Monday November 9th, 2009

Woke up and got ready on time this morning, but we left the house 15 minutes late. We arrived at school about 8:10 though because my host mom drove very fast. I went to the English Lab but barely had time to say hello to Lucas and Happy Birthday to Peach before it was time for Homeroom.

Today in homeroom they turned in their progress reports, which are in folders and just sheets of paper. They talked a little and got some hand out and then we left for math. I don’t know what they are learning in math right now, but I know that because math is not their focus they are behind where I am so I just sit there and read or practice my letters. A good portion of the class was gone today I noticed (like 10 of the 45). I don’t know where everyone was, but them being gone didn’t make things any quieter. After math they stayed in the classroom to finish their homework, but we got kicked out by the next class so we went and sat outside the teacher’s office so they could finish and turn it in. After they turned in the homework it was almost time for English. Monday is the one day they have English with a foreign teacher. His name is Adrian and he is from Canada. He is very nice, but almost everyone thinks he is a bad teacher. He doesn’t always show up to class and when he does he doesn’t do a lot of teaching. Today they were learning the four types of sentences (statement, command, question, exclamation) and all he did was give examples and then hand out a work sheet. Most of the kids in my class don’t care to do the work so it takes them all period to do, but my group of friends finished it in less than 10 minutes. He came over and talked with us and was saying how nobody in the class liked to work except our group, but he didn’t do anything to make them work either. He said that he can’t even use the motivation of failing them to get them to do the work because Thailand has a no fail policy. He seems like a nice guy, but I can’t really say anything about his teaching yet since I’ve only had him for two classes (supposed to be three but he didn’t show up last week).

After English I was supposed to have a Thai lesson, but Ti never came over for my lesson so I worked on my art. At the end of the period I went and met the girls for lunch. For dessert we went and got fruit. I got mango and pumello (I think that’s the name of the big green thing) with syrup. I didn’t get a spoon so it was really hard to eat the pumello.

After lunch we went to Thai. The teacher seems really nice. She apologized several times for the fact that she couldn’t talk to me because she doesn’t know English. Mo translated for us and so I told her that it was alright and that I hoped in time to be able to communicate in Thai. I tried to listen to the class, but about half way through Mo nudged me and told me that even they couldn’t understand what was going on so I would be better off reading.

After Thai was Botany. There were people missing from our group so I got to plant too. We took 6 pots of dirt or compost and 3 pots of rocks and woodchips and 3 pots of new dirt and put them all on the ground and mixed them up. I tried to not get dirty, but after a few minutes I realized it was inevitable and just gave in. We broke off 3” sections of some type of plant and put 20 of them in each pot. The hardest part of the project was trying to squat on the ground in our skirts and not show anything, at least my group is all girls and the three boys were really far away so it wasn’t as big a deal. After we finished the teacher talked a little and then we were done for the day.

Mo, Boom, Paw, and I went and sat in the little kid cafeteria and read and did homework until the end of the day. At the end of the day I went and packed up my things and left them in the English room. I gave a note to Mike to give to Meow saying I was going with my friends to the market and would be back by 4:30 when she said we were leaving. Mike never gave the note to Meow, but oh well everything worked out in the end.

At the market we bought some food and drinks. Mo got some fresh orange juice and I tried it, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t very pulpy and it tasted pretty good. We ran into Peach towards the end and she said that my host mom told Meow that we were going to her party after all (we were supposed to but my host dad said we couldn’t). At 4:30 I went back to the English Corner, but Meow was nowhere to be found. At 5 she came running in and panted that we had to go. We grabbed one of the cars and headed to the restaurant. We ate at one of those grill things again. Lucas and I had so much fun. They had beef there so Lucas and I ate a whole bunch of it. I didn’t have my camera because I didn’t know we were going so I used Lucas’ to take pictures and will get them from him as soon as I can. As I was going up for dessert they told me I had 5 minutes before we were leaving. I quickly shoveled in my dessert and took more pictures while my host mom waited to go. She parked very far from the restaurant so by the time we got there I had a side ache from shoveling in my dessert.

When we got home I finished my art project (the bird looks good but the basket of rice doesn’t look like rice at all). I am going to use my internet time in just a few minutes, the last until Friday night so you will have to wait for updates.

Side notes:

So all weekend I’ve been going around the house singing Christmas songs. I know it’s a little early for it, but wrapping presents and thinking about Christmas is making me miss it already. I think that someone needs to send me a CD or two with my favorite Christmas songs and some classic ones so that my host family can listen to how they are actually supposed to sound not my horrible renditions of them!

So apparently I do this thing with my feet at dinner time, I don’t know what it is, but it makes Mike upset and so he won’t eat at the table. He is always eating in front of the TV and computer (I think it’s just a good excuse to spend more time on the TV and computer but whatever). They tried to explain what it was that I’m doing, but I don’t understand. They are very sensitive about feet here. Meow and my host mom understand that other cultures aren’t the same so they don’t mind, but apparently Mike and my host dad do. I don’t know what I’m doing, but now I am very conscious of my feet.

So I counted my ant bites tonight. I have 13 on my right foot alone and 14 from my knee down on my right foot! I don’t know why they like me so much. Meow said that when she was in my room that she never had a problem with ants, so it’s just me! I really do hate ants!