Rain, Rain, PLEASE go away!

Despite the hot, humid unpleasantry of Sunday morning and afternoon, Sunday night brought torrents of rain..and flooded streets. Have Thais never heard of storm drains? You'd think with all the rain..
The rain after church


Flooded Streets in Muang Thong Thani



Tuesday night, the thunder outside made me feel like a little child. I went outside to videotape it, and there was a clap of thunder so loud I whimpered, stopped the video, and ran back inside to cower under my blanket.


Wednesday night a handful of co-workers and I went to Rangsit for dinner. It rained, again. And the streets...well..flooded again. And this time not just from lots of rain, but from the river overflowing..which comes from lots of rain..so I guess it is the rain's fault.
Me standing on the back of the songthaew

Rani..inside the songthaew. You'll notice that I'm the only one that looked out of place on this truck.

Flooded streets in Rangsit

JJs Market

I got ALL my Christmas shopping done on Sunday (Go me!) at JJs Market with Rani. Got there early, stayed til about 1pm, then headed home to organize all my purchases. Oh and I also found this, which amused me to no end:

"Teeshah Amelia, can have pah-tee tomollow?"

Friday the 24th was our last "teaching" day for the first semester (woo-hoo! made it halfway!), and having finished their finals at the beginning of the week, the students were anxious for a fun friday. So I agreed that they could have a party in class, but they had to bring whatever they wanted to have at the party; I wasn't going to try to plan four parties for my four classes that day. I handed out awards for the 5 top scoring students in each class and the one or two "most improved" students...in retrospect I forgot to take pictures of this, but promise to do it at the end of next term. I was very proud of my classes and all their hard work this semester, and Friday went quite smoothly. The kids brought what they wanted for their parties, and we played games and had a good time. They even picked up their garbage at the end of class. It was a good day. And then it rained. Of course.

My P.5/5 class:
Playing hide and seek..the seeker was "blind" so it worked well

Yok wanted to be in EVERY picture :)

Left to Right: Ink, Ploy, and Yok

Petch...being cheesy

Petch and Opal in the back, Ploy and Yok, and Loogtan and Toey in front

Apparently they love me..awww

The boys playing cards..Ice(L), Euro, Winner(inside right), Yod(sitting)


P.5/2:
That would be Dear in the middle there..with Icy in front of her, Best 1 to the left, Pim 1 and Tangkwa 1 bottom left, Gam, Stamp, Fain, and Mill at the board, Best 2 bottom right


P.5/3:
More boys..playing cards: clockwise from bottom left - Inter, Art, Palm 1, Palm 2, Gle, Tee, and Pangpong

Most of the girls: clockwise from bottom left - Nach's fingers, Fah, Nut, Dream, Jane, Pair, Mimai, Natty, In and Ploy

Their junk food..right before lunch hahaha

Nach(R) and Natty


P.5/1:
Back: Om-am(L) and Praew, Front:L-R, First, Ploy 1, Mind, Ploy 2

Clockwise from bottom left: Mark, Q, New, P, Tarn, Train, and Oam

Punch(L) and Gorn

I have no idea what was going on...but it looked like a skit..and it was keeping them occupied..so I went with it haha

Q and Tarn watching the rain

The rain.

Pattaya, Take II

Friday afternoon headed straight home from work, then headed off to yoga with Bauj, Rani and Shyr. I did not participate, I watched. I also took pictures throughout, at Rani's request. After yoga we headed to Chang Wattana Rd for pizza and bowling. I'm not really sure who won bowling, we just played for an hour, but I know I didn't lose.


After bowling I grabbed a cab out to the airport hotel to meet up with Kirk's mom, Nancy, who was in Bangkok for the night on her way from Cambodia to Bangladesh.


Saturday morning, I headed to the eastern bus terminal and took a bus to Pattaya, where April, Christy and Kelly were already out exploring. I met up with them, we headed for the botanical gardens
and saw a Thai cultural show, which included dancing

Thai boxing,

drumming, and elephant warriors

followed by an outdoor elephant show where the elephants showed off their skills in Darts

Basketball

Soccer (or football, as the foreigners call it)

Bowling

Painting

and of course, their strong trunks :)

And make it beautiful..

I decided my students needed a break from lessons, so last week I gave them a day off and instead had them make birthday cards for my mom's birthday. They were SO excited! They ran around, grabbing colored pencils, busting out their rulers to make perfect straight lines, and even used what little cursive they knew to make the best cards they could possibly muster. I wasn't sure what I'd get back, but was very impressed with what I saw. And my mother loved them!

Monsoon Season

Rain rain on my face
It hasn't stopped raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud

Time for the rain to be over. Please.

To my wonderful Mother

You've always been there for me, cheering me on, encouraging me, and supporting me.

And of course taking me shopping and out to lunch at CPK for guacamole egg rolls. :D

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!

Bowling

Monday afternoon I headed into Bangkok to hit the bank to get my cash exchanged...only to get there at 4 and realize that they close at 3:30. Lame. So I treated myself to a large delicious Starbucks, and people watched while waiting for April to finish at her dentist appt. Then we had dinner at a little cafe at Esplanade, with mango and sticky rice for dessert. MMMM. Then we went bowling. There's a 22-lane bowling alley on the fourth floor of Esplanade, so we decided to check it out. She said, "Let's come up with the other person's name for the screen, and then we'll let them enter it and see it when we get to our lane." Well that was all fine and dandy; she wrote Cowgirl Princess for me, and I wrote A-peel(that's what it sounds like when the Thais say her name) for her. Only when we got to our lane, our names were as follows:

Look at that form!


Needless to say, bowling isn't April's forte, and I beat her two games straight, no contest.

But she was a good sport, and even returned the favor in the arcade with basketball. We tried to play air hockey, but the puck flew off three times, almost killing the guys playing the race car things behind us(the third puck missed their heads but hit the flat screen TV DEAD ON). We left at that point, deciding maybe it wasn't our night for air hockey.

Draw a hippo.