Christmas Decor in our Classrooms

Thought you'd like to see some of the ways we are decorating our classrooms.
The kids will be judged next week on which room is decorated the best. We had to use recycled items and have a theme.

What do you think? One of the Christmas trees in my room.

The kids set up this shadow box window to look like a shop's window.

Our other shadow box window is set up like a winter wonderland.
We're still working on this one, but it definitely has potential.
My creative husband made this Christmas tree for his room,
and the kids have been decorating it.This cracks me up. Matt is Santa, and his kids' pictures
are on reindeer that he made out of toilet paper rolls.
This will hang from the ceiling in the middle of the room.
Not only are his kids reindeer, but they are personalized angels as well.
This guy is cute too. :)

A Very Different Weekend

We didn't have school on Friday--in honor of the King's 81st birthday! This freed us up to enjoy the weekend a little more. Usually, we just end up sleeping in, taking naps, and doing school stuff.

This Thursday night, we hooked up the Wii at a friend's house after playing Texas Hold 'Em for a little bit. It was fun to be able to play the Wii for the first time since being here. We now have a lot of people hooked, but it kinda stinks that it stays at their house. (We still don't have a tv for it at our house.)

Friday, we slept in, did school stuff, and then enjoyed the evening with Kristen and the kids. They had carolers come and visit after dinner while we watched Cinderella II. I think their 3 kids are finally getting used to having us around. :) (BTW, you can get to their blog from the list on the right.) Also, in the movie that we watched, there was a scene where the king gets launched from an elephant... hilarious!

Saturday, Matt watched Dan and Kristen's kids, and Kristen, Ro (and Jaya) and I went to Chinatown to do some shopping. This was my first time really on a shopping outing here, and I took full advantage. I got some good gifts for friends and family at home and some Christmas decorations and small gifts for my class. Chinatown was INSANE! It was packed but fun. Definitely worth the bargains.

(You can see from the picture how packed it was. Streets were hard to walk on as it was, but then a car would drive by and we would have to scrunch!)
Pic on the right: My shopping buddies.
Baby Jaya was the star of Chinatown for the day.
I carried her around the first couple of hours, and she was so so good!


Pic on the left: me with my Thai-style pose and all of my goodies from the day, waiting on the water taxi to take us home. (It takes about an hour to get to downtown from our school when there's traffic, so the water taxi is just as long but at least it's always moving).


The rest of Saturday, we hung out at Dan and Kristen's for a few hours (avoiding another toxic mosquito spray at GES with some other teachers). Then, Matt and I went to a new mall in town that we had heard a lot about. First, we just walked around all 8 floors soaking it all in.
Then, we purchased a few little things that we wanted/needed.
And then we ate at a new restaurant, Au Bon Pain. I think I remember eating at a few of these in Europe. It's kind of like Panera. Soups and Sandwiches, desserts and fancy coffees. I loved my Broccoli and Cheese Soup in a bread bowl and think that it might be my new favorite place to eat here. Matt had a turkey and stuffing sandwich. He liked it, but I don't think he loved it. When we got back on Saturday, we stayed up until 2 am talking on Skype with Ginger and Steven. Every time we get to talk with someone from home, it's like we get recharged. We miss you all so much!

Sunday was pretty normal. We went to church, but then we did something different--and wonderful! We went to a place where I could get my eyebrows waxed and a pedicure (all for less than $8). I hadn't had a pedicure since July 4th when Ginger and I got one in Texas. My feet were in desperate need, and they did a fantastic job. Check out the detail! Yes, there is a snowman AND a Christmas tree on my toenail.

Then, we ate at our normal Sunday lunch place, Que Pasa. Here are some pics from the animals who live there. Matt and I pet the giant lizard thing, and it felt really scaly.
Then, we just chilled at home for a little while.
In the afternoon, we had to sing a song at the Thai church.
Then, we did some grading while watching FRIENDS.
That's what a normal Sunday is like, at least.

The night ended with the drama of killing a GIANT spider.
I really, really hate those things!














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Can anyone tell me... ?

I ask this question a lot here in Thailand... mostly to my students.

Yesterday, during Flag Time, which is when we sing the Thai national anthem and pray together and do announcements and all, the Thai homeroom teacher for my class did something different.

She walked around and asked each student to hold out their hands. With some of them, she would just keep going. With some, she would tap on their knuckles with a thick marker. I could hear it, and it didn't sound very good. Sounded like it hurt.

I asked one of my students quietly what she was doing, and he said he didn't know. One student started crying because the marker hurt her.

The Thai teacher continued on, through the whole class. I figured out somewhere in the middle that I think she was inspecting the length of their fingernails.

