A picture's worth a thousand words

I have been told, and I quote “your blog has sooo many words!” So for this post I decided to give you guys a break and let the pictures do (most of) the talking. Living in Asia you see some pretty hilarious things. These are just a few of my favorites. Rae, this one goes out to you! J

I know I'm tall by Thailand's standards but this seemed a little excessive.

that's a giant handicapped sign. yeah i've got no idea. ha

BEST SHIRT EVER!!!!

Your mom's useless.

Who knew a smoothie shop in Thailand has had the cure this whole time!

Plurals are hard.

Thailand is very serious about Christmas in July, and May, and June, and August. :)

Food glorious food

Oh food, my favorite thing :) Like I’ve said before, most people here don’t speak English and since they can’t talk to me, they just give me massive amounts of food instead. It’s awesome! Thai food is basically the bomb. Mango sticky rice has got to be my favorite but I love the curry, the soups, the pad Thai, just about everything.

Ok actually I lied. Mango sticky rice is my second favorite. Roti is my first favorite. Holy crap this stuff is amazing! You can find roti stands on pretty much every corner near my house and the vendors are always Muslim. Basically it’s fried dough with butter, sugar, and sweetened condensed milk. Pretty much a rolled up heart attack. I am so in love with this.

The fruit here is absolutely amazing! Mangos, bananas, pineapples, coconuts, all so freaking good! Not sure how I’m going to go back to crappy imported fruit. Dang I don’t even want to think about that. Haha Some of my favorite fruits are ones you can’t even get in the states! Mangosteen, rambutan, tamarind. Mmmmm….so good.

So in Thailand there is seriously a 7/11 every block and I am basically addicted to their snacks. I generally stop at the one by my house about 5 times a week to keep my stash nice and stocked. I see one of the workers there a ton so we’re pretty much buddies. Once when I bought a particularly large amount of cookies she says “that’s going to make you fat.” I think the fact that we’re already to that level in our friendship shows just how much time I spend at sev. ha

On that note, this one day a teacher at my school looks at me and goes “You’re bigger than you were when you first got here. You eat too much.” Not going to lie, I kind of miss how in the states people just think you’re fat instead of actually saying it. haha

Mangosteen! Definitely my favorite fruit!

My stash of sev snacks. So beautiful. Chokis, Dewberries, fun-o’s, sugus, and more. Essentially happiness in wrappers.

MANGO STICKY RICE!!! That’s how much my host mom usually gives me. It’s definitely the same size as the one she makes for her whole family. Haha

Miracle roti man! This guy appeared out of nowhere in the pouring rain the second Jessica said “Man I really want some roti.” Like magic!

ROTI!!! If I could marry a food substance it would be this.

Get your head in the game!

Ok, so my whole life I don’t think I’ve had more than an ounce of school spirit. No matter what school I happened to be going to at the time, I had the exact same attitude: meh. However, this past Friday I found out that when it comes to Wattadeua Community School I actually have spirit. Weird right? My older kids had this big sports competition at one of the other schools and I got to go watch. The school we were playing against was super intimidating, looking like Chiang Mai’s version of East High in their red and white custom jerseys. My kids were definitely the underdogs, wearing their PE uniforms and I think feeling a little like District 5 versus the hawks. (Mighty Ducks reference what what!) The thing was my school totally dominated! Take that Thai Troy Bolton. haha They did awesome! I felt a little like a proud parent which was kind of weird. It's crazy how attached I've gotten in just a few months. It was so fun to see them play. They worked really hard and it payed off. My kids are the best. GO WATTADEUA!!! J

Takraw! Coolest sport ever! Basically soccer meets volleyball meets ninja awesomeness. Awwyeah!

I love these kids. I’m going to miss them.

Suwid! He did so good! This little boy has a pretty hard time with English so seeing him work hard and succeed was seriously awesome.

The kids were so proud to be a part of their school, and I was too. :)

(Mis)Communication

As many of you know, I am a big fan of talking. I like the sound of my own voice and I’m not afraid to admit it. However, being in Thailand, talking has become pretty dang hard. No one understands me and I don’t mean in a melodramatic Simple Plan kind of way, I mean literally no one understands what I’m saying. Haha Yeah at my school very few people speak any English. I pretty much never know what’s going on but I’ve decided that’s overrated. I’m so good at smiling and nodding now. J

My host family doesn’t speak much English either. Pretty much every sentence I say in English causes a 5 minute team discussion in Thai trying to figure what the heck I just said. I get a kick out of it. I’m also getting pro at charades. J I’ve learned the bare necessities of Thai (I’m full, excuse me, I don’t understand, which way, etc) and the incredibly useful random vocab words I learn from teaching (geography, engineer, stagecoach) but I wish I knew a lot more. I’ll keep studying but I’m beginning to realize just how short 3 months is to try and work on a language.

