We just finished up Sports Day at school. Classes were canceled for two days to have a school wide sports competition, including basketball, soccer, volleyball, ping pong, bocce ball, and running. Here are a few pictures of the whole experience:
The students were split up into 4 teams: red, blue, green and pink
The teams competed in different sports and cheered for their atheletes
Each team had their own cheering section
The opening ceremony included a parade and a lighting of the torch
Every team had "cheerleaders" who performed dances in between the sporting events
More "cheerleaders"
Do you recognize Pee from the teaching video? Of course he's the best volleyball player in school
Football
Baitong, which is really similar to bocce ball
Cyrus had his football debut in a teachers vs. students match
He even scored the game-winning goal
We also participated in a teachers relay
Paige took home the silver medal
It was really fun to be a part of, and was good to see students having fun outside of the classroom.
I know its been a long time since I've written anything on here but we haven't really been up to that much lately. As you read in Paige's last post we've been dealing with these animals in the classroom for the past couple months without much of a break. And then seemingly out of nowhere, we were granted a week of much needed vacation.
First we were headed to Bangkok for a race. Paige and I signed up for a race a while back for some motivation to exercise. It was a 16.8k race which comes out to around 10.5 miles so we had been training for a couple months leading up to race day and were pretty excited. But there was one downside: the race started at 4 am. We got to to the race area at around 3:15 in the morning which, looking back on it, is a ridiculous time to be running. But they had to do it early because of the heat and because its pretty hard to shut down Bangkok traffic for even a couple hours. We were a little bit surprised by the organization of the race when we got there, it looked really nice and seemed to be running smoothly. And about 10 minutes before the race was starting they even had group aerobics for all of the runners at the start line! It was more ridiculous than it sounds because Paige and I were pretty much the only people not participating. But the feeling we had that the race organization was too good to be true was correct. On the course most water stations were completely out of water. When they did have water they didn't have it poured and so you had to stop and wait at every station for them to pour you a glass. Afterwards there was no snacks or drinks and getting our bags back was a mess as well. But overall it was a good experience. It was a lot of fun being able to run through the streets of Bangkok (even though it was dark for the whole race) and doing something competitive. For those of you wondering neither Paige nor I got first place. The Kenyans were a bit too fast for either of us this time, but if we trained for a year I think we could beat them pretty easily (maybe).
After recovering in Bangkok for a day, we were finally off on our big adventure for the week. We decided to finally make the trip over the Eastern border to Cambodia. We had heard some good things about Cambodia so we were pretty excited to go over there, especially to see Angkor Wat. We took a bus from Bangkok to the border and had to get out to go through immigration and customs and all that. As soon as we were out of the bus I immediately wanted to go back to Thailand. The border town was called Poipet and was one of the dirtiest, shadiest, nasty places I have ever been to. There was trash everywhere, people were getting carried across the border in huge caged cars and the touts were unbelievable. Paige and I were trying to figure out our plan for getting to our next city and were trying to talk to one another but could not even hold a conversation because of taxi-drivers right up in our faces asking us questions and telling us where to go. We ended up taking a "taxi" from Poipet to Siem Reap (which was our final destination) When we got to Poipet I was like this but when we left i was like this.
The weirdest thing upon entering the country is the currency they use. Instead of using Cambodian currency they only use American dollar bills. All of the prices are listed in dollars on menus and at stores. When you looked at a menu it is amazing when you can actually see in USD how cheap what you are eating is. And it also just felt weird to have American money again. It was the first time we had really seen it in almost a year and it looks a lot different after you've been looking at Thai money for that long.
Coming into Siem Reap we had heard good things so we were expecting to be impressed. When we arrived we were blown away. The city had a completely different feel than any city we've been to so far in SE Asia. It had a European influence but was a lot classier than some of the other European-styled cities we visited. It was such a stark contrast from Thailand that it was hard to believe at first. The first night we just walked around the town and repeatedly talked about how awesome it was there.
Walking through Siem Reap at night
Dinner in Siem Reap at the same restuarant Mick Jagger ate at (their claim to fame)
We spent the next three days exploring Angkor Wat which was an amazing adventure. Basically Angkor Wat is an ancient city from around 1100-1200 AD. All the ruins that are there are huge temples that were dedicated to different gods and different kings. We were expecting the temples and ruins to be similar to what we had seen in Thailand but they were completely different. Instead of being Buddhist temples the temples at Angkor are more influenced by Hinduism. The architecture was different as well as the gods that were depicted. After seeing so many of the same kind of temples over and over again in Thailand, seeing these Hindu-Buddhist fusion temples was interesting and refreshing.
