the fire drill

So we had a fire drill yesterday. Fire drills here are much more intense than back home. First of all, our school is huge, which right away makes everything a bigger deal. Second of all, in this country, they go all out. In the main building, they use smoke machines to simulate the fire...of course, this terrifies most of the kids and causes mass pandemonium. This pandemonium is added to by the fact that, for the most part, the only instruction given to the kids by the Thai teachers is "RUN!" Seriously, that is actually what they tell the kids.
In the building where I work, which is just kindergarten kids, they do not have smoke machines, because that would just be chaos, and the kids line up, for the most part, and just walk out of the building. In fact, most teachers put their shoes on because it had rained the night before.
One of my Thai teachers actually got some inside information as to the time of the fire drill, so we took the kids out to the playground for that time so that it would be easier (ya, that's right, we cheated. Welcome to Thailand, cheating is encouraged here, especially in school) Anyway, so we were on the playgound, all ready for the fire drill...but it didn't happen! Now, I'm sure that you are all aware that Thailand is a hot place, and this day was no exception. I usually take the kids out for no longer than 15 minutes, because more than that is just too hot. Well, yesterday we were out there for half an hour, when I finally convinced my Thai teachers that we had to go in. Then, I thought that we were going in, but we were actually just herding the kids to the side to read a story so that we could stay outside. By this time, the kids were all literally dripping sweat becasue they had been running in the heat, and I was dripping sweat because I had also been running, and because I am from Canada. I actually ended up staying in class for half an hour longer than I was supposed to because they refused to take the kids inside. Finally, I convinced them to go inside and I went back to the staff room. What do you know, five minutes later the alarm was ringing and the smoke machines were on, so I ran back to help carry children out of the building.
We got to the front of the school and lined up the kids, which took the kindergartens eight minutes (which was actually considered a good time...if there is ever a fire, we are all going to die...my plan is to just start throwing kids over the balcony into the fountains that are in our kindergarten building. That's right, we have a building full of 2-5 year olds, and there is a fountain and a stream running right through the middle...safety is not the number one concern in this country...which brings me right back to the fire drill...). One of the instructions for staff is that one male from each floor must take the fire extinguisher with him as he is leaving the building...nobody really knows why, but they all did it. So these fire extinguishers are super old, huge, and heavy. One male teacher was standing behind one of my three year olds with this thing, and the kid turned around, looked up at this man holding a massive extinguisher on his shoulder, and began to scream and cry in fear of this man...it was pretty funny.
I'm going to put some quotes from our fire drill instructions on here tomorrow, because they are pretty funny. They are mostly funny because they were obviously written in Thai first, and then translated, but they sound as though they were just typed into a translating program, and printed out...some of them make very little sense, that happens a lot here. They have an entire office of English speakers, but they never get anyone to edit anything...it's quite strange.
I have to teach this Saturday, so I'm not really going away this weekend. It's only for Saturday morning, so we'll probably go see some of Bangkok in the afternoon and we might take a boat to Ayutthaya (which is the old capital of Thailand) and see some ruins on Sunday.
Hope everyone is enjoying the end of their summer!

