Most of the students are from the high school, with one student from the middle school. My husband and I have worked with and gotten to know many of them, all of them wonderful, sweet, and hard-working. I'm so proud to see them on stage speaking with such poise and confidence, as many of them are very quiet and meek in the classroom. Check it out!
Thursday, April 30, 2015
TEDxYouth Event
Earlier in April, our school hosted a TEDxYouth event. Over 80 students auditioned to speak, and 16 were chosen to present. The event was open to the school community, but unfortunately, we weren't able to attend.
Most of the students are from the high school, with one student from the middle school. My husband and I have worked with and gotten to know many of them, all of them wonderful, sweet, and hard-working. I'm so proud to see them on stage speaking with such poise and confidence, as many of them are very quiet and meek in the classroom. Check it out!
Most of the students are from the high school, with one student from the middle school. My husband and I have worked with and gotten to know many of them, all of them wonderful, sweet, and hard-working. I'm so proud to see them on stage speaking with such poise and confidence, as many of them are very quiet and meek in the classroom. Check it out!
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
A Fond Farewell
Over the last month or so, our high-school's National Honor Society had been planning a gathering of faculty and students to show appreciation of, and bid farewell to, the high-school teachers that are leaving. The informal gathering took place after school today at the high-school courtyard. There were food and drinks, and students performed traditional Thai music. Many students, and some faculty, came to say goodbye (even though we'll still see them for another three weeks before exams begin). It was nice to chat with them outside of the classroom.
Each departing teacher was given a book of messages from students they've taught or known. My husband's book was filled from beginning to end with messages of gratitude for him and sadness about his departure. Many students waxed poetic about him and his teaching, telling him he's the best biology teacher they've ever had, how much they appreciate his kindness and sense of humor, and how much they love him. He's touched the lives of so many students and has really been such a positive influence on the students, which is unsurprising, given his easy-going personality, approachability, amazing patience, and dedication to his students.
My students also wrote really nice and sweet messages of appreciation. I was really touched. All the frustrations and aggravations of teaching that I've felt in the past nine months melted away with these expressions of thanks and the knowledge that I've made a difference -- even a small one -- in someone's life. It really makes leaving the profession (again, but I need a break for now) so bittersweet for me.
Some messages from my students:
A few of the many messages for my husband. I love the drawings! Many of the students here are very artistic.
Each departing teacher was given a book of messages from students they've taught or known. My husband's book was filled from beginning to end with messages of gratitude for him and sadness about his departure. Many students waxed poetic about him and his teaching, telling him he's the best biology teacher they've ever had, how much they appreciate his kindness and sense of humor, and how much they love him. He's touched the lives of so many students and has really been such a positive influence on the students, which is unsurprising, given his easy-going personality, approachability, amazing patience, and dedication to his students.
My students also wrote really nice and sweet messages of appreciation. I was really touched. All the frustrations and aggravations of teaching that I've felt in the past nine months melted away with these expressions of thanks and the knowledge that I've made a difference -- even a small one -- in someone's life. It really makes leaving the profession (again, but I need a break for now) so bittersweet for me.
Some messages from my students:
A few of the many messages for my husband. I love the drawings! Many of the students here are very artistic.
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Fruits, Flowers, and Feathered Creatures
A few months ago, I was getting ready in the morning, I absentmindedly listened to the singing of birds, croaking of frogs, and the noises of various wild creatures outside our open windows. I suddenly became quite aware of these soothing sounds that I was hearing, and realized that it was February -- the middle of the winter season back home, where snowstorms had closed schools for days in a row. I suddenly grasped, quite clearly, the wonders of life in the tropics, and recognized that I had already come to take it for granted in the short time we've lived here.
Now that it's mango season, our mango tree has been producing fruit like crazy. We have to pick them almost every day, and have been giving them away and eating multiple mangoes every day ourselves just to keep up with the tree's production. They are sooo sweet and juicy, unlike the mangoes in the U.S. Having our own mango tree has been a fun and delicious experience. It reminds me of my grandmother's mango tree back in Taiwan, when I was a little girl. Similar to the mango, all the other fruits in Thailand are amazingly juicy and sweet. And there is nothing compared to the fresh juices and smoothies made from these fruits. It is going to be a difficult adjustment eating the comparatively anemic American fruits again.
