Back to school and back to work!

Our first week back was crazy, hectic and really busy and long! I think we put in about 60 hours! Not what I was hoping for our first week back from our travels! We worked on lesson plans, decorating our classrooms and getting last minute things ready before the first day of school! I have never boasted or claimed to be creative (which should maybe be a criteria for being a teacher), but I was given a task of decorating one of the  boards in the classroom. The end result is the picture that follows....and yes, that's about as far as my creative talent will go!

Our MEP students came back a week before the other students as kind of an introduction week and for the Pratom (grade) 2 kids to show the new Pratom 1 kids the ropes. The first week was quite crazy and unorganized...as if I thought that when I returned from our travels things would all of a sudden flow smoothly! It was great to see our old students and meet the new ones. I felt bad because already I didn't like our new class as much as the old one! I'm not sure why! Our old students would come running up to us and start rambling off something in Thai....so they also had memory problems....because they forgot that we don't speak much Thai! Even though our Pratom 2 kids don't know that much English, the difference between them and the new students was significant. The language barrier was even greater. It was very frustrating and overwhelming. I sometimes feel I would give my right hand just to be able to communicate fully with these kids! The next picture shows.....it's OFFICIAL!!

Being back in Singburi it still amused me that wherever we went, we heard, "farang, farang!," while kids and adults, pointed, laughed and stared! I was even riding my bike on this service road next to the main road (that's maybe 50 meters apart), and I could hear someone from the road proclaiming "FARANG!"  One thing that I have realized on this journey (if i haven't mentioned it before), is that I now know that elementary is not for me! I will take care smelly punk middle school kids any day!  The first couple weeks of school were quite frustrating trying to get the schedule and everything figured out. How it worked out was that I would teach Math for both grade and Cailin would teach Science and English, because they added up to the same hours. And we would teach computer and health together. Also during the first week we had the kids draw a picture of something they did over their holiday break...so I thought I'd do the same....I think I had more fun than the kids!

I was wondering through a market one day and stumbled upon this next picture. It's just a little eerie to me that the pigs have a sort of creepy smile on their faces! What do they do with a pig head? Throw it in a big pot to cook up? I'm still working on the answer!

I've witnessed some great sunsets since I've been here. It's still strange to me to see palm trees in the sunsets!

Cailin and I ran into some locals at the store one evening...and I just had to get a picture with this guy because I loved his shirt! If I would have been able to communiate with him I could have found out where he got this shirt!

Our first 4 weekends back we were excited to have company every weekend! It was all people we had met on our travels that were doing some travels around Thailand and stopped in to see us! The first weekend we had our friend Cody from Canada, the 2nd Ben from South Africa, the 3rd our friend Chelsea from Holland and the 4th weekend our friend George and Tash from the UK. One of the weekends we took them to Lopburi, to monkey town. I love this next picture...I had never seen a monkey with a beard...it must have been grandpa monkey checking things out!

Here a little baby is nursing....and notice in the water there is a flash drive and a lighter....you have to watch out because those monkeys will grab stuff off you!

There is a nice place on the lake to relax, soak in the peacefulness and scenery and enjoy life.

We watched this local man boat out and collect some of his traps in the water...he brought a few back with him and we were very interested as to what he had caught!

SUCCESS!!! From the looks of it we assumed it was a crab or two...but later after move investigating we found out they were humungous shrimps! I have never seen such big shrimp before in my life and I didn't know that shrimp could have big claws like that! He was very proud of his catch!

We ended our evening there enjoying a magnificent sunset!