flower kids

So we just returned from a rainy weekend in Hua Hin. It was nice to get out of the smog and pollution of Bangkok, but it sucked that it was raining the whole time! At least our hotel had a pool, so we spent the afternoon swimming (it was an outdoor pool, but it wasn't raining that hard...and we were already wet anyway!). There was also a large outdoor market, which we wandered. We found the food market, which was really cool, there was every kind of seafood imaginable, there was also an entired pigs head which looked as though it had been smoked. I think that was their way of advertising that they were selling pork...I feel as though a sign is usually sufficient, but I guess the language barrier can get in the way, so a visual just avoids confusion. It was pretty cool, the eyes were still there and everything.
On Sunday, we went to the beach, even though it was gross outside (we had to go at least once, no matter what the weather was!). It wasn't raining, but it was really muggy and hot, so basically we were sitting on the beach sweating buckets but not really getting a tan at all, or even enjoying ourselves. We went swimming a little bit, but decided to just go back to the pool.
We actually had a pretty good time on Friday night, we went to an outdoor bar, just to sit and hang out. Anyway, we were sitting outside and these kids came to try and sell us flowers (these kids are EVERYWHERE!). So one of my friends gave one kid 20 THB, but told him that he could keep the flower. The kid just looked at him, put his flowers on the table and walked away with the money. We didn't really know what was going on, but then the kid came back with a big smile and a big bowl of soup...he was so skinny and tiny, he told us that he was 9, but he was the size of a 5 year old. So he came back and ate with us and some other flower kids came and talked with us for awhile (These "street kids" speak better English than our kids at Lertlah, turns out you just have to put your kids to work scamming tourists and they'll learn perfect English). We kind of got to know these kids, and kept seeing them around town, and they would run up to us and hug us and talk with us.
We saw them again on Saturday night, and they didn't even try to sell us flowers, but just came to talk. Even at 2 am, they were still working, wandering around and trying to get tourists to buy roses, it was quite sad...but what I saw next was even more sad.
At around 2:30 I was walking back to our hotel to go to bed and I saw what I hate about this country. I saw one of the girls who we had been talking to earlier, who had told us that she was 16, coming out from behind a building with an old disgusting white man who was just grinning from ear to ear. It was so horrbily disgusting. I was a little bit down the road, so I just stopped and watched to see if she was ok, but he just walked off, and she went the other direction and gave the money to whom I assume was her mom.
These old men are EVERYWHERE here! They are on the beach, wearing the smallest speedos imaginable with their young Thai girlfriends/wives whom they treat horribly. These men are in Thailand for the young girls, and it is quite disturbing, although I guess these Thai women get the last laugh, because they just have to survive their situation until their old husband dies and they inherit all of his money. We've had many conversations at school about who is actually getting used in these relationships. I know that most of these Thai women know exactly what they are doing, but I still find it incredibly disturbing to see...and it really is impossible to avoid seeing it here! Ah the joys of Thailand.
I know stuff like that happens in Canada too, but it is much more public, and common, over here. I hate it.
Other than that, I really do love it here! My kids are still extremely cute and I still like teaching. I have my second evaluation tomorrow, after which I am done (unless I stay another year, at which time I will be evaluated again).
Exams are starting soon (yes, I have to give my three year olds exams! "Can you write your name?" and "what letter is this?" are probably the toughest questions on there), so that will be a busy time, but at least I can mark their exams while they write it, the teachers of older grades have WAY more work than we do!
Alright, time to go to bed so that I can be all rested up for my evaluation. Hope everyone is doing well, let me know what's going on back there!

There has not been much excitement here over the past while, mainly I've just been working and not doing much in the evenings. This weekend we're going to Hua Hin, a beach that's about 2-3 hours away from Bangkok (depending on the traffic, which can add at least an hour to travel time if you get caught). A lot of people from our school, and from Ilda and Louis' school, are going. Apparently there is a golf special on right now, which is why a lot of the guys are going, but I'm just going to sit on the beach, my favourite thing to do here. Also, there is a place at Hua Hin called monkey mountain which is a monastery where monks live and keep tons of monkeys. You can go up there and feed the monkeys, play with them, and take pictures. My friend went there last week, though, and got bit on the finger by one of the monkeys! She had a banana, and was offering it to the monkey, and it took the whole thing in one bite, and bit her finger in the process. Right after it happened, a Thai person came up to her and said, "oh, be very careful. Big monkey, always hungry." So now I know to stay away from the big monkey.
I have also realised how much my body has gotten used to this temperature. It has felt relatively cool here for the past while, and I checked the temperature this morning, and our "cool" climate is actually 30 degrees...and I don't think that even includes the 60-70% humidity! I don't know how I'll ever do winter again!

free internet!!!

