Well, I figure it is time to give you another update. I think I have successfully defeated my bout of E. coli. It put me mostly in bed for two weeks but now I am up and about. Vacation time is over and it is time for a whole new semester. On Monday and Tuesday a group of people from the government will come to evaluate my school, so all the teachers are slightly stressed out. It does help that this upcoming week is Halloween and that is what I will be teaching in my classes. So I hope the government officials like Halloween masks and the Monster Mash.
For Halloween day we have two morning assembly presentations on Halloween including the Monster Bash where Thai monsters battle American monster and the enactment of a ghost story. All of the English teachers are dressing up as witches, though I have turned down the green lipstick. Just sounds like a bad idea. I have bought my large stash of Halloween candy for the little devils. All of it is Thai candy, so I have no real idea what I will be giving out, but all of it is sugar I'm sure.
Another issue, and one that is more somber, is that the head monk in Thailand died two days ago. He is apparently even more respected and is higher up than the King. Because of his death, there is to be 15 days where no loud music is to be played and parties, festivals, and drinking are frowned upon, if not outright illegal. That is not to say you can't go to a bar or buy alcohol, but it depends on your location and how the owners of the places feel about respecting the head monk. Last night I was marveling how quiet it was when I went to sleep. Many nights, even weeknights, I go to sleep with the sounds of drums or Thai music, or worse case, Thai karaoke. But last night it was silent except for the sounds of insects and lizards. I marveled at the lovely silence. Now I know the reason everyone was quiet.
I have begun to challenge some of my older students with riddles. They have to understand the English in the riddle to understand what it is asking and any play on words and I promise them a piece of Halloween candy for each question they can answer. When they figure out the answer to some of the riddles they jump up and down, hopping mad, yelling "OHHHHH TEEEEEEEACHEEEER!!!" repeatedly. It is quite adorable. Besides the obvious amusement on my part, it requires them to think individually, have a grasp of the English language and actually learn how to think and process, which is one of the problems that many students here have. They are hopeless repeaters and regurgitaters, but at least sometimes I can get the older ones to think for themselves. So far they have figured out 6 out of 20 riddles, which is not bad for one class session.
Oh! Another adorable thing is that one of my Prat 1 adorable tiny tots brought me back another present. I got a keychain from Korea from the same child that brought me the bobble-head sheep. Adorable thing. Also, another one of my favorites (blah, blah, blah, everyone knows that teachers have their favorites. We can't help it), is that my tiny mobster child that now resembles a hipster thanks to a new haircut and hip new glasses, decided to pants the troublemakers in my very "powerful" Prat 4/2 class. (My Thai co-teacher always describes this class as powerful. They are loud, have strong personalities, ask more questions than any other class I have, are smarter than many of my students and there are a lot of troublemakers in there as well.) So the first time a child got pants, which happened RIGHT in front of me, I had to scold my fav even though we both knew it was appreciated. The next few times, I let it slide. I told the troublemakers to sit down and if they would just do that, there is no risk of being pants. The troublemakers laughed along with the class, so I took it as a good lesson. Little twerps. And as always, my mobster/hipster fav always makes me laugh when he is doing something naughty. Charming little devil.
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