Another aspect of living here I've come to enjoy is being in an environment full of color year-round -- green trees and bushes with bright flowers, and flowers that are bright red, yellow, purple, pink, orange. It is something that has made a noticeable difference in my happiness and quality of life. Back home, the dreariness and darkness of the winter months were depressing, something to endure and get through. Now there is sunshine and color in my life almost every day. Even when it's overcast, there's still a brightness to the cloudiness that makes it essentially unnoticeable. Here is some of the beauty that can be found just in our own yard, street, and neighborhood:
I've also come to love listening to all the different kinds of birds that live around us. Back at home, I never really paid attention to the birds. But here, there are all kind of different birds with very distinctive and pretty calls chirping from morning to night, 365 days a year. It is so relaxing to listen to them The birds are really pretty, too. I've even seen wild parrots flying around outside at school. And because all the school buildings are open to the outside, I've even had birds fly into my classroom. Here are the pretty calls of a few birds we've seen here:
Now that it's mango season, our mango tree has been producing fruit like crazy. We have to pick them almost every day, and have been giving them away and eating multiple mangoes every day ourselves just to keep up with the tree's production. They are sooo sweet and juicy, unlike the mangoes in the U.S. Having our own mango tree has been a fun and delicious experience. It reminds me of my grandmother's mango tree back in Taiwan, when I was a little girl. Similar to the mango, all the other fruits in Thailand are amazingly juicy and sweet. And there is nothing compared to the fresh juices and smoothies made from these fruits. It is going to be a difficult adjustment eating the comparatively anemic American fruits again.
Another aspect of living here I've come to enjoy is being in an environment full of color year-round -- green trees and bushes with bright flowers, and flowers that are bright red, yellow, purple, pink, orange. It is something that has made a noticeable difference in my happiness and quality of life. Back home, the dreariness and darkness of the winter months were depressing, something to endure and get through. Now there is sunshine and color in my life almost every day. Even when it's overcast, there's still a brightness to the cloudiness that makes it essentially unnoticeable. Here is some of the beauty that can be found just in our own yard, street, and neighborhood:
I've also come to love listening to all the different kinds of birds that live around us. Back at home, I never really paid attention to the birds. But here, there are all kind of different birds with very distinctive and pretty calls chirping from morning to night, 365 days a year. It is so relaxing to listen to them The birds are really pretty, too. I've even seen wild parrots flying around outside at school. And because all the school buildings are open to the outside, I've even had birds fly into my classroom. Here are the pretty calls of a few birds we've seen here:
Friday, April 17, 2015
Samui on Songkran
We're back! Just returned from a few days on Koh Samui, an island south of Bangkok. This week was our "spring" break (in actuality, it's summer here and the Thai schools have been out since March), and we decided to get away for a low-key holiday for part of it.
Koh Samui has its own airport, so one could conceivably fly there directly. But the airport is on the east coast of the island, and of course, we don't do things the easy way. We had accidentally booked flights that took us to the closest airport on the mainland, and we ended up on the west coast via taxi, plane, shuttle, ferry, and taxi again. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, though. The flight was less than an hour long, and the 1 1/2-hour long ferry ride was quite pleasant. Either it really was an easier trip to make or we're finally getting used to the Thai way of traveling. And it was fortuitous that we ended up on the quieter, less crowded, west coast because it was exactly what I needed and wanted -- to get away from people and civilization.
Our vacation didn't start off so well, however. When we got to the port to take the ferry, it was storming and the waves were crashing against the pier. Even though the ferries are big and sturdy, I still didn't feel safe getting on in the storm with zero visibility. We waited another hour for the next ferry, by which time the storm had fortunately subsided. When we got there, we had an hour or two of non-rainy weather to hang out on the beach before it began storming again. After the waitress at the resort restaurant told me it had been raining for the entire previous week (even though it's dry season), I thought our vacation was going to be a wash, for sure. Luckily, it stopped raining early in the morning the next day. It remained cloudy the entire day, but there was no rain. The day after that, the weather came through for us -- it was sunny and mild, with a tropical breeze. Simply perfect.
We spent our days hanging out on the beach and by the pool, enjoying the perfect temperature of the water, taking walks along the beach, eating good food, and just relaxing. My son tried snorkeling and enjoyed kayaking for the first time. We played frisbee, dug for clams, tried to catch ghost crabs, discovered all kinds of wild life at the resort, and generally enjoyed being outdoors all day.
Something else I really enjoy when we travel here is being able to watch and observe all kinds of characters. There was the American couple that looked only at their respective phones throughout breakfast -- every single day. There was the young, Russian couple that seemed to enjoy themselves without smiling once. There were the Thai groups that came with all their extended family members and that held extensive selfie sessions for hours everywhere at the resort. There were the five Chinese men that shouted to each other across the grounds of the resort at six o'clock in the morning, just in case others were still enjoying their sleep at such a late hour. There was the French-Asian couple with the forward Asian woman who walked and swam around topless, and took off her bottoms to take a full shower at the outdoor shower with her two boys. And, of course, there were the overly tanned, wrinkled, old Caucasians smoking like chimneys while frying their bodies some more under the sun.