So right now I am checking my email in my apartment where they told me that I could not get internet. I am currently stealing someone's wireless connection, which is very exciting. It does cut out every once in awhile, but it's free, and better than nothing!
I found out yesterday that my parents are coming here for Christmas, so I am now very excited...it's good to have something to look forward to! We have also already started planning our October trip (we have two weeks off), and we're thinking of going to Laos and Vietnam...possibly Cambodia as well, but we're not sure we'll have enough time for all three. If anyone has been to any of these countries, please let me know and give me any advice/tips/etc. that you have from your travels! A bunch of people from the school have done this circuit, and they all have good advice for us, but it's good to hear from as many people as possible!
On a completely different note, have you all heard about this guy who was arrested, in Bangkok, for the murder of JonBenet Ramsey? It's crazy, and the theories circling around Bangkok are that he was actually wanted in Thailand as well for child molestation charges, and that he confessed to the JonBenet murder so that he would be taken to a prison in the States rather than spend the rest of his life in a Thai prison. If you think about it, it makes sense. Huge murder case, police really want a murderer and it would probably not take much to convince them of one's guilt, other than a confession. Nobody has any proof of this, of course, but apparently his ex wife has an alibi for him on the night of the murder, yet he is maintaining that he was there when JonBenet died. It's a big thing in the English newspapers here, just wondering what you guys have heard about it over there.
This week is pretty low key, going out tomorrow night to meet up with some friends who started teaching at the school, but decided to leave (she had an ed. degree, but he didn't and he realised very quickly that he hated teaching...) My friend Kristen is also moving into my apartment building on Friday and then we're going to Hua Hin to relax on the beach for the weekend.
Hope you're all doing well, keep those emails coming!

my week

Oh how I love short weeks. Having a long weekend makes the following week feel SO much shorter. I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday already! It's been kind of a boring week, although I did almost get peed on today, which was quite funny. I am teaching two and three year olds, all of whom are potty trained...or so we thought. Lately, there has been one kid who has been peeing on the floor at the end of class. This has happened two days in a row. It is always at the end of class when we are sitting in circle time. Today we were doing the alphabet and I gave each kid a flashcard with a letter on it, and they had to come up one by one to put their letters in order. All of a sudden my Thai teacher was yelling something at me and kind of pushing me to the side...she was yelling in Thai so, of course, I had no idea what was going on. I looked to the side, and there was a little stream of pee headed right for me...I'm glad that she was quick, because it would have hit me for sure. It did get on my flashcards, which was kind of gross, but they were laminated, so she just washed them off and put them back in the box (honestly, they've touched so many kids' hands, they were probably covered in pee anyway).
I also had a kid fall through her chair the other day. The kids were sitting at the tables working on something, when all of a sudden she started crying. She cries often, so we didn't really react right away. When we did look, we couldn't see her at first, then we walked over and saw that somehow her seat had broken and she was sitting with her bum wedged in and she was completely stuck. It was quite hilarious actually, and it took us awhile to get her out, partly because we were laughing pretty hard. She was not impressed and started to shriek cry until we finally got her out. She was completely unharmed and it definitely provided some comic relief for the afternoon.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but there are cameras in all of the classrooms. It is so that the psychotic and disgustingly rich parents can sit and watch their kids all day long (and they do...there are some parents who are here ALL day. Most just socialize with other parents, but one mom follows her kid to the pool, the library, everywhere! My question is, how are these people so rich if they are NEVER working!). Anyway, I always wonder what people see when they watch those cameras. There is apparently no audio, so they probbaly had no idea what was going on when that kid peed, they just saw a bunch of us shuffling over all of a sudden. It must be kind of funny to watch.
Tomorrow we are going to Koh Samet for the weekend, which is where I went for my very first weekend here with Ilda and Louis. It is a pretty small island and there isn't much there, other than a beach, and it's a really good place to go to get away from the busy-ness of Bangkok.
I have also successfully convinced two of my friends to move into my apartment building, so now I will know a bunch of people here and will not be nearly so bored in the evenings (doing laundry, checking email, and going grocery shopping at Tesco is not exactly an exciting evening), so I am really looking forward to that.
Alright, time to go pack for the weekend!

Koh Chang

We just got back from a really nice and relaxing long weekend in Koh Chang.
It is an island about 6 hours away from Bangkok and it was really nice to get away from the noise and pollution of Bangkok. We really didn't do much more than hang out at the beach, get massages (the best that I have had in Thailand so far) and eat really good food. Pretty much my idea of a perfect weekend. We stayed in a really nice place too, it was really cheap and really nice...we even had an outdoor shower connected to our room, which was really cool. I've never had a shower in the rain before, it was pretty great.

