Last Day of Teaching, Halloween, Loy Krathong, Teaching Kids

HELLOOOOOOO. It's been a long time since I've written, sorry to all you avid readers (all two of you!) So a lot has happened within the past week. I left off last time as I was about to head to that Chinese vegetarian festival that involved self mutilation. First of all, me and this girl Maria were wearing black pants and white shirts--apparently the color combo of the devil. Everyone partaking in the festival wears all white but if you're not you can wear any color, just not black and white together. So the second we get out of the car, people immediately start looking at me and making weird faces. It seriously felt like the music just stopped haha. Everyone else we were with was allowed into the festival but me and Maria had to watch from this certain line and couldn't cross it. Still got a pretty good view although I'm not so sure the view was a "nice view". When the festival kicked off there was a line of boys and girls probably 16-25 years of age and they were all shaking their heads back and forth and looked possess by the devil (in this case, me I guess?) Then everyone started screaming and they pulled out the knives. Scratch that. Machettes. They started GOING TO TOWN on their tounges. It was by far the most disturbing thing I have seen. They all stood up on these chairs and started slicing the machettes (and axes at one point) against their tongues and dripping blood all over their bodies. Sorry if this is gross but try being there to witness it! The point of the vegetarian festival is if you stop eating meat for a week you gain these super powers supposedly. Not so sure how I feel about that idea. It was really disturbing.

After that sweet moment, the last week came for teaching at the center. It went really well and on test day--Thursday--a lot of our students did remarkably well. There were a few, however, that were not up to par you could say. All in all though I'm proud of my students and by the end of the test they were all asking which level I will be teaching the next term and they all hoped it was either level 1 or level 2 (level 1 for the ones who stay behind and 2 for the ones who move up.) I don't find out what I'm teaching until a week--could be any level between 1 and 6!

Friday night was our Halloween party at the house for all our students and their families. I was a cat. Super original? It was really fun though a lot of my students actually showed up and brought some amazing food. There was probaby a good 150 people there. The three bad boys in my class (probably 16 years old) even showed up! I thought they'd be "too cool" to come. They were all sneaking to the side though drinking booze and smoking cigarettes which was sort of funny cause they look like theyre 12 years old but I guess they are actually allowed to drink here so whatever. At the party they gave us all of our certificates which was really nice and we got to say a little something to our students (check the above picture.) Karaoke was a hot part of the night as well. There was about 5 students who would not let go of the mic (also check the above picture of me singing with them.) It SO funny their favorite english song is........ZOMBIE.....by the Cranberries--if anyone knows that song you could imagine how much of a downer that is when you go from MJ or ACDC or classic Madonna to that song. But, they love it and sing it about 5 times a night at karaoke.

The weekend was a pretty mellow one, definitely fun but I wasn't really able to leave base all weekend. DEFINITELY bummed about missing Boulder homecoming :( but oh well there will be more of those!

Yesterday was the festival Loy Krathong. This festival involves building a floating candle/insent burner and floating it down a river, putting in it all your negativities in life and making a positive wish. We made them at the library yesterday morning with some of our students. For the base of the thing we used banana tree and then wrapped leaves around it. After that we strategically folded leaves to put on top to make it look pretty and then added flowers. 3 insents are placed in it as well as a candel. For good luck and to make it personal, you put a strand of hair, some part of your clothes (a little string from a shirt or pants) and part of your finger nail. So I went to the festival, indulged in some amazing squid, mussels, crab and shrimp, and then sent my hopefuly candle down the river, along with all things negative and a big positive wish for the year. They say if your candle doesn't burn out before it floats out of eyes view then your wish will come true--I'm pretty sure mine didn't burn out cause I followed it all the way down til it hit the waterfall (which totally blew out of the flame) but at least it made it that far! It was sooo beautiful though, we walked down this path lit by candels and came down to the river where there were HUNDREDS of people letting go of their floating candles and sending them down. The entire river was lit up by the candles with a calming and wishful smell coming from the incense.

Since we have 2 weeks before the next term starts we are teaching younger children this week. Ok, I was REALLY looking forward to working with kids but immediately after school was out I wanted to run back to the center and teach my 15 and older students. Don't get me wrong, the kids were beautiful, hilarious, and so cute but it was just so different teaching a class of 30 all crammed into a small room compared to a class of 15 where you have a huge spacious place to teach. I was in charge of teaching body parts and was lead to believe that my students only ranged in age of 10-13. However, I was sadly mistaken. My first two classes consisted of students probably 8-11. Okay no problem right? After a nice lunch I was thrown into a class that was not even on my schedule to teach and low and behold a room full of screaming 5 and 6 year olds! They were the cutest things ever but did not understand one word I said. I had to completely disregard my lesson plan and make everything up on the spot. I tried to channel my inner elementary school student to remember what the hell I did 16 years ago in school but could only remember duck duck goose. Needless to say, we played that game for a good 20 minutes. I taught them the song, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and although they didn't understand what it meant they were all cracking up because I'd just go as fast as I could and scream as loud as I could. I think they thought I was "ting tong" (Crazy.) After that I taught some 11 year olds but definitely saw no 13 year olds. The older students were very enjoyable and sort of understood the body parts I was trying to explain. Throughout every class, the favorite activitiy was definitely the songs Hokey Pokey and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. It was so cute, after each class all the students rushed up to shake my hand and two of them grabbed my bag of materials and walked me to my next class. After the last class of the day I sat in the library waiting the extra hour til school was over and I could get a ride home. As I was sitting there reading (The Book Theif--great book, read it if you have time) about 15 of the students I had taught today came up and just sat with me trying their best to speak english. They brought me 3 bottles of water, a juice box, 2 breaded dessert things, and a sheet of heart stickers. That made me realize I guess I didn't do as bad as I thought! But I am seriously drained and have to now plan my lesson for four different types of classes. Which is why I'm done typing for now and gotta run back home! I hope everyone had a great halloween, Boulder homecoming, and weekend! Miss you allllll! LOVE.

Pictures:

1: Getting my Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate

2: Singing karaoke with the students, not every Thai understands halloween so we had to paint some of their faces at the party haha; showing them my sweet dance moves

3: Cutest little chub kid at the library where we made our candles

4: MY floaty candle

5: Floating mine down the river!