Thailand in the eyes of a 20-something..

Monday, July 12, 2010

Let's compare weekends, shall we?

On Thursday Sunny took Bauj and I to get our medical certificates for our work visas, and they tested for 5 things, including syphilis, and something that they had to draw blood for. I didn't like the idea of getting my arm poked on my lunch break, and when they were prepping my arm I made a very sad and distressed face. The doctor asked me if it was my first time getting blood drawn hahaha. I told him no, I just don't like needles, to which he attemted to alleviate my discomfort by telling me "not to look." As if not looking would make it feel like kittens licking me.
That night we(Me, Harry, Melissa, Rani, and Bauj) got our gym/pool membership at our condos at a discounted price of 7,000B for the year(instead of 8, because we signed up as a group).

Pedaling my little heart out
We decided to get started right away and do a workout that night before they closed at 9, and while there, I made the mistake of misjudging Rani's tiny 100lb frame. I bet him that my legs, which have always been my favorite asset, as they are quite strong and usually well toned, could out-bench his. We got to 130lbs..and you'll just have to watch the videos(that were too big to upload, grr..they'll be on facebook soon hopefully) to see what happened.

Friday night I headed out to Bangkok to hang out with April, and it POURED rain(of course). My hair was drenched two steps outside my building, and sitting in the taxi all I could hear was the rain beating down on the hood.

April finally got a cell phone, so I met her at the mall where she had just gotten it so we could go from there. While walking through the mall, we noticed they had those anime contacts that make your eyes look bigger. Yes. We bought them. And we wore them out that night. It was hilarious. April had never put contacts in before, so the first one took her half an hour. I just put mine over my regular contacts; I could still feel them, but it wasn't too bad. Mostly hilarious.

April trying to put in her contacts

lol we look like anime characters
Saturday we got up early to go see Lisa's new place(before she heads out next month), and enjoy their buffet breakfast. We checked out the view from her balcony, then headed off to Chinatown. Lisa had her second MRT ride, and her first Tuk-tuk ride. We had lunch at this huge hotel in chinatown, and I bought a Chinese dress and an Indian outfit.

Lisa got a few meters of fabric for her seamstress to make her something, and April..I think she got some postcards...I don't remember her getting anything else. After Lisa went home, we headed back to April's neighborhood, where she groveled and gave a gift to the Ladyboy that was supposed to do her hair at 2pm(it was now 5:30). She ended up getting it done an hour later, but by someone else. Then she grabbed her stuff and we headed out to my place for the night.
Sunday consisted of laundry(I hadn't done laundry for 3 weeks, and had finally run out of socks), enjoying the pool(and not enjoying the sunburn that turned up later), and then back to Bangkok for church. OH. And my new fridge came. The free one. Because my awesome manager talked to my landlord. :D

Comfy new addition to my apt, thanks to Harry and Melissa

My coffee makes me sexy

Sometimes I feel like all I do is grading. Another reason I don't plan on making this my career. Nevertheless, I'm keeping up with everything, in fact at the moment I'm 3 Units ahead in my lesson plans, I turned in my pre-midterm scores early, and we've started taking midterms today.
(enter video of "speed grading" here..but it was too big, so it'll be on my facebook)

This is set to be a rather long post, as I didn't get around to posting last week, and have done quite a bit since then. Or at least I think so. Last weekend, as you remember, we had our mandatory saturday training, and following this meeting, Khun Pooh, April and I met up with Lisa, Bob, and Christy and Kelly to have dinner at...I forget..one of the malls.

Anyway, had really good western food, then saw this really odd movie; it was a Thai independent film that had apparently won an award at the King's film festival, but we couldn't see why. It was called "Uncle Boonmee, The man who recalls his past lives."

O_o

Yeah. That was my reaction too. We asked Pooh to explain it to us afterwards, but she said she didn't get it either. lol the advertisements before it were pretty hilarious though, including one my post title is related to.

After shopping, April and I got caught outside in a sudden torrential downpour(those happen a lot here), and sought shelter under the stairs to the crosswalk overpass.

The day after(Sunday), April and I headed out for our second week to the Bangkok Christian Guesthouse for evening service at 6:30. They had a guest speaker that night from Australia, and I thought she did a great job.

Last week was...well, another week with the kids. The more I'm with them, the more familiar they are to me, and I often forget I'm in Thailand; it just feels like I'm in a school in the States with a class of slightly illiterate children. I recognize them all outside of the classroom now, and don't even have to think twice when calling them by name. I have one student who apparently broke her arm and won't be back til next month(so her classmates say), and I'm a little worried about getting her caught up when she does return.

I write this in their workbooks if they have more than 3 unfinished pages by midterms. It says PARENT SIGNATURE

The kids playing heads up 7up

Found this while grading a spelling test

Thai candy...I tried one...and put the others in my desk for "later"

My little worker bees, Eng, Poppy and Oom sharpening my pencils to get candy

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.

Happy Fourth of July!

...okay so I'm a little late..but Sunday didn't leave much free time to blog. Not surprisingly, America's Independence Day isn't exactly a big deal in Thailand, and with my coworkers being Thai, Scottish, Polish, Filipino, South African, and the very British that we celebrate our Independence FROM, it was pretty much whatever we could find to do. We did sing our beloved National Anthem after lunch at our work training on Saturday, and that was awesome. I loved being able to belt it out without having to worry about who I might be disturbing with my patriotism.

Dan and Bob singing the Star Spangled Banner..with LeAnn Rimes in the background, thank God.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Vevtagetatablec

That would be vegetables in Thanglish.

It has been a busy week at school, and then of course, to finish off the week, it had to rain like crazy this morning. Took a taxi to work.

Got paid on Wednesday, and headed into Bangkok to hang out with April and get some pizza! Delicious pizza, then shopping, then starbucks. A wonderful day.

Waiting for our pizza, eating the most delicious garlic bread ever, and enjoying our very colorful carbonated juices lol

Starbucks!

Must my legs be so long and ridiculous?

April looking awkward

Pre-midterm grades are in, and I'm in the middle of grading workbooks. I've spent three days doing it, and I've only finished two of my five classes. :( But I do not do work on weekends, so the rest will just have to wait til Monday.