The swimming was really great in Koh Chang as well. The waves were massive, so we spent hours just jumping and playing in the water. There was an undertow, but we were careful and didn't go in too deep. On the last night that we were there, we found out that apparently three people had drowned right on the same beach where we were swimming. The story that I heard is that there was a child swimming, who went out too far, and got pulled under. His sister saw this and went in to help him, and also got pulled under (because the worst thing that you can do is go in after a drowning person because they will just pull you down too). Then a Thai person went in after both of them and also got pulled under. It was just weird to hear this story because we were right there all day, playing in the same water, and didn't even know that this had happened. They were small children who had gone out into the water too far, but it was still a little scary to hear that the waves were that strong. We didn't go swimming the next day.
On a completely different note, as I have said before, there are dogs everywhere in Thailand. It has to do with the fact that it is a Buddhist country, where they do not even kill bugs because they believe in life for all, so the stray dogs just keep on breeding everywhere. Anyway, we saw the fattest dog that I have ever seen in my life on the beach in Koh Chang. It was especially funny because the dogs are all skinny here, because they are all stray, but this one had obviously found some hidden jackpot, because it was disgustingly fat. I took a picture, but it doesn't even do it justice. We watched this dog all day, and it was almost too fat to move. When it did move, it would walk about ten steps, and then be too tired so it would nap for an hour before attempting to move again, it was quite entertaining.

Our bus decided to break down on the way back, which really sucked, so we left the island at noon and only ended up getting home at around 10:30...it took WAY longer than it should have, but that's how things go in Thailand.
Hope you're all doing well. Thanks for the pictures Allison, I love seeing you pictures from home, others should send them too if they have!

mother's day

So it is mother's day here this weekend (happy mother's day mom!). Mother's day and father's day here are not fixed dates, but rather based on the birthdays of the kind and queen (so they have basically been fixed dates for the past sixty years...we have the king with the longest living reign right now...his sixtieth anniversary was celebrated just before I came). Anyway, there was a mother's day ceremony this morning in the gym. It is crazy going to ceremonies and things like that here, because everything is in Thai and we never have any idea what is going on. This school is definitely not for people who need to know what is going on all the time. This morning, for example, they told us that the ceremony was going to be from 8:10-9:30...turns out that the ceremony only went until 8:30, so none of us had anything planned for that hour of class. In Kindergarten that's now a huge problem, I just sang some more songs with them, read some stories, played some number/colour/shapes games...for older levels it was a bit more of a problem, but everyone here is so laid back, it doesn't really matter.
We're going to Koh Chang this weekend to hang out and relax on the beach. It's a long weekend (for mother's day), so we can go to a beach a little bit farther away. A bunch of people from our school are going, as well as Ilda and Louis and some people from their school, so there will probably be about 15-20 of us going, which should be a good time.
I'm trying to upload some more photos right now, so hopefully those will be up soon!
Have a good weekend!

waterfalls and elephants

First of all, yes I am feeling better. Thank you for your concern. I didn't eat much for a few days, but things are all good now...still staying away from the fish though...
We went to Kanchanabri this past weekend and it was absolutely gorgeous. We went on a 2 km hike that passed seven waterfalls. It was absolutely gorgeous, and there were monkeys swinging through the trees as we walked, which was cute until one of them swung down right in front of us and just glared. It left us alone after we put our cameras away (the monkeys like to steal people's cameras), but it was kind of scary for awhile. You could swim in the falls too, so we spent a good amount of time just climbing and exploring the different pools and little caves as we walked.
After the hike, we went to an elephant camp where we got to ride elephants! It was really cool. Our driver actually got off of our elephant half way through and just walked beside us, which was fun, but also kind of scary since our elephant kept on veering off into the bush to eat and also kept on starting to run for no apparent reason (riding on a running elephant is NOT a smooth ride!). Some people that we were with really didn't like the elephant camp, because apparantly their drivers were really mean to the elephants (poking them with sharp metal sticks to make them turn), but our driver was really nice, and just kept on talking to the elephant and guiding it just by petting it and tugging gently on its ear, so our ride was a lot more enjoyable.
After that we went on a cruise down the river on a bamboo raft, and then took a train ride over the river Kwai. It was quite a good day. The next day, we were still pretty tired, so we just relaxed and got some fabulous oil massages.
Of course, my camera batteries died right at the beginning of the first day, so I have a few pictures, but I will be getting a bunch more from my friends who were with me.
Today, as we were riding home from school, I looked across the road and noticed a man just riding an elephant down the street. It was quite funny, and nobody even realy seemed phased by it at all. We figured that maybe it was just like seeing a horse in Winnipeg, not an everyday occurence, but not all that strange.
I also found out the other day that my friend Krista, from my ed class, has accepted a contract here and will be coming later this month. She will even be coming to my building (ha ha Ilda and Louis), so that is even better! I am very excited, it'll be lots of fun to have her here!
I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend, we get ours next weekend, can't wait!

