About two minutes ago, I heard an unusual amount of noise in the hallway and looked up to see a large group of people videotaping things and being led on what appears to be a tour. Naturally, I was curious.
Me: What's going on?
Pi-Dee: They are teachers visiting from another school. Look, they're waving at you!
Me (turns around and sure enough): Oh. Hello.
Pi-Dee: Wave back!
Me (sighs and waves): Hi. Hello. Yes, hello to you in the back. You can really come closer. (Teachers gesture enthusiastically to their skin and then mine.) Yes, I am white. You don't need to point... and there's the video camera.
So now I'm writing this and pretending to be busy, since before all I was doing was eating Wheat-Thins (courtesy of Mom). They're starting to disperse now that I'm not paying any attention to them, but I bet the tour guide is saying something like this: "So, you noticed that in addition to the new computers in the science rooms, the school has also acquired a farang. She doesn't always understand what's going on, but if you want to practice shaking hands, she's the one to go to."
Sometimes things like this bug me and sometimes they make me laugh. Since I had a chance to recharge over the weekend, it's mostly the latter. Even though we did fail miserably at going to Kanchanaburi. After school on Friday, we headed to the bus station only to be told that we had missed the last direct bus. We were sad, but not too surprised since the bus schedule is kind of hit or miss. They tried to put us on a bus to Nakhon Pathom, where we could catch a different bus to Kanchanaburi, but since that would put us two hours in the complete opposite direction we decided to leave early the next morning.
Except we didn't. We mostly meant to, but our beds were so comfy and the buses are not. So it was another quiet pool weekend, which really was just fine. We'll try again this weekend.
And now to my last class of the day. I love being done by one on Mondays. It makes starting the week a little bit easier.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Cloudy skies do not weather make
I miss weather. Specifically, I miss weather that isn’t hot, but at this point I’ll take anything. And storms that happen at two in the morning when I’m asleep don’t count. The last couple of weeks have been some of the hottest so far and – to the degree – this next week isn’t supposed to change. I thought living here during the rainy season would mean cooler weather and, you know, rain. I’ve decided the plants get all their water from the humid (oh so humid) air, because it’s not coming from anywhere else.
We can’t blast the a/c since we pay our own electricity and we get paid in baht, so we escape the heat by going to the pool or, to repeat a favorite, head to the beach for the weekend. There are so many beaches around, we have yet to go to the same one twice and this past weekend it was Ko Si Chang. There isn’t much going on there, which ended up being exactly what we needed. Falling asleep at 10:30 on a Saturday is it’s own kind of fun. We’re all a little burnt out from teaching and we really needed to do nothing. The beach itself wasn’t great, probably the worst I’ve been to so far. But remember that a mediocre Thailand beach is still pretty great and it was the best beach weather we’ve had so far. In the end, I only need sand, ocean, and decently clear skies to have a good beach day. Well, that and a bathing suit, which I somehow forgot to bring. A bra is almost like bathing suit anyway. And since I was also wearing shorts, the Thais (who swim in their clothes) would say I was the most appropriately dressed out of us all.
We're planning out the rest of our weekends (we don't have many left) and starting on our post-semester traveling plans. There are so many places I want to go and I just don't have enough time. Sometimes I want to stay for another semester, but I actually (for the first time ever) have a plan for the next few years and I want to get started on it. I'll just have to fit as much as I can in the next two months. This weekend it's back to Kanchanaburi, home of the Scary Bugs, to see the things we missed out on last time. I've decided I'd like to see more of fewer places than skim through as many places as I can cram in. Hopefully this time I'll see more scenery and less local wildlife.
We can’t blast the a/c since we pay our own electricity and we get paid in baht, so we escape the heat by going to the pool or, to repeat a favorite, head to the beach for the weekend. There are so many beaches around, we have yet to go to the same one twice and this past weekend it was Ko Si Chang. There isn’t much going on there, which ended up being exactly what we needed. Falling asleep at 10:30 on a Saturday is it’s own kind of fun. We’re all a little burnt out from teaching and we really needed to do nothing. The beach itself wasn’t great, probably the worst I’ve been to so far. But remember that a mediocre Thailand beach is still pretty great and it was the best beach weather we’ve had so far. In the end, I only need sand, ocean, and decently clear skies to have a good beach day. Well, that and a bathing suit, which I somehow forgot to bring. A bra is almost like bathing suit anyway. And since I was also wearing shorts, the Thais (who swim in their clothes) would say I was the most appropriately dressed out of us all.
We're planning out the rest of our weekends (we don't have many left) and starting on our post-semester traveling plans. There are so many places I want to go and I just don't have enough time. Sometimes I want to stay for another semester, but I actually (for the first time ever) have a plan for the next few years and I want to get started on it. I'll just have to fit as much as I can in the next two months. This weekend it's back to Kanchanaburi, home of the Scary Bugs, to see the things we missed out on last time. I've decided I'd like to see more of fewer places than skim through as many places as I can cram in. Hopefully this time I'll see more scenery and less local wildlife.
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