Well believe it or not, Halloween is not over for me yet until this evening, even though the 31st was 3 days ago. There is another Halloween party today, but then the black and orange holiday will be over. So let me rewind back and tell you about my Halloween festivities for the past week.
All last week, I have been teaching Halloween to my classes. The younger ones, of course, just get pictures and names, whereas the older ones get stories and myths to go along with the Halloween monsters. Then, they get to make Halloween masks out of paper plates. Only some of them remembered to bring arts and crafts from home, but even with only scissors and colored pencils there were some very beautiful and scary masks. The crafts the students brought from home were a little odd sometimes (like fake flowers, multicolored string, glitter and stickers), but hey, I lost my childhood imagination a long time ago. I also played a variety of Halloween songs, most of which I now know word for word and find myself randomly singing. I even showed my older ones a clip from the Nightmare before Christmas movie. So that was fun for both my children and me.
Now Halloween itself was a huge day. I woke up very early to get my face decorated as a witch and donned my borrowed witch dress and hat. Once I arrived at school, I didn't sit down for five hours. First was the morning assembly, where Prathom 6 had the Monster Bash. This was a battle between English monsters and Thai monsters. It lasted an hour because there were so many monsters! Then I went with all of my witch teachers, and two male teachers who were dressed as vampires and one more that was dressed as a Thai.....yeah, we will go with just "monster." We went over to the essentially, Pre-K and K class assembly and danced to an old Thai scary song.
After the assembly was over (and it finished very late), I taught my morning classes and then spent lunch giving out candy. All of my candy is Thai candy but my students enjoyed it. During my lunch hour, I also had a student come in and give me a jack-o-lantern he had made for me. It has only one tooth and I love it. Let's just say that student got a little more candy than the rest of them. Currently, said pumpkin is sitting on my desk at school wearing my witch hat.
Two hours after lunch, the school gathered in an assembly once more and watched my oldest kids perform a simplified version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was ADORABLE. Thai style of this play was cute and funny. The main character was "Ick-i-baaaaaaaaad" and he was dressed in pink stripes, but you know, it worked. The students and teachers loved it, and the little ones were not too scared. Afterwards, the teachers asked the assembly questions about the play and the students answered correctly, so they understood. I was really proud.
When I finally finished at school and made my way home I was exhausted. All day I had three rivers of sweat running down my back from the heat and constantly running around to all the Halloween festivities and teaching my classes. That evening, I had a simple dinner and dessert with my beautiful ladyboy friend. Of course, the restaurant we picked was full of my students and their families. I mean EVER SINGLE TABLE at the restaurant. Then we got ice cream to celebrate the holiday and at Swenson's I heard Katy Perry's new song, Roar, which is the first new song I have heard since arriving here. The running joke with the farang in Thailand is that the music is runs between 10 and 20 years behind the rest of the world, but occasionally a song breaks through. Before I went to bed I also allowed myself my first piece of Halloween candy, sent from America by my mother. You'd best believe that candy is rationed and there will be no sharing. Last night I found some of my blow pops did not manage to make it into the fridge and the ants found them. Sad day.
So yes, that was my crazy busy Halloween and today finishes the last Halloween party. Already I am having to plan out Thanksgiving, Loi Kratong, Christmas and New Years because time flies so quickly and New Years is so big here that if I do not buy a bus ticket in the next two weeks, I won't get to travel anywhere for New Years. In other news, a week from tomorrow I will be giving a lecture on genetic engineering and GMOs at the International School in Lampang. I am very excited. My favorite city, a topic I adore, students with enough English to understand what I say, and a chance to get some food supplies for Thanksgiving. Oh, and I get to see my Lampang friends too. A brief visit, but a visit nonetheless.
Time is going by so quickly. I am working hard and planning things for all of these holiday. I am going to Bangmulnak for Thanksgiving where we will use a single eye, a wok and a microwave to create a Thanksgiving feast the weekend after Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving Day proper, I will be having dinner with my Uttaradit friends at Le Chateau, the French place outside of town. Loi Kratong will be spent at my farang friend's Thai mother's house by the river. Thanks to my generous boss, I got a day off to make my New Years holiday into a 5 day vacation that I am still planning. Also, in December, I will be singing at a music concert in Lampang. So a lot is about to happen and I am very excited.
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