My dirty little mistress...

Sawadee kaaaaa!



Life observation number 65748754: Adjusting to life in a new place is a lot like getting into a relationship. A bit of imaginary dialogue for you to illustrate my point...


Thailand: Oh baby baby, it was love at first sight for me-why can't you love me the same way?

Me: Well, Thailand, I've been hurt before...really bad break-up with New York City. I'm willing to try, but deep down, I'm just not sure I'm ready.

Thailand: You have to learn to trust me...I promise, baby, every mosquito that bites you is NOT carrying malaria, every new food that you try from my ambigously hygienic street vendors is NOT harboring some incurable life-sucking parasite...if you want this to work, you have to give me a chance.


English major moment for you...sorry to those of you rolling your eyes, but the observation stands. I really did come here wanting to fall in love with the place, to make memories so cool and special that 80 years from now, I'll be giggling and poking my legions ofgrandchildren with my sweet emerald cane saying things like,"Woooheeee see this scar on my leg? Grandma Daffodil got this riding a motorbike through the streets of Petchaburri, trying to outrun a band of wild monkeys!" And at the sight of the first cockroach, I lost that feeling, I retreated, I put up my boundaries, deciding to keep this place at arm's length...but alas, this charming country has broken down my defenses and weaseled its way into my heart. If getting used to life in Thailand is like getting into a relationship,I'm pretty sure yesterday would have been our first kiss.


Yesterday was my first Thai festival...Loy Krathong. Held on a full moon in November every year, the festival is to honor the goddess of the river, and so everyone in school makes a krathong, plus people sell them on the streets-I made my own (with the help of a student...the art of banana leaf origami is going to take some work), and at the end of the school day, two students also gave me gorgeous krathongs they had made for me-really sweet moment ...a krathong is a little float made of banana leaves, flowers, candles, and joss sticks (incense), and you take your krathong to the river and light the candle and incense...The idea behind the krathong being placed in the river is that as it floats away, it takes with it your sorrow, and in exchange for the offering, the goddess grants you a wish. They're very big on wishing in this country-every day feels like my birthday.


So yesterday evening, my coordinator, Miss Sompit picked up Emily and me and took us to Nong Pan Park, the park where I run everyday, that had been converted into the festival grounds. Carnival rides, crazy amounts of food, a Miss Loy Krathong beauty pageant...it was quite a sight-it was also the first formal event in the community that allowed me to see my students outside of their school uniform, in regular clothes, and vice versa, and it was awesome.


There is a group of five or six boys in one of my classes that are a little bit obnoxious but in that lovable way...probably the way mos tof Jim's teachers felt about him in high school, actually, so even though sometimes they make me mad in class, their English is really good and I think they're hilarious, so I loved hanging out with them...they and Miss Sompit got a whole bunch of food for our table,and I had myself the Thailand equivalent of a Thanksgiving meal, throwing my intestinal caution to the wind, making a little wish to the goddess to protect my digestive tract, and in I dug...and here we are twelve hours later...and I'm okay!


Some of the highlights of my meal....crab-fried rice with vegetables, som tam (spicy shredded papaya, cabbage and peanut salad, veryyy good), crepes with vanilla, chocolate, and taro (taro is a root that is used a lot of different ways here, interesting dessert flavor), green curried fish balls with eggplant, Thai pancakes (little hamburger bun looking things made with coconut milk, egg batter, and scallions, would remind you of scallion pancakes from Cape Orient ifyou've ever had the pleasure...), and fruit smoothies to drink. A festival feast, for sure, and I loved every minute of it.


Another Wednesday highlight came in the form of my first club meeting. All the teachers have "clubs" here, every Wednesday, last period. The first week of school, students learn what club each teacher is doing and they choose the one they want to join... (someone does a stop global warming club, someone else does a board game club, Miss Sompit does an American movie club, you get the idea)...the point is to have one fun period where the students learn about something new and hang-out with a teacher in an informal-ish way. So I decided to do music and poetry, and this week was our first official meeting...and it....was....AWESOME.


The English level of the kids that signed up for my club is amazing, I think we are going to have a really good time together..I didn't plan anything too structured for the first meeting because I wanted to get an idea of what the kids wanted from me, so I copied one poem for them (Jack Prelutsky, Be Glad Your Nose is On Your Face...google this, it's funny) and two songs (The Beatles, Oh-bla-di and The Beach Boys, Don't Worry Baby)-we read the poem together, talked about some vocab, and they seemed to enjoy it, but by the end, we had all decided to just focus on music-okay so sidenote, despite my significant lack of vocal grace, singing is one of my favorite things in life-some of my best high school memories are those early license days, driving around with friends, blasting music, singing until our ears were ringing and our lungs were on fire...these Thai kids absolutely LOVE to sing-they are auditorily shameless on a level to which I can TOTALLY relate...it took them twenty seconds to feel warmed up to me and then they were singing off the lyrics sheet, so I joined in and we had a very kumbayaa campfire moment-the whole experience warmed my heart in a way that i didnt think Thailand could do. I'm softening.


So for the rest of the time that we have our club meetings, I think we will try to do two genres of music a month...rock, pop, punk, country, hip-hop, R&B, techno, whatever else comes up...they seemed to love this idea, they know most of the big names in music history, and I encouraged them to bring in Thai music every week too, so I can learn as well as teach. The best thing about using music as a bridge between languages is the fact that melody, tempo, rhythm all work together to evoke meaning, so even if you cannot understand lyrics perfectly, you can still develop a feeling from a song...this is something I think we will focus on every week. Suggestions for music are always welcome from you guys!!! Feel free to email me songs, Iwould love your input. This is my first little taste of getting to teach something I truly love and find interesting (because let me tell you...teaching English grammar, not so much) and I can already tellt hat it is going to be a great experience.


So that's my Thailand life so far. Maybe by next week, we will have used the l-word. As always, I am thinking of and missing each of you-Hope your lives are better than good.