I was in charge of the "word of the day" at this morning's assembly...

Good morning, students.

Today's word of the day is "hunky dory." Hunky dory. H-u-n-k-y d-o-r-y. It is an adjective. It means very good. In Thai, you say "dee." Example: The movie New Moon is hunky dory.

Thank you.

Happy Turkey Day

Fondly,
Rebecca

Sports Days

Welcome to Sports Days at Triam Udom Suska School of the North.



Once a year, teams Red, Blue, Yellow and Green engage in two epic days of battle--volleyball, basketball, indoor soccer, track, and cheer--to determine the ultimate victor.

Opening ceremonies.





Yes, that's a pirate theme the blue team has chosen. They even managed a pun about "Fanta Sea." Who taught them about English puns, you ask? I only wish I could claim credit. On to the games. Green vs. blue for the men's volleyball championship.



And to the cheering competition, by far my favorite part. At the head of every cheer team is the captain lady boy. Although the lady boys of Triam Udom Suska also participate in other sports, and especially in volleyball, they are the absolute last word on leading a cheer squad. My team (green) put up a good fight, complete with smoke machine, golden costumes, and confetti canons, but ultimately came in second.



Poor blue team. They had a technical malfunction involving stereo equipment that surely cost them the gold, despite the having had far and away the most creative dance routine. The dance narrative was a little unclear to me but involved a treasure chest, the King, and a gang of pirates. One girl (pictured two to the right of me) teared up as she told me "Teacher, teacher, I very sad. We stay three am last night practice. No sleep."



Sports days were really a blast. I wish I could tell you who won, but I went home early because it was Friday and I was tired and no one was paying attention, so shortly after this photo was taken myself and my co-teacher Beth (pictured in yellow) snuck off and went home.

Yours,
Rebecca

Bpen kru pasa Engrit, na ka.

This is the way every English class in Thailand starts:

On cue from their classroom leader, the students stand in unison and say,

“Good mawning, teacher!”

I reply, “Good morning. How are you today?”

Class, “I am fine, thank you. And you?”

“I am fine, thank you. You may sit down.”

This is the English dialogue that every Thai student knows by heart, and it is a bit of a joke that this is the only English that Thai students know. And by “joke,” I mean, one of those funny-because-it’s-true jokes, as in some cases it is definitely the only English that Thai students know. And I use the term “know” loosely, as I don’t think many of my students actually understand what they’re saying, i.e. what the word “today” means.

Today, instead of “fine,” I used the word “great,” and for the most part, the response was a sea of confused faces.

My budding career as a teacher:

I teach twenty classes a week at Triam Udom Suska School of the North. I am at school from seven forty five in the morning to four in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. I take “public transportation” from my apartment to school, in the form of a song taew, which is in fact a small pickup truck fitted with two rows of seats in the bed. I have my own wooden desk at work, for which I have purchased several different ambiguously useful desk organization apparatuses. I have no classroom but rather travel from class to class to teach. I meet with each of my twenty classes once a week, and each class has just under fifty students.

It has been a little hectic, transitioning from never having taught before in my life to over nine hundred students. At first, some very basic things seemed unclear to me, for example, how and what I should teach. How would I communicate anything through a near total language barrier? How would I learn over 900 names? How would I give grades when I have almost 200 students a day? Then there were other less immediate but still meaningful concerns: how could I possibly be of any help to these students who see me once a week for fifty minutes? What would they possibly retain? And selfishly, how would I find a sense of satisfaction if could not connect with and feel of some service to students?

These mysteries are beginning to clear up, or at least seem less pressing. For example, as much as it pains and embarrasses me, I have to use the students’ numbers for grading. I just cannot learn 900 names at once, especially as they are written in Thai. Additionally, I am really blossoming into quite the enthusiastic mime thanks to my attempts to act out everything I say from “nice vs. mad” (easy) to “you don’t have to copy, because this is just a participation grade” (difficult). My Thai has taken strides exclusively in the area of classroom vocabulary (ex. “poot mai chat pasa thai…” and “song ma hi kru,” meaning “this means…in Thai, but not exactly” and “pass your papers to the front.” From experience I can tell you that these are time-consuming concepts to act out). I smile big, nod and say “very good” maybe one billion times a day. When I am sad, I make the whole class clap about something because that always cheers me up. The rest—figuring out how to feel like I am helping these kids in some way—I’m giving time, letting go of my worries.

The teachers here are extremely kind, giving, and tolerant of my incessant questions. The students are great, which makes teaching much more fun. What they lack in English skills they make up for in sweet dispositions. Some of them are absolute peaches, and even the ones with the most attitude aren’t terribly rude or disrespectful. Happily, they seem far younger than American high school students, giggling all the time and stretching into new teenage personalities.

Also there’s a whole new range of emotions I’m learning. I don't know the word for these new emotions but maybe if you are a teacher you have felt them too?: something like “that sinking panic when the air is going out of the classroom and all at once every student is bored and not paying attention to you,” or “the bliss that comes from students spontaneously laughing because they actually understand and are enjoying the educational game you designed” (yes, I finally made that past perfect game work).

And so it begins, my career as a teacher. I make worksheets, I play educational games, I force Thai children to read dialogues at a full scream because they are too quiet. I may not be a very good teacher, but I am trying!

Yours,
Rebecca

The digs

Dear Reader, I present to you, my new place:

I added some color.