Here are a couple videos of us walking through some of the temples on the compound:
The setting of the whole Angkor complex was fun as well. Most of the temples were covered with trees and bushes in the middle of the jungle. It is where they did some of the filming for Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider if that gives you a better sense of the scenery. While they are doing a great job conserving and restoring the ruins, the way that nature is seemingly taking over the compound was beautiful. Even with the amount of people touring the sites it was very easy to imagine stumbling upon these huge ruinous temples as the first adventurers however many years ago, as Linda would say. During our trip we took many "adventure" posed pictures because we felt like explorers the whole time we were there.
Paige and I exploring the ruins
Nature taking over
Overall we came away from Cambodia being very impressed. It definitely lived up to its expectations and even surpassed them in my mind. If we had more time over here in this side of the world I might even go back again just because of how much fun the city of Siem Reap was. For those of you keeping track at home we have been here for ten months already which means only a couple more until we come back. Time has been flying by for us over here but we are starting to actually get excited to come back (a little bit at least). We are done teaching in one month! Crazy how fast this whole thing has been going.
Almost every day, I have a debate with myself as to whether
my students are good or bad. Are
they genuinely trying their best to learn, or are they putting all of their
effort into making my job as trying as possible? I put together a little collection of stories and descriptions
about our students, so you can be the judge….
I once had a girl sitting in class, turned completely around with her
back towards me, getting her eyelids shaved by the girl behind her. Why she thought that was OK, I have no
idea? Why she was having her
eyelids shaved is the even bigger mystery. I’ve had boys popping pimples at their desks, kids stand up
and go talk to someone across the room while I’m teaching, girls just casually taking pictures of themselves right in front of me, along with countless other gross and
ridiculous things. And then there's always the constant, non stop
talking. It's like a tick they can't control. If it's not talking, then it's drumming on the desks, messing with the window blinds, or throwing
things at other kids. I literally have kids put their hands over
their mouths, and even that only lasts for a few
minutes. Those are the kids that make you really wish hitting students
was OK. But words just can't do justice to the kind of chatter we have to deal with, so here is a video for you to enjoy. This is one of my lower classes (knows the least English), and they are a little rowdier than most, but not by too much. Yes, they always talk this much, and no, they never stop. Prepare yourselves (it's really long, but you only have to watch about a minute to get the idea): Paige's Class
I'm sure you noticed Donut and Pee in the video (Pee is the very
flamboyant one, and Donut is the pudgy one), my two little class
leaders/lady boys. They take it upon themselves
to hand out papers, quiet the class down, and make sure people aren't
copying. When they aren't standing in front of the class doing
something ridiculous, they're over my shoulder as I check
other people's papers making comments about them. Most days they just
make me laugh, but last week I actually had to send Donut out into the hall for
being a little too disruptive. I played a “What do you know about America?” game with my
students. For some of the sections I would have them write down all the
athletes or singers they knew.
Check out some of the spelling interpretations.
Joh Double U Wood
Team Harward
Wing Carter
Reddy kaka
Robot Jam
Can you guess who they were trying to write? Well if you guessed George W. Bush, Tim
Howard, Vince Carter, Lady Gaga, and LeBron James then you are an expert at
Tinglish (Thai-English). They always hear the names, but probably rarely ever see them in
writing.
M2 class (Freshman level)
Every other class or so I have them do a worksheet or writing assignment, and I go around to each student and have them read something out loud to me. There are a few kids that just crack me up every time. They (on purpose) will yell and emphasize every singe world, instead of just reading like a normal person, "APPLES! ARE! RED! BUT! BANANAS! ARE! YELLOOOOOWW!" You want to be annoyed, but you just can't help but laugh.
I taught a music lesson, and asked students why they did or didn't like certain genres of music. I asked one student if he liked pop music, to which he responded, "yes". And I proceeded to ask "why?". He thought that was the wrong answer so he changed it to "no". And I asked "why?" again. He couldn't come up with any answer, so he just sat silent for a few moments, then out of nowhere came up with "no comment". I had to turn my back because I was laughing too hard. This is coming from a class with very low English (they can barely answer "how are you?") so it's really funny that he picked up that phrase from some movie or show.
Thai students are very competitive, so even the most simple games get taken to the next level. I was doing a 'describing people' lesson, and I would show a picture of someone on the screen. The two teams would take turns saying a sentence to describe the person and the first team to mess up loses. I had one kid doing warm up push-ups before it was his turn and Tiger Woods-esque fist pumps when his team won. That's one of my favorite things about the students, even stupid games become really fun.
M5 class (Junior age) doing a skit
The students do other little things that you just have to smile at.
They love to mock you (in a playful way) when you’re talking. Whenever I say, “good good”, “OK”, or “very
good” I get a whole chorus yelled back. And then there's my favorite part of class....when they leave. Not only because it means I'm done with that class, but also because they each have some comment to make on the way out. Which range from, "teacher beautiful" and "i love you", to "next week game?" and "hello, goodbye, 1,2,3".
Well there's a little glimpse into the life of Teacher Paige. Hope you enjoyed it!
