http://www.flickr.com/photos/57772764@N05/
Soooo I think that this should work... right now it is kind of a mess because I haven't organized or labeled or anything like that, but until I figure out how to get Blogger to let me post more pics, this is all I can do...
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Amazing Thai Birthday Time!
So today was my birthday, and the people here in Thailand made it SO amazing. Last night Anneliese gave me a beta fish that her and Mitch bought me... amazing! I have been saying for the past two months how I want one and I haven't found one and they bought me one! I decided that the little guy should have a totally American name and I am taking votes for what it should be... Anneliese voted KFC Double Down, but call him Doiuble Down for short. I love it and I can't really think of anything more American than that... but I'm open to all suggestions.
Now on to today. First, I woke up and we had running water... it was a birthday miracle! Then I put on my new awesome birthday dress, grabbed all my project making stuff, and headed to Noonoy for a full day of classes. As soon as I got there, Prathom 4 saw me and immediately broke out in an adorable 9-year old Thai kid version of the Happy Birthday song... it was awesome. I had prepared poster/drawing/art projects for all of my classes so that all I had to do all day was walk around and look at kids drawing, which was great. After Noonoy I went to Super English where I had a birthday card from my mom waiting for me, as well as a card and a present from Mitch. They were awesome... then I went to Mister Donut and bought a bunch of donuts for my students. Then I had them color for their entire classes and gave them donuts at the end; I really needed an easy Super day.
After Super English I went to Baan Sateak, where Anneliese had arranged for everyone to meet for my birthday dinner. Hilarious side note--for whatever reason Thai people seriously struggle with saying words that begin with the letter s and are followed by a consonant. For example; Star. They pronounce it sitar. Or square, they say saquare. And Baan in Thai means home. So the name Baan Sateak means Steak House, but Steak got lost in mispronunciation translation. Amy, Brittney, Chris, Janet, John, Blake, Mike, Mitch, Brian, and Anneliese were all there. It is a great place to go because they have cheeseburgers. And they're good cheeseburgers. I got one and loved it until it was over, when I felt like a sloth that should go into hibernation. Janet and Brittney made an awesome cake that was delicious in taste and inappropriate in shape, and that was good and extra fatty too. Also, everyone gave me the cutest presents! Anneliese gave me an awesome Hello Kitty laptop case, and John and Janet gave me a Hello Kitty tee shirt. Brittney gave me some beautiful incense in a cute bag, and Amy gave me some cute earrings and some nice lotion. Mitch gave me a sweet teeshirt that says "Old Skull" on it, rad. And Chris did such a cool thing... he had three photos that he had taken in Thailand printed in a large size. Man, I have such awesome friends here... THANK YOU!!!!!!! It was a great night.
As if Anneliese wasn't already my favorite person in this country... what is happening right now is just making my birthday so much better. We are at this hotel downtown called My Place. We have air conditioning, TV, a shower with hot water, comfortable beds, and free internet. Five things we never have at our place. Oh wait, 6; it is clean. Hahaha. Awesome. I am so excited to go to sleep! Anneliese, I love you boo. <3 Tomorrow night Kru Ying is taking me, Chris, Anneliese, On, Nan, and Gain out to eat and presumably drink a lot of wine. Kru Ying's birthday was yesterday so she figured we have to celebrate, and who am I to argue with that.
To everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and to everyone who worked so hard to make it a happy birthday... thank you. I feel so incredibly blessed on this birthday. I am so happy. Xoxoxoxxo
Now on to today. First, I woke up and we had running water... it was a birthday miracle! Then I put on my new awesome birthday dress, grabbed all my project making stuff, and headed to Noonoy for a full day of classes. As soon as I got there, Prathom 4 saw me and immediately broke out in an adorable 9-year old Thai kid version of the Happy Birthday song... it was awesome. I had prepared poster/drawing/art projects for all of my classes so that all I had to do all day was walk around and look at kids drawing, which was great. After Noonoy I went to Super English where I had a birthday card from my mom waiting for me, as well as a card and a present from Mitch. They were awesome... then I went to Mister Donut and bought a bunch of donuts for my students. Then I had them color for their entire classes and gave them donuts at the end; I really needed an easy Super day.
