Catching up

So, as you can tell I have not been very good lately about updating my blog. I have been so incredibly busy it's hard to keep on top of everything. And, once the day is over it's tough to sit down and work on the blog. Also, because I started my blog a month after arriving here I have been trying to catch up the whole time all the while more things are happening! I am going to use this post to basically sum everything up so that I can start adding more short and up to date blogs.

I will start out in the teaching update. This semester we have had to cram alot of material into a short period of time. There are numerous long weekends and random days off during the week so it limits the teaching time, not that I am complaining by any means. But, I am really starting to understand what is expected of me and think I am filling the requirements quite well. We have mid-terms next week so that will be the true test as to whether or not my students learned anything! It is still a tough concept for my students to grasp that they are not suppose to be talking while I am or any other student is. I will have students doing a speech in the front of the class and another student will walk up in front of the speaker to ask me to go to the bathroom. It blows my mind! It is just so ironic to me that the culture can be so rude yet they are such a respectable culture, hard to explain.

One day a couple of weeks ago I was putting together a workbook for my students in the computer lab. I began talking to one of the Thai teachers that was sitting in the room. She started helping me with the books and we began talking and working on Thai and English words. Thai's love to play badmitten. So, Tai, the Thai teacher asked me if I would go with her and her brother to play badmitten. I was so excited because it is one of the few racket sports I have never played. So me and another English teacher, Steph, met Thai and her three sisters and two brothers to play badmitten. It was quite the family affair. It was such a fun sport, I love it! It was hard for me to adjust to because I am so used to tennis and the power and perception that I was using for badmitten was completely off. However, by the end of our time I was kickin butt. So, after we finished our game we all went out to eat dinner at one of the street restaurants that Tai loves to go to. They ordered about 20 for nine people. There was so much food but it was all so good. Even the pig intestine that I consumed, haha. I looked at it and asked what it was. When I was told pig intestine I pushed in away and right afterward it was pushed right back to me. So, I had already eaten larva as Steph pointed out so I had no excuse not to try it and it was actually quite good! However, I could only eat one piece of it just because I knew what I was eating and it was sickening to think about.

So, that was the big adventure of the week!

That weekend I had to teach Saturday class, my last one! So, on Friday night me and a few of the girls decided to go see a movie. I was blown away by their cinema. It was so nice, I felt like I was going to see a play or something. You had the option of getting regular seats or VIP seats. The VIP are only a few bhat more an they recline and have feet rests. They also sell beer and interesting flavors of popcorn. Most of the movies are in English with Thai subtitles. After the movie we went for dinner at a place called Sizzler to get a break from Thai food. They have one of the best salad bars I have ever eaten at with soups as well. So, we were waiting outside of the restaurant to be seated and I sat down on the bench. I said hello to the girl that was already sitting there and her English was amazing! So we began talking and hitting it off real well. When I was called into the restaurant she asked for my number to be able to hang out. She was so excited to have met a farang, white person, so she could work on her English.

Long story short, we ended up meeting up with her the next day and have been keeping in touch every since. She has introduced us to a few of her friends and we have had some great times together.

So, Saturday class went well. I got to work with the younger students again so we did arts and crafts and had a good time. Afterward, a few of us went to the Bangkok zoo. It used to be a garden and then they turned it into a zoo. The area and walkways around the animals and habitat were great but the actual animals and their habitats looked very poor. It was quite upsetting. Makes me never want to go to a zoo again. So we did a little more exploring of the city of Bangkok and then made our way home. That night we did some of the Bangkok night life which is always a fun time!

Sunday was great because I finally got to sleep in and then we went to the market and have a picnic in the park. There are actually quite a few parks randomly throughout Bangkok. All and all it was a good week/weekend.

I will try to do some more posting tomorrow and about the following few weeks and time in between!

Keep emails coming to me an feel free to send mail!