'm building up quite the ugly wardrobe thanks to my school.

The P4-6 students have no classes for four afternoons because they have "cheering practice". I'm not quite sure how practicing cheering takes eight hours. I mean, there's some dancing, but it's not that complicated. Foot in, foot out, hands in the air kinda thing. I'm also not sure why my P1s don't have to practice cheering. Maybe it was decided that they're loud enough already. I could support that. Clark said he once asked one of his rajabhat students what they did for eight hours of cheering practice, and she told him they just cheered for eight hours.

Thailand is a real mystery to me sometimes.

I still don't know any of the details about sports day... where it is, what time it is, etc. You'd think with thousands of students attending, they'd have all this stuff pretty well sorted out, which they obviously do, as they always do... it's just very well sorted out in Thai, and not so much in English. At least that's an improvement over Korea where they would have planned the whole thing on Friday and then spent 16 hours at school that day trying to get all the details sorted.

On a related note, I find myself using the word "okay" a lot in Asia. People tell me stuff and I say okay. If it's something I don't like, I say okay and then don't do it. This strategy seems to work here about 99% of the time. ]]> Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/57-sports-day.html <![CDATA[Lizara ventures outside; a.k.a., what's that big yellow hot thing up there?]]> http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/52-lizara-ventures-outside-a-k-a-whats-that-big-yellow-hot-thing-up-there.html Sat, 16 Aug 2008 08:10:18 GMT I had a slightly awkward moment this morning when I went to register at the Alliance Française, something I've been meaning to do for months, but haven't because *trails off into mumbling*. So I got there and found the Accueil and then the girl at the desk and I stood there staring at each other for a good thirty seconds. Okay, probably not that long, but it felt like a while. I couldn't decide what language to use as she was a Thai girl at the Alliance Française where they deal with everyone from Thais beginning to learn French all the way up to French expats wanting a little French culture to remind them of home. You'd think bonjour would have been the obvious choice of greetings, yet I wasn't at all sure how well I'd do listening to French with a Thai accent in a place with a substantial amount of background noise, yet I wasn't sure how well she'd speak English, yet I was having une petite crise de confiance, so I was waiting for her to open and then I'd follow her choice of languages. She was probably waiting for me for the same reason. Eventually I went with bonjour and all went reasonably well. The woman at the bibliothèque, on the other hand, saw my newly minted ID card with my obviously Anglophone last name and just went straight to English.

I finally dragged myself out there thinking it was probably a better plan for today than lying around moping. That would have been Plan B. But hey, I woke up early this morning, so as it turns out I've got plenty of time to do both. YAY.

I was going to attend a goth night tonight, but it's at a fetish club (I can deal with that...) in Patpong (not quite as sure about that one, but it IS goth music, after all). Then I checked out the webpage and it said all this stuff about doms bringing their subs and how if you came without a dom they'd help set one up for you. Call me a prude if you like, but at that point I chickened out. I like to keep my sexual deviancies behind closed doors, shuttered windows and thick walls, thank you very much.

So, the rest of the day will be me, Maupassant, iTunes, Assassin's Creed and maybe a pizza if I can convince myself to talk to Other People *shivers with fright* twice in the same day. ]]> Lizara http://www.ajarnforum.net/vb/blogs/lizara/52-lizara-ventures-outside-a-k-a-whats-that-big-yellow-hot-thing-up-there.html