After Super English I went to Baan Sateak, where Anneliese had arranged for everyone to meet for my birthday dinner. Hilarious side note--for whatever reason Thai people seriously struggle with saying words that begin with the letter s and are followed by a consonant. For example; Star. They pronounce it sitar. Or square, they say saquare. And Baan in Thai means home. So the name Baan Sateak means Steak House, but Steak got lost in mispronunciation translation. Amy, Brittney, Chris, Janet, John, Blake, Mike, Mitch, Brian, and Anneliese were all there. It is a great place to go because they have cheeseburgers. And they're good cheeseburgers. I got one and loved it until it was over, when I felt like a sloth that should go into hibernation. Janet and Brittney made an awesome cake that was delicious in taste and inappropriate in shape, and that was good and extra fatty too. Also, everyone gave me the cutest presents! Anneliese gave me an awesome Hello Kitty laptop case, and John and Janet gave me a Hello Kitty tee shirt. Brittney gave me some beautiful incense in a cute bag, and Amy gave me some cute earrings and some nice lotion. Mitch gave me a sweet teeshirt that says "Old Skull" on it, rad. And Chris did such a cool thing... he had three photos that he had taken in Thailand printed in a large size. Man, I have such awesome friends here... THANK YOU!!!!!!! It was a great night.
As if Anneliese wasn't already my favorite person in this country... what is happening right now is just making my birthday so much better. We are at this hotel downtown called My Place. We have air conditioning, TV, a shower with hot water, comfortable beds, and free internet. Five things we never have at our place. Oh wait, 6; it is clean. Hahaha. Awesome. I am so excited to go to sleep! Anneliese, I love you boo. <3 Tomorrow night Kru Ying is taking me, Chris, Anneliese, On, Nan, and Gain out to eat and presumably drink a lot of wine. Kru Ying's birthday was yesterday so she figured we have to celebrate, and who am I to argue with that.
To everyone who wished me a happy birthday, and to everyone who worked so hard to make it a happy birthday... thank you. I feel so incredibly blessed on this birthday. I am so happy. Xoxoxoxxo
Monday, January 17, 2011
I'm so sorry it's been so long...
... I was all ready to post about the rest of my Christmas break and how my Dad and brother were here visiting me. In fact I spent about an hour and a half writing a blog entry and uploading all of these amazing photographs of Bangkok, Samui, and Phuket. Then my blog promptly erased all of that hard work and told me that I have already exceeded the amount of photographs that I can put on my blog in an entire year. I was pretty pissed, so I said yeah sure Blogger I'll pay you $20 to put unlimited photographs on my blog for a year. And then Blogger was like well really, you're not in the United States so I am going to refuse your payment. So I have been trying to figure this all out... I mean, what's more boring than a blog with no pictures? I have set up a Flickr account and I am slowly putting all of the pictures up there. I am also going to coordinate with my Dad so that I can pay for the extra pictures and eventually get more on here. You may have noticed that I caved and went back on Facebook... you'd think that would be a great place for me to post pictures but for whatever reason my computer refuses to let me post pictures from my computer onto Facebook. For now you're stuck with my boring old words.
I feel like my window of opportunity to rant about my Dad and brother being here has passed... so I'll give you a super short version. They got here on Christmas Eve and left on January 3rd. We saw the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, which is totally amazing. We shopped a lot and bought knock-off brand everything... they do it so well over here. We went to Samui and saw a really great lady boy cabaret. We also went to Ang Thong National Park and did a bunch of cool stuff. Finally we went to Phuket, where we witnessed crazy ass Patong Beach and then a more quiet, beautiful beach at my cousin Kevin's condo. It was a great trip. It was so much harder than I expected when they left. I cried the whole bus ride home from Suratthani Airport.
