Merry Christmas to me!

So if anyone out there got into teaching for the presents at Christmas time...Thailand is the place for you! I came home today with a huge shopping bag filled to the brim with presents...it also helps that I have fifty students, but mostly it was that they had just given me really big gifts...and they were all really nice gifts too! I got a huge woven bag, towels, candy, a really nice pen, cookies, bags, scarves, a clock, jewellry, a really nice belt from one of my Thai teachers, and a lot more. My favourite gift, though, came as a joint present from the three Thai teachers in one of my classes. They gave me really nice material to make myself a Thai outfit. Every Tuesday at our school is Thai dress day. All of the Thai teachers come dressed in these beautiful outfits made of Thai material. A few of the foreign teachers have Thai outfits that they wear, but most of us just wear our uniforms. Every Tuesday I tell my Thai teachers how beautiful their outfits are, so now they got me material to make my own! I am really excited, but I have no idea what I should make with the material. I think that I'm going to bring them some pictures, and then have them help me pick out what style I should get made. The people here are so nice, I just can't get over it!

The funniest part is that apparently it is New Years when we get most of the gifts, and Christmas is just a warm-up! If this is the warm-up I can't even imagine what New Years is going to bring! These kids better start giving me edible/perishable gifts, or I'm going to run out of room...my apartment is not that big!

On a completely different note, my parents arrive in Thailand in 3 hours and it doesn't even feel real. I didn't even really feel excited today, not because I don't want to see them, but because I have been so busy with Christmas, exams, report cards and tons of other stuff that I haven't even had time to think about the fact that they are coming, and now they are going to be here tonight! As I was cleaning my room and getting everything ready, though, it started to sink in and I started to get really excited! I will be really busy for the next 2-3 weeks, so I may not email/blog, so I hope that everyone has a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!

my day...

I don’t even know how to begin describing to you the hilarity of the day that I just experienced. First of all, I slept in this morning. I set my alarm for 6:30, and only ended up getting out of bed in a panic at 7:10…we leave for school at 7:20, so it was a bit of a rush, but I made it and was actually early. We got to school, and I was still feeling quite out of it, and proceeded to fall up the front stairs at the school. Now, this would be embarrassing at any school, but even more so at my school because I fell right where all of the parents drop their children off, and then proceed to congregate and visit with each other…many many people saw me fall and it was quite funny. This last story, by the way, was particularly for my sister, with whom I share a love of watching other people fall.

I had a fairly normal day in classes, nothing really out of the ordinary happened… and then it was time for homework class…

Let me premise this story by saying that my birthday is on March 28th…this will make sense in a second…

I went to my first homework class, with my grade 6’s, which was basically pointless because they just finished writing exams, and had no homework, so we sat around and played “Guess Who” for half an hour.

Then it was time to go to my grade 4 homework class. I’m not sure why, but this class absolutely loves me. I don’t really know what I ever did for them, but they love me. They also ask me random questions about myself, all the time, like when my birthday is. Every time, I tell them that it is March 28, they know that my birthday is March 28, I have shown them on a calendar, they definitely know that it is on March 28th.

Anyway, today I walked up to the classroom and the Thai teacher was standing outside the door. This was strange because she is usually inside with the kids when I get there. I noticed that she said something in Thai through the window as I was walking up, but I didn’t think anything of it. Then I noticed that the classroom was dark, but she didn’t say anything about the kids being in a different classroom so, again, I thought nothing of it. I opened the door and noticed something glowing, and then all of the kids jumped out and yelled, “Surprise! Happy Birthday!”

Just a reminder, the date right now is December 20, not March 28th.
There was a Garfield birthday cake that said, “Happy Birthday Ms. Jill!” and there was a pile of presents on the desk. I had no idea what to do. I just stood there for a second and the kids were all looking at me with these huge smiles of excitement on their faces. I was going to tell them that it wasn’t my birthday, but they looked so excited and proud that they had done all of this, that I just couldn’t do it. They pulled me over to the cake and made me blow out my candles and then they started shoving gifts at me.