Overall, it was fabulous to unplug and get away from everything. We had made a point of leaving behind all electronic devices and stayed off the internet the entire time we were there, which felt very freeing. Even though it was only a few days long, it was exactly what we needed to get recharged for the final push to finish the rest of the school year.
Koh Samui has its own airport, so one could conceivably fly there directly. But the airport is on the east coast of the island, and of course, we don't do things the easy way. We had accidentally booked flights that took us to the closest airport on the mainland, and we ended up on the west coast via taxi, plane, shuttle, ferry, and taxi again. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, though. The flight was less than an hour long, and the 1 1/2-hour long ferry ride was quite pleasant. Either it really was an easier trip to make or we're finally getting used to the Thai way of traveling. And it was fortuitous that we ended up on the quieter, less crowded, west coast because it was exactly what I needed and wanted -- to get away from people and civilization.
Our vacation didn't start off so well, however. When we got to the port to take the ferry, it was storming and the waves were crashing against the pier. Even though the ferries are big and sturdy, I still didn't feel safe getting on in the storm with zero visibility. We waited another hour for the next ferry, by which time the storm had fortunately subsided. When we got there, we had an hour or two of non-rainy weather to hang out on the beach before it began storming again. After the waitress at the resort restaurant told me it had been raining for the entire previous week (even though it's dry season), I thought our vacation was going to be a wash, for sure. Luckily, it stopped raining early in the morning the next day. It remained cloudy the entire day, but there was no rain. The day after that, the weather came through for us -- it was sunny and mild, with a tropical breeze. Simply perfect.
We spent our days hanging out on the beach and by the pool, enjoying the perfect temperature of the water, taking walks along the beach, eating good food, and just relaxing. My son tried snorkeling and enjoyed kayaking for the first time. We played frisbee, dug for clams, tried to catch ghost crabs, discovered all kinds of wild life at the resort, and generally enjoyed being outdoors all day.
Something else I really enjoy when we travel here is being able to watch and observe all kinds of characters. There was the American couple that looked only at their respective phones throughout breakfast -- every single day. There was the young, Russian couple that seemed to enjoy themselves without smiling once. There were the Thai groups that came with all their extended family members and that held extensive selfie sessions for hours everywhere at the resort. There were the five Chinese men that shouted to each other across the grounds of the resort at six o'clock in the morning, just in case others were still enjoying their sleep at such a late hour. There was the French-Asian couple with the forward Asian woman who walked and swam around topless, and took off her bottoms to take a full shower at the outdoor shower with her two boys. And, of course, there were the overly tanned, wrinkled, old Caucasians smoking like chimneys while frying their bodies some more under the sun.
Overall, it was fabulous to unplug and get away from everything. We had made a point of leaving behind all electronic devices and stayed off the internet the entire time we were there, which felt very freeing. Even though it was only a few days long, it was exactly what we needed to get recharged for the final push to finish the rest of the school year.
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| A man walking around proudly with his rooster at the pier. |
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| Our cute little cabana. |
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| Where does the pool end and the ocean begin? |
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| Our home for a few days, only a few steps away from the beach. |
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| My son kayaking for the first time. He was really good at it and love it! |
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| Some locals digging for clams to make fish sauce. |
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| My son caught this beautiful clam. |
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| Sun setting on our last day. |
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| Saying goodbye to a wonderful place at the pier early in the morning. |
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Songkran Celebration
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| The student body. |
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| Performing a dance from northern Thailand. |
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| A dance from southern Thailand. The student being carried is a student of mine, a lady boy who easily has the best make-up and accessories of anyone at the school, and who loves being in the spotlight. |
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| Middle-schoolers performing. Many teachers, staff members, and students were wearing flowered shirts such as these, as is customary for Songkran. |
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| Middle-schoolers performing. |
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| A couple of my husband's tenth-grade students dressed up to perform. |
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| More of his students. The girl on the right is an amazing person and student. |
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| A few of the adorable elementary performers, all in my son's class. The girl in white is one of his BFFs here. |
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| Students performing traditional Thai music during hour. The scene was idyllic: sitting in a courtyard, surrounded by beautiful, tropical plant life, with a pleasant tropical breeze blowing gently, while relaxing music wafted through the air. |
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| Beautiful garlands of fragrant jasmine flowers for teachers to wear. |
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