9 out of 10 days, my morning starts with 1 jammed copy machine, 62 copies of a worksheet to make, and 5 minutes left before class. How's that for a math problem? If I won the lottery, I would donate brand new copiers to Bandon Sriserm School, and chuck ours out the third floor window (I have a hate-hate relationship with it).
Last week, lack of copied worksheets led to skit writing, rehearsing, and performing in my 6/1 class. I was pretty impressed by the final products, especially by Khim 1's group, who created a play about a girl named Olivia and her cousin Brian trying to find a girl named Gloria's orchard. I didn't fully understand the story after reading their script - especially where they came up with the word "orchard" - but they went with it, and it turned out hilarious. My favorite characters were Flook as "Ray the Fisherman," who makes Brian sell his watch for a ride across the river, and Fon as "old woman," who can't hear anything anyone says. Fon even broke out the baby powder for her hair to get in costume:
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| Fisherman Flook and Old Woman Fon |
(In other 6/1 news, I found out today that three of my 6/1 students, Khim 1, Fam and Cake placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd - respectively - for 6th grade in all of Nan Province. One of Emily's 3rd graders did similarly well, and one of Nicole's 5th graders placed 25th in the entire country. We are proud ajaans).
Last Friday night after school, we visited a sprawling street fair outside Wat Phumin in the center of town. It was packed full of street vendors selling everything from coconut ice cream and fried quail eggs to pet bunny rabbits (complete with matching bunny sweaters). We also watched a skit that was being put on for the whole crowd... we weren't sure what the story-line was, but it involved characters in wigs parading signs that said "NO SMOKING ALCOHOL!" and a main character who was impersonating a farang (white person). It also included some pretty hilarious song and dance numbers.
We were told about the street fair earlier in the week by Cho, our friend who runs a coffee shop and art supply store next to school. Cho got my number a while back to call us for events like the fair. The other day - fed up with the English office's disgusting instant coffee sludge I have to down every morning - we decided to visit Cho before class and throw down some baht for real coffee. At 8:00 am, however, the shop was closed up... Cho's wife was at the counter in their supply store next door, and said he'd be back in ten minutes. We walked back to school, and as soon as I sat down at my desk, my cell phone rang. "Hello? Did you come for coffee? What do you want? I'll bring it to you at school." I gave him our orders and assured him he didn't have to hand-deliver our drinks, and that we could be back at his shop in 2 minutes. Now that's some friendly neighborhood service.
I learned today in Kindergarten that Pee has officially changed his name to "Yellow." I can't tell if he's aware of the irony, or if he simply found a new favorite color... When we did worksheets in class this morning, he ran up to me with a yellow colored pencil and danced around while saying "My name is YELLOW, my name is YELLOW!" Pee also caused to me to burst out laughing in the middle of leading the Alphabet Song, when I looked over and saw him trying to lick his Ikkue's ear. (Ikkue was oblivious). Never a dull day with this kid...
Tonight we went to the Asian version of Souplantation for dinner: choose your own meat (or squid balls), choose your own noodle. The live one-man band at the restaurant sang "Country Roads," which is a very popular song here but never ceases to feel out of place in Thailand. We watched as the kid at the next table over created his own version of an ice cream sandwich at the dessert bar: two scoops of green ice cream plopped inside two slices of white bread. Mmm?
Emily, Nicole and I went a different route for dessert, stopping by D-milk for an evening snack. The woman there knows our orders by heart (Oreos inside the milk!), and stops to say hello whenever we see her around town. In America, I might feel embarrassed about this fact, but in Thailand I only rate food on a scale of WTF? to Delicious.
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| If I come home morbidly obese, D-milk will be the culprit... but I will have no regrets. |
Right now, for the first time in 3 months, the shutters to my bedroom windows are wide open and the A/C has been off for 48 consecutive hours. Writing this will probably jinx it, but we may finally be seeing cooler days in Nan. In any case, I'm excited to wake up to natural sunlight tomorrow, ready to face a big cup o' instant coffee and a broken copy machine. I can't complain.
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