Still, I had no idea what to do.

Now, I should tell you that most of the kids that go to my school are stinking rich. Thailand is also a gift giving country, so they don’t skimp on presents. I got a full sized bottle of good perfume, one silk and one woven scarf, one purse for me and one purse for my mom (because I told them that my parents were coming for Christmas), and a wallet.

The whole time I was trying to decide whether or not I should tell them that it isn’t even close to my birthday, but I just couldn’t do it, and it honestly wasn’t because I wanted to keep the presents. As I said, Thai people are very gift-giving people, and they are also all about saving face, so if I had told my kids that they were wrong and that it wasn’t my birthday and I didn’t want the presents, it would have been a double insult. And they all looked so excited and happy, I just couldn’t tell them. I still feel quite weird because I feel as though I lied to them or something, but I guess it’s more that I just didn’t point out their “mistake”.
‘
The funniest part about this is that I was talking to a different teacher after I had received all of my gifts, and she had seen my kids preparing for this “party” and asked them what they were doing. She says that they knew that it wasn’t my birthday, but that they just wanted to throw me a birthday party. So now I really have no idea what’s going on. Krista made a good point, though, that they probably would have gotten me gifts on my actual birthday, so now I just won’t tell them when my actual birthday comes around.

I still think that it’s incredibly weird that they didn’t just have a random party, but very specifically a birthday party, even though they knew it wasn’t my birthday. I feel very strange right now, and I don’t know how to describe it, it’s kind of a mixture of guilt and wanting to laugh because it is so ridiculous…mainly I have been laughing (I was also laughing for the entire homework class…they kept thinking that I was smiling because I was happy that they had thrown me a party, which I was, but I was really smiling because I was trying really hard not to laugh at the surreal and ridiculous situation that I was in at the time).

Ah the joys of Thailand, you really never know what is going to happen to you. I know that I have said this before, but up until now, this is by far the funniest, and strangest, thing that has happened to me in Thailand.

We also had Christmas dinner tonight, put on by the head Ajarns (kind of like head principals/owners of the school) which was fairly good but, apparently, in Thailand, stuffing comes in loaf form. It was weird…kind of like meat and bread and spices all mashed together…I was not a fan, and I LOVE stuffing!

Last random comment…we have been cold for the past few days, seriously, we have been wearing sweaters, and you know what the temperature is? 20 degrees! I don’t know how I am ever going to come back to a Canadian winter!

it's Christmas?? Really??

so there was no typhoon last weekend, of course. It has hot and sunny for the first two days, and kind of rainy and drizzly for the last day, but not a typhoon in sight! We were quite happy.
It is really strange to think that it is almost Christmas, where is all the snow? There are Christmas decorations up at the malls and store, they've been up since November, and I'm doing Christmas activities with my kids (and teaching them what Christmas even is...only one out of my fifty kids recognised Santa, one out of fifty! It's a Buddhist country, but I thought they might know Santa!).
Anyway, tonight we're going to this big buffet that has British food...the closest we'll get to a Christmas type dinner around here. Maybe we'll find something on Christmas day, but I'm not holding my breath. I was wrapping presents today, though, that I will send home with my parents, so that made it feel a little bit Christmasy.
Speaking of no snow...we even tried to buy that spray snow that you can buy to spray on our classroom windows. It is shaving cream...it says that it's spray on snow, but it's shaving cream...and it is pink and purple, not really the colour of snow! Seriously, you spray it on something and get this big lump of foam that then proceeds to slowly shrink and then disapear into nothing, it's really weird.
Some people from my school are going to a snow dome on Christmas day. It's a huge dome where you can go tobogganing and play in the snow. My parents are going to be here, and I'm pretty sure that the absolute last thing that they will want to do here is play in snow, but I kind of want to go sometime before I leave, I think it would be fun.
Hope you're all having fun in your real snow!

typhoon?