food poisoning

So I projectile vomited during one of my classes yesterday. I had eaten in the cafeteria earlier that day, and I wasn't feeling great, but I didn't think that I was too sick...apparently I was. I was explaining to the kids what they had to do, and all of a sudden I got really sick. Luckily, since I am teaching kindergarten, there is a bathroom right in the classroom, so I just ran in there. I don't know what I would have done if there hadn't been a bathroom, I probably would have ended up puking in the classroom. It was horrible. Luckily I have fabulous Thai teachers in the room with me, so one of them who speaks pretty good English finished explaining to the kids what they needed to do, and she told them that they had to take their time doing it (so that I had time to recover). After I threw up (many times), I came back out and finished the last twenty minutes of class (I actually was feeling better). All of my kids were so cute, I'm pretty sure that they were asking me if I was alright (in Thai) and they were all stroking my arm and giving me hugs and kisses. I was supposed to teach two homework classes right after that (bascially I supervise the class for half an hour and help them with their English homework), but I told my boss that I had to leave because I was feeling too sick. I went home and slept from 3:30 pm until 6:45 this morning (waking up only to throw up and answer my door). I didn't think that I would be able to come to work this morning, but I was actually feeling alright. Now I am at school, and I am feeling alright, but still not great. Tonight I am probably just going to sleep some more and maybe unpack my apartment a bit, it is completely chaotic right now because I was going to unpack and clean last night but, obviously, that didn't happen.

Other than that, things are good! I'm in my new apartment and we are going to Kanchanabri this weekend (well, we'll see how I'm feeling...) to ride elephants, pet Tigers, go on a river raft and have oil massages. Hope all is well in Canada!

Mexican, traffic, and rats

Last night we went out for Mexican food and I ate cheese for the first time in three weeks. I hadn't really noticed that I hadn't eaten it, until we had some, and then I missed it! I also ate ice cream with chocolate sauce, and it was heavenly! We went to an all you can eat buffet and they had chips, salsa and sour cream (which is very very hard to find here) and tons of other good food. We were SO full when we left that place!

On a completely different note, I am sure that I am going to be hit by a car or, more likely, a scooter here in Thailand. Coming from Canada, and particularly Winnipeg where you jaywalk everywhere, it has become engrained in me that pedestrians have the right of way. This is not at all true here. In Bangkok, and Thailand in general, you have to look ALL directions before crossing the street. The direction of traffic here is just a suggestion...cars, scooters, tuk tuks, etc. go where they need to go, regardless of what the suggested direction of traffic may be. We rode a tuk tuk directly into on-coming traffic the other day, I thought we were going to die. The worst part is that I was filming our ride and I turned the camera off right before we turned, it would have been hilarious because we were all screaming and the driver was laughing at us.
Even if you are crossing a street where there is no traffic coming, cars will just start to turn and they will not stop, even if they do happen to see you. I actually saw a woman get her foot run over the other day because the car saw her and slowed down, but still kept driving and drove right over her foot. This all happened on Khai Sarn road, which is technically supposed to be a pedestrian road, and I don't think cars are even supposed to drive there but, as I said, traffic laws are just seen as suggestions.

I moved into my new apartment last night which is so much nicer than my old one! It is up on the 20th floor, so I can open my window and not worry about bugs, cockroaches, rats, etc coming into my room. Yes, I said rats. I saw my first rat here two days ago and it was massive! We actually saw it in the kitchen of the restaurant where we were eating...lovely. I guess that's why they store all of their food in large metal bins. I actually reacted much more calmly than I thought that I would, I was a little surprised. Just one of the many joys of living in Thailand!