Drunken karaoke

Another week has come and gone again. This week at school was pretty busy. We were at the high school in the morning till about 1pm and then a break where we would have meetings and work on lesson plans and then our afternoon classes from 4 - 6:30.

We're both feeling pretty good about our classes and have been getting good feedback from the other teachers. We both take over the classes at Mathus in the afternoon full time starting next week. So that is when our official contract will begin. The high schools are all on break for this month so these next few weeks will be much calmer. Next week we just have to come in for planning from 1 -4 and then teach in the afternoon.

The other big change is that two new teachers came this week. One is David from Texas. He's 23 and just graduated with a Classics major. Justin and him both quote the same random trivia, so I think they'll get along pretty well. He is also interested in music and plays guitar. Then there's Segal who came on Wednesday. She is from Israel most recently, but also lived in Canada. She's 29 and has done some private Hebrew/ English lessons before.

On Thursday we went out with David and Segal to the night market. It was pretty amazing. We had squid on a stick and Justin tried some cooked worms. I had some really amazing fresh pineapple juice there too. Oh and we also had some really good corn. Surprisingly Thailand has the best sweet corn we've ever had That market had some of the best food we've had here. It goes on every night so we'll definitely go back.

We meet some travelers there who were going to the islands the next day. They were from Portugal, Germany, and England. We all shared some beers and had a nice time. On the way back to our place we found a big free concert. The singer was this little dude dressed up like a thai boxer and painted all black. They had a bunch of fun dancers on stage too. We forgot our camera or else we would have taken some good pictures.

This weekend was the big party on Sunday to welcome new teachers and say good bye to the ones leaving. It was a great party! Lots of food and beer. Here's a picture of one of the tables towards the end of the night.










I performed a dance at the party with some Thai girls who work in the office. We had candles and costumes everything. I think it went pretty well. This picture is of me and the girls in our costumes before the show.












This is during the show.




Here are some of the Thai ladies singing karaoke.





And here's Justin and this fun guy Simon singing Karaoke.


It was a very excellent party over all. We both got a little tipsy and sand too much karaoke, but apparently the Doctor and Pe Nong (who own the school) really like teachers who sing and drink. So I think we're in .








I wanted to share some other observations about schools in Thailand. One of the teachers was telling us that it's a really popular and normal thing to be gay here, and that a lot of the high schoolers will go through phases of being very openly gay and that the other kids are fine with it. There are also kids who are gay and lesbian and that's fine too. On that same line, the guy students will get really physical with each other during class like hand holding and other things. It's pretty different in that way from High Schools in the states.

Also here it's ok to point out that someone is overweight. It's like saying you're tall. So a lot of kid's nicknames will be the Thai word for pig. Justin's also getting his belly poked a fair bit- even by the chubby kids.

Some of the kids here have funny nicknames in general. We all call the students by their nicknames because their real names are really long. They have a lot have English words for nicknames. Like there's one dad who owns a camera shop and so his kids are named "focus" and "shutter." There's also been Champagne, Oil, Ultraman, Ice, and so on. They're pretty entertaining.

Other observations: AMost of the food from street vendors is served in little bags. Like little donuts, soups, drinks sometimes and the sauces. Often theyll put it in a little bag while its hot and tie a rubber band around it. The hot air makes the bag puff out and you get this little round ball bag of food. Here's a picture of one.









If you guys have any questions for us about things we have written about, we'd love to hear them. Missing everyone!! Talk to you soon!