Right now, I am emailing from the swankiest economy-class airport lounge ever. I am on the internet for free as I am drinking my free juice and eating my free snacks. It is awesome. Today has been sort of a strange day. We were all set to go to Ko Samui, and Ilda called me just as we were leaving for the airport to say that they were not coming with us anymore because they heard that there was a TYPHOON in Ko Samui! We didn't know what to do, because we had already paid for our hotel and flight, so we got a Thai staff at the school to call our hotel in Ko Samui to ask about the weather. She also called a weather service for the area, and both said that the weather was fine, some thundershowers, but that the typhoon had left Thailand. So now we don't really know what to expect, we're crossing our fingers for good weather, but we may end up spending an expensive weekend inside of a not so expensive hotel. Oh well, I'm sure we'll have fun no matter what we're doing...but we'd have a whole lot more fun if we were on a beach! Wish us good weather luck! Hey, at least it's not tsunami warnings...

ah the oranges

So I think that I have already written one post about oranges, but here comes another one. I never thought that I would find an orange that tasted better than the Christmas oranges that we have at home in December, wow was I wrong. The other day I was teaching a homework class to my grade 6’s (basically I’m there to help them with their English homework, which usually results in me re-teaching everything, because they rarely understand it the first time) and one of them offered me this tiny little orange. It was maybe the size of a golf ball, if not a little smaller. I tried it, and it was amazing. There were no seeds, and it was the best tasting orange that I have ever had. They told me that you could buy them in Chinatown, so as we were downtown this past weekend we went to Chinatown and bought some for ourselves. I’m actually quite shocked that we found them…it was a complete accident and we just happened to walk by the cart where the woman was selling them. I bought a large bag for myself, and my friend wanted to split the bag with me until she actually tried one for herself and immediately went to go buy her own bag. I can’t even describe how good these oranges are, and the only people who are going to get to try for themselves are my parents, because I will definitely be going to buy some when they get here!

After I ate these oranges for the first time in my homework class, I started talking with the kids about how different the fruit is in Canada. I told them how different our bananas are (they couldn’t believe that we only have the big bananas, because the small ones that you can buy in the market are SO much better). They also couldn’t believe how much we pay for pineapple, when you can buy it here on the street, pre-cut and ready to eat for only 10 THB. I also told them about the size of watermelons in Canada. They eat a lot of watermelon here, but their watermelons are the size of our honeydews…I have never seen a large watermelon here. They were shocked when I drew on the board how big watermelons in Canada can be. We talked about more fruits, and food in general (they were really disgusted that we have ketchup and dill pickle chips, and I told them that I was quite disgusted by their seafood mayonnaise and salmon teriyaki flavoured chips).

I am really happy that I have not tired of eating Pad Thai since I have been here. It tastes absolutely nothing like the stuff that we eat/make at home…it is so much better! The lady in the restaurant at our apartment building makes the best Pad Thai that I have eaten so far in Thailand, and we eat it pretty much every single night. Pad Thai and salad are pretty much the two things that we have for suppers (my health nurse told me to never eat salad here, but I need to eat some vegetables sometimes!) Sometimes we have panang guy (which is described as “chicken and rice with red milk curry”), and some of the other dishes, but Pad Thai is definitely our staple food! I am going to get the lady to teach me how she makes it so that I can make it for you all when I get back.

The other thing that I want to take home with me is the way that they serve rice here. You rarely just get a pile of rice on your plate when your meal is served. They usually put the rice in a small bowl and then tip it onto your plate so that the rice is in a nice little dome shape, and then put your sauce or stir-fry beside it. It’s so easy, and it looks so much nicer!

Not much has been going on here lately, November has been kind of a blah month, but it actually went by surprisingly fast and now it is already insanely busy December. We are going away every weekend and my parents are coming on the 22nd, in two weeks! I am also trying to teach my kids about Christmas, Santa, snow and winter, all things that they cannot relate to at all, so it should be interesting. I have pictures, but it’s not the same.

So have no worries Jeff, no enraged elephants have eaten me yet, but I still have a few months left here, so it still could happen…thank you for your concern!