The week in review...

I'm back! Sorry to keep some of you waiting! Okay, where was I....

Last weekend we had no big travel plans. We went to the Singburi pool and enjoyed some sun rays for a few hours and then walked around at a local market. I saw a guy sitting with this big pile of sweetcorn and he was husking it! That is something I am very familiar with back home, so I guess it caught me as odd! 
Also, James and Pat from my school picked me up to take me shopping for a bit because I needed some skirts for teaching. It was a humorous situation! I also had a very interesting chat with a gal from Holland. We were talking about places we had traveled and Paraguay came up and she asked why I went there...thus being Mennonite came up! She asked many questions and said that she is very interested in that stuff because she wasn't raised with any religion. She said that there wasn't one kid in her class in high school that went to church. She said that she didn't think religion was very big in Holland. We shared similar thoughts of morals and values though. Sunday we headed to this resort about 2 hours away. It was a little celebration for going through culture week I guess. It was a lovely place that had a pool, golf, horse riding, massages...it was great!      

Also I got to take my first hot shower in 3 weeks and had a place with AC!  That morning I had my first coffee in 3 weeks...the caffiene practically gave me a headache! My body had forgotten what a coffee buzz was like!                                                                 

Sidenote, I found out that they use sugarcane for all of their sugar products (obviously), but it's also the main product in their ethanol, which I thought was quite interesting. 

On the way to the resort we stopped at this place called TESCO, which is a huge, supermarket/clothing/everything store, that is very popular here. After being inside for a while, I thought to myself, this is the Thailand version of Walmart! Then I saw a sign in the store that said "Tesco, we sell for less!" Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that Walmarts motto? I looked at bike helmuts while I was there, because of the fact that traffic is so crazy here!   

The next morning we had to get up  at 6am to grab a quick      breakfast and then head back to the ecohouse so we could get to school on time.  The two hour ride was spent in the back of a pickup. It was quite lovely!  At school that morning we met the computer teacher, who spoke very good English, and was quite funny! She was talking about how she is a Christian and her husband is a pastor. I thought to myself, I wonder if people who live in Thailand who are Christians, or any religion besides Buddhism, have to be careful about proclaiming to be something other than Buddhist.  I wonder if people look badly upon them. Although, even though I know that Buddhism is huge here, I think it's like any other religion, where there are always

alot of people who are luke-warm if their faith,

beliefs, and actions.  I got to see a first that

afternoon....the kids were all lining up outside for

class pictures...one of the kids was not cooperating and not standing straight and the man who was taking the picture slapped the kid on the arm.  I was shocked at first, but then realized that ws a normal thing here.

 The next day we did more talking about curriculum, strategy, and writing of the lesson plans. The Department of Ministry sets forth the standards for each grade, but the schools make their own lesson plans, pick their own curriculum, and write their own objectives.  We found out that we were going to be writing the objectives for Science, Math, and Health for this 1st grade MEP (mini-english program) class. I think I said before, that this next school yeah, which starts in May, they are planning on starting at least 1 if not 2 more MEP classrooms.  I'd assume that the 1st grade class that we are teaching right now would continue with the MEP in 2nd grade.  Lunch was less than satisfying that day, so we headed next door and got Pad Thai and some scrumptous fresh papaya!  That afternoon we had free time to take a look at some of the materials and while I did that I slipped away into Mozarts Requiem!

That evening I had a skype chat with Henry, who used to teach at our school right before us, but things didn't work out. Cailin and I thought it would be beneficial to hear what his issues were so that we could compare it to what we had been through already or what we needed to prepare ourselves for. He ended up going through a local organization to get placed in a school in Thailand and is now extremely pleased with his situation. He was also through InterExchange and Greenway, which we both agreed was the problem. I told him that even though I understood what he went through and that we had some problems of our own, that I was going to give it some time.

That night all of us girls at the Ecohouse went out to

supper at this little restaurant on the river.  We had

lunch there during our orientation and the reason we

all remembered it was because on top of all the

great thai food, there were french fries!