Something that does amaze me is just how patient everyone is. I know that talking to me takes a lot of effort, but people are still so nice and always willing to try. It’s especially hard for them because I talk crazy fast. If you know anyone in my family you understand where I get it. Being here, I’ve learned to slow down quite a bit but when I get with English speakers, I go straight back to my auctioneer speed. I do miss having normal conversations. I also miss being funny as dumb as that sounds. I still think I’m hilarious but apparently I’m much less hilarious if you don’t speak English. I wish I had a laugh track to help people know when I say something funny. I’ll check ebay.

It’s a little hard sometimes too because I meet and work with so many amazing people but I don’t know very much about them because of the communication barrier. I wish I knew their stories but it is pretty cool seeing the way people get around that though. My strategy is mostly just smiling and that’s how a lot of the other student teachers do it to. I feel like on some level we’re still friends, even if we never talk. Kind of a silent friendship. It’s a new thing for me but it’s actually pretty cool. Kids are amazing at this! That’s one of the reasons I love them so much. To them it doesn’t matter if I speak Thai. They just want to play and a smile is more than a strong enough foundation for a solid friendship. It’s pretty much the greatest thing ever!

These pictures are loosely related. I mostly just liked them :)

Jaja and Piay! My little host sister is pretty much pro at the silent communication business

Bia! He's one of the other student teachers. We always smile at each other so I've decided that means we're friends despite our conversations never progressing past "Hello!"

Some of my new friends. :) We were walking around the community reminding people to vote, apparently. Those two little girls held my hands the entire time. The little girl on my right was having the hardest time holding the poster and my hand but she refused to let go of either one. haha So cute

Some more of my new friends. Like I said, speaking is completely unnecessary in their book. Love these kids :)

The coolest kids you'll ever meet

Hi everyone! Sorry it's taken so long to post. I've tried a few times but serious internet issues and I also think my computer may be a deceptacon. Anyway I decided since it's been so long, I better make this one a good one. This post is all about my 3rd graders!

They are so awesome! There’s 5 students in the class, Turbo, Gafew, An, Ninoi, and Nuee. Pretty much the coolest kids ever, especially Turbo. He’s totally my favorite (shh don't tell the other kids). First off his name is TURBO! How cool is that? He lives up to his name too. Super smart, really funny, basically a little ball of charisma. It was really neat because I met him before I ever started teaching. On the second day of school there weren’t any classes just assemblies and stuff and a bunch of kids were in a room playing this like group rock paper scissors. I noticed that there was one little boy (Turbo) not playing who looked kind of sad. I went up to him and started doing rock paper scissors with crazy awesome sound effects (boom! Pow! Aaagggh! Etc) and exaggerated hand motions. We’re having a blast and before I know it half the room is watching us. Pretty sure that’s not usual behavior for teachers in Thailand but it was still great. We played a few other games before the kids had to go but Turbo came up to me after and said thanks in perfect English.

The next day I walk into my first class and there’s Turbo! It was so great because we’d already made a connection outside of the classroom. Plus he loves English. His English is easily better than most of the adults at my school. The other third graders are really great too! They seriously pick up the material faster than my eighth graders. I was teaching them school subjects and they were having a hard time pronouncing the “th” on math. So I had them stick out there tongue, make a scary face as they said it, and exaggerate the “th” so much that they kind of spit. It totally helped their pronunciation but now whenever they have math class they say “I don’t like maatttttthhhh!” Let’s hope their teacher doesn’t speak any English. Haha

I also taught them to say “I love English!” Hey I’m not above propaganda. After this they started saying “I love teacher Colleen!” all on their own. So great! Turbo always says “I miss you!” whenever I leave the class too. And I didn’t even have to use indoctrination. J I did teach them how to say “what’s up!” They say it all day long, complete with little gangsta hand motions. Like I said, coolest kids ever. It's pretty nuts how attached you can get in just a couple months. I'm really going to miss those kids.

In class

Me and the kids

The girls, Nid Noi and Nuee!

An!!!

Gafew and Turbo!!!