When we got back to class, this was confirmed after I said, "Can anyone tell me what Kru Noi was doing during flag time?"

Someone said she was making sure their nails weren't too long, according to the Student Handbook.

Interesting.... well, now I know.

History in the Making

Have I mentioned that we're living in the midst of a coup? It started just a couple of days before we arrived in Thailand but has recently escalated. The group who instigated it wasn't getting enough attention with their other protests, so they took over the airport. Actually, BOTH of the Bangkok airports. The country is losing billions of dollars. Over 100,000 foreigners are stranded here.

I think they are finally getting the attention they wanted.
But the government is in a really tough position because the Queen supports the protesters. Plus, Thai people in general are extremely passive. The general attitude here is 'subai-subai', which is kinda like 'hakuna matata'. In the midst of all the protesting, there have been some injuries but no deaths. Not much bloodshed. It kinda has the feel that it's going to get worse, though, if anything's going to be resolved. There is a lot of speculation about what will happen and when. But, we do know this: the King's 81st birthday is on Friday, which is a HUGE deal. Some think that the government is waiting until after the birthday to get the protesters under control. Others think that they'll want it taken care of before the King's birthday. Who knows? Matt was at the US Embassy the other day, and there was a Princess Cruise that was supposed to fly out last week, but now they're stuck here. He got to hear the Embassy official explain the situation pretty simply: Nobody knows what's going to happen.

Our friends who lived here during Thailand's last coup said that it was pretty peaceful. In all of Thailand's history, they've NEVER had a civil war or never been ruled by another nation. That's some pretty cool heritage and something they take seriously.
At this point, we have many friends whose lives have been affected by the airport takeover. The pastor who flew in to speak at our church retreat last weekend hasn't been able to fly home. A couple of friends from small group had business or personal trips planned that were canceled. Imports and exports have been interrupted. The economy is taking a big hit.
Our day-to-day life remains the same. We're still not wearing yellow shirts, though.
This morning, half of my class was late. So, I asked those students who were there if all the other students were protesting at the airport. I got some pretty interesting comments... then, I realized that I should probably not be talking about such things in class.

For more information:
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

Not saying that I agree with everything in the last one, but it's perspective.
More perspective is that compared to what's going on in many other nations around the world, this is extremely minor.

Thanksgiving

Whoops, I realized I haven't written in awhile, so I thought I'd give a quick update about what we did for Thanksgiving weekend.
Thursday was pretty uneventful. School carried on as usual, but we did eat some good American cuisine for dinner (McDonald's). And even had dessert at Swensen's. I lost my cell phone sometime that evening which was a big bummer. But, in some ways, I'm thankful that it lasted as long as it did. I lost like 5 phones in Uz.

Friday was Pay Day!!! We went out with a bunch of the teachers to a pub in downtown Bangkok. It was nice to be away from campus and enjoy hanging out.

Saturday, we slept in, bummed around for awhile and then started cooking. It was my first time cooking here in Thailand. First, we had to go to the store, which didn't have everything I needed for the green bean casserole. No canned green beans. No french fried onions. And it took forever to find 'wooster'.

But, we did eventually find all the necessary items and headed back to the house. We started snapping the green beans and cooking them, but couldn't figure out how to turn on the stove--it's funky. A friend came over and showed us how to do it, then, we realized we didn't have a can opener for the cream of mushroom soup. Ha! So, after putting some ingenuity to work, we made some small openings in the cans of soup and were able to pour them over the cooked green beans into the casserole dish--- Oh wait! Nope, we didn't have a casserole dish. We made do with some recycled pie tins... so the green bean casserole turned into green bean pies. The green beans cooked down A LOT, so it didn't make as much as I thought it would.

We transported our little pies to a friend's home (pretty much a mansion) in the American part of Bangkok where our small group was celebrating together. A girl from GA had brought french fried onions from home, and she let me use them to top the 'pies' once we got there.
Everyone else is much more experienced at cooking here, and all of the food was fabulous! We had ham, turkeys, casseroles, pies, breads, desserts--all the fixings of a traditional Thanksgiving--people had even thought to bring cans of cranberry from the States. :)
After eating lots of good food, we hung out around the pool for awhile. Some people swam, but it was a little chilly for us. It was just nice to sit around and talk.

Sunday, we had our second Thanksgiving celebration with the GES staff. Everyone brought a contribution to our house, and we had a very successful Thanksgiving dinner here as well. After everyone ate, we sat around and sang Christmas carols for at least an hour. It was really fun, actually!

Matt and I are both getting kinda sad that we aren't home during this time of year. Please know that we love all of you, family and friends, so much, and we look forward to being there with you next year--if God wills!