Since being back from Christmas break I have pretty much been focused on work. This past weekend I went to Khanom with Janet, John, Mitch, Amy, Jeehon, etc. I spoiled myself because my birthday is tomorrow and so I got this really nice room with an ocean view. It was perfect beach weather the whole time and I slept with the windows open... I have never been anything but freezing cold on my birthday so I'm pretty excited to sweat it out on Tuesday. Classes end on February 25th, and then it is summer vacation! I can't believe it... I will have all of March and April and half of May off. My mom is coming for two weeks in March, Liz is coming for two weeks in March, and then the boy is coming for a week in April. Then in May Anneliese and I are planning on going to Vietnam... so hopefully with the combination of these trips and me getting some photo-capability on here this blog will get more interesting for you soon enough. Much love.
I feel like my window of opportunity to rant about my Dad and brother being here has passed... so I'll give you a super short version. They got here on Christmas Eve and left on January 3rd. We saw the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, which is totally amazing. We shopped a lot and bought knock-off brand everything... they do it so well over here. We went to Samui and saw a really great lady boy cabaret. We also went to Ang Thong National Park and did a bunch of cool stuff. Finally we went to Phuket, where we witnessed crazy ass Patong Beach and then a more quiet, beautiful beach at my cousin Kevin's condo. It was a great trip. It was so much harder than I expected when they left. I cried the whole bus ride home from Suratthani Airport.
Since being back from Christmas break I have pretty much been focused on work. This past weekend I went to Khanom with Janet, John, Mitch, Amy, Jeehon, etc. I spoiled myself because my birthday is tomorrow and so I got this really nice room with an ocean view. It was perfect beach weather the whole time and I slept with the windows open... I have never been anything but freezing cold on my birthday so I'm pretty excited to sweat it out on Tuesday. Classes end on February 25th, and then it is summer vacation! I can't believe it... I will have all of March and April and half of May off. My mom is coming for two weeks in March, Liz is coming for two weeks in March, and then the boy is coming for a week in April. Then in May Anneliese and I are planning on going to Vietnam... so hopefully with the combination of these trips and me getting some photo-capability on here this blog will get more interesting for you soon enough. Much love.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Christmas Eve at Noonoy School
I spent Christmas Eve day at Noonoy School... here are some photos:
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| Kru Ying... the owner/director of Noonoy School; impossibly beautiful, classy, and smart. |
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| The kiddies waiting for the Christmas show to begin... |
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| Ha I love that kid with the camera. He's in 6th grade and his name is Vote... which is pronounced "Wote" |
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| 1st year preschoolers... kid in the blue is named GLUR-GLUR (!!!!) and he's so awesome. |
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| Hiiiiiii Glur-Glur |
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| More preschoolers. Aw. |
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| Haaaa |
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| Kid in the center is named Ikkue. He's pretty rad. |
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| Aw. :( They made the fattest teacher be Santa. She's so awesome. |
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| Thai teachers dancing for our entertainment |
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| I need that outfit |
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| Gang (how's that for an awesome nick name?), Aom, and Nan |
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| On, Nan, and Gang. |
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| 2nd grade cuties |
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| Hah! My favorite babies! 2nd year preschool! |
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| Some of the many many presents we gave out throughout the course of the day... |
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| This kid (grade 1) is clearly cooler than you. |
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| yoda. |
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| this kid looks just like a dinosaur. or like he's on the show "Dinosaurs" |
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| Spirit House at Noonoy |
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| Prathom (grade) 4 |
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| Ah! This picture is amazing... the only 2 boys in Prathom 5, Mew and Ban. Photo shoot time! |
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| The 7 girls of Prathom 7... that's right, there are NINE students in my Prathom 5 class. Amazing. |
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| Awesome Prathom 3 girls. The one on the right is going to be an astrophysicist or something comparably intelligent. |
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| I love this. They're the bikes outside of the preschool building. |
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| The lunchroom |
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| The preschool building... |
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| Prathom bulding |
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| Prathom 3 Holiday Party! |
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| Fried chicken and french fries. |
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| The third world-esque hell hole behind the ritzy Noonoy... |
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| My food gifts from the Prathom 3 party... |
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| Long Live the King |
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