And some pictures of loved ones.





Please do note my very own first small appliance purchases. One toaster oven and one kettle.








Home sweet home.

With affection,
R

Loy, Loy Krathong

I am in the midst of my second week of teaching, and I continue to flounder in a state of uncertainty about how and what to teach. The kids are so very sweet, but I am incessantly confusing them with ill-conceived and overly optimistic lesson plans. In carrying out yesterday’s lesson plan, I never even reached the “game with past perfect” activity because I couldn’t manage to adequately execute “make students fill in seating chart.”

So instead of regaling you with more tales of incompetence, let me and tell you about this lovely festival that coincided with my arrival in town: Loy Krathong.

Loy Krathong is an annual apology to the river, a making of amends for the usual take, take, taking of resources and pollution of the rest of the year. For Phitsanulok, this means apologizing to the Nan River, which cuts through the middle of town and serves as a hub of commercial and social activity. The very day I arrived, the whole town was busying itself in preparations for the night’s festivities. The area of the town along the river was transformed into a carnival of food, lights, theatre, and krathong vendors.

The Nan:



First among the many traditions I was exposed to, the parade:





For an hour and half, we watched as a mélange of high school bands, groups of small, costumed children, and countless neon floats bearing beautiful Thai women processed past us, moving in a streaming dance with the surrounding traffic (not redirected for the occasion).

As we watched the parade, the evening air began to fill with floating lanterns, delicate flaming lights borne up into the night. At first tens and then hundreds drifted slowly in the dark sky. I tried fruitlessly to take pictures to show you, dear reader, because I wanted you to see how pretty it was, but really there is no way to share the beauty of all of those lanterns suspended above our heads or convey the magic of their quiet and slow rising into the inky air.

A lantern lighting:





(I didn't take that second picture)

After a delicious dinner of street food and fresh ice cream (homemade with coconut milk), we readied to float our very own “krathongs.” We found our school’s energy club industriously selling krathongs as a fundraiser, and painstakingly selected the perfect ones. After hiking down the steep banks, we lit our krathongs and with a quiet prayer and a wish, released them onto the river. Here’s mine:



And P’Maew, one of my wonderful co-teachers, floating her krathong:



Finally, totally beat, my host teachers returned me to my little apartment nearby the river.

So what do you think? It’s pretty, right? In terms of environmental impact, Loy Krathong might be a touch of a problematic holiday, but at least most of the waste is biodegradable, which is a lot more than can be said for Christmas decorations.

Oh, I almost forgot, my favorite part, the Loy Krathong song! Take a listen.

Next time I plan to show you pictures of my house! It is my motivation to finish decorating. And maybe I’ll even write a little about my daily life here? Until then, farewell dear reader.

Yours,
Rebecca

Phitsanulok, I am here

Sawatdee kaa dear reader,

I have arrived.

I am safe and sound in Phitsanulok. I write to you from my humble and totally comfortable fourth floor apartment, full on green curry, mango, and sticky rice.

These first few days have been a sort of incoherent blur of confusion, tiredness, some teaching of English (I use the term "teaching" here loosely), more confusion, some awkwardness, ants, and a lot lot lot of kindness from the faculty at my school.

Tomorrow morning I introduce myself to the whole school (1600 students)! Wish me luck. I am practicing my speech right now:

(First: a wai, which is a bow with hands pressed at my head level)

"Sawatdee Kaa. Dichan cheu Rebecca Riddell, kaa.Yin dee tee dai roo jak, kaa. Dichan bpen con prattet American. Ma jark Austin, Texas, kaa. Kob kun tee hai dichan ma bpen kru tee nee. Ja bpen kru tee dee ka. Kob kun kaa. Sawadee kaa."

(Another wai)

That's more or less it, except I don't know how to type the tone marks in with english letters, which is just as well because I really am not able to pronounce the tones when I speak.

I will post some pictures later this week, maybe once I have decorated my little new home. I just wanted to tell you that I am here and doing fine (...hi mom!). I am incredibly well cared for by the flock of mother hens that is the English department. I will be teaching 20 classes per week, i.e. 20 different 45 person classes, once per week. I sat through my first all-Thai staff meeting today. I live across an alley from a giant and wonderful temple. Also I have a sinus infection and my voice is gone (poor timing). Finally, I have been given a Thai nickname by the staff. It is "Duuan Pen," which means full moon, because I arrived on the full moon.

Oh and, additionally, I am using this blog to officially declare full-out war on the ants in my apartment. As recently as yesterday I was trying to befriend the little parades of ants so I wouldn't be talking to myself in my apartment, but we have failed to establish a mutually beneficial relationship. I tried to show mercy at first, I did, but as of a recent banana peel/macbook disaster, I am now giving no quarter.

Thanks for your time. Take care now.

Yours,
Rebecca

Goodbye Bangkok!

In just a few hours orientation comes to an end and I depart for Phitsanulok, where I’ll be spending the next eleven months teaching. Given my one entire week of TESOL training coupled with my one additional week of practice teaching, I foresee no problems whatsoever. Wish me well dear readers!

Yours,
“Kru” Rebecca
(Kru=Teacher)

P.S. I made my training-wheels-kids learn about Halloween, and then I made them practice “American trick-or-treating.” Maybe teaching will be fun?





P.P.S. Check out more photos on my picasa site, if you are interested (see the photostream box on the right).