DISTURBERS OF THE PEACE

DEFACING AYUTTHYA

ahh! my thai class ended last friday. i left good ol' krhu pussadee's classroom with bittersweet feelings. i was sad that i wont be learning new thai everyday, laughing at my khru's impersenations of all of us (she always made fun of how i laughed, yawned a lot and would say, "what??!" when i was confused) and hanging out with my korean and japanese classmates. but i was oh so happy to finally have days completely off to do whatever i want! no way!

so with my new found freedom, three of my closest bangkok friends and i decided to go on a small adventure to the old capital city, ayutthya, to see the ruins of wats (temples) and the old grand palace. we hopped a small minivan for 60 baht, equal to a few dollars, to drive us about a little over an hour north of bangkok.

we saw the ruins mainly as a large playground. we clambered up their steep steps to the top where people left goodies for the gods, like milk and doramen stuffed animals. we saw a towering golden buddha in one of the temples, and a buddha head wrapped up in the roots of an old tree. he was all over the place.

one of the last ruins we went to had many buddha statues in a line, all of them were so ancient that the heads had worn/fallen off. so of course, we thought of the brillant scheme, why dont we take pictures with our heads as buddha's head, since he doesnt have one. how fun that would be!

neal, mariha and i got in position just right so that only our heads were popping up over the stone statue. as alice was preparing to take the shot, i see a security guard man come running up to where we are. i smiled, thinking, oh, he is amused at what we are doing. he thinks it's funny and cute!

but as he got closer, he didnt look so delighted. actually he wasnt laughing, but yelling, "no! give me your camera! 200 baht, 200 baht!" we scattered. but he chased us, taking two of our cameras, pressing buttons frantically.

another guard runs up, digs behind the statues to pull up a rusty faded sign that has scrawled on it, "dont climb on ruins" and maybe something else was on there too about taking pictures.. and waves it in our faces. i wrenched my camera away, showing him we deleted the picture, yet he was still yelling, "200 baht!" we kept saying, "no, no!" and scurried away into a clearing. he followed us for a bit like a stray dog hungry for meat, but eventually he lost interest and decided we werent worth the effort and went back to his task of guarding the headless buddhas.

i was sufficently freaked out and kept thinking he was going to get us and send us to the police or something. we didnt want to go back and contemplated jumping the ruin wall and scaling the bushes on the other side to reach the road, but the barb wire fence didnt seem so inviting. instead we just speed walked to the exit and breathed a sigh/laugh of relief once we left.

lesson learned! dont pretend to be buddha. ever. one of our friends was aghast when we told them what we did. wow, it's like if you saw someone pretending to be jesus, stretching your arms on a cross and taking pictures merrily. oh man, when you put it that way it just sounds so bad. oopps..at least we can claim ignorance...

ELITE TIMES

teaching is hard! but rewarding. i have heard that so much, but now i finally truly believe the cliche.

my first few weeks of teaching book club didnt go so hot. the cell book i wrote about earlier that i said i was going to teach, was loved by my students almost as much as i loved it. which wasnt much at all. as a result two students dropped out of my class, one called the director and said she cried everyday the first week of book club after attempting to read the book cuz she didnt understand it. oh the guilt that burned in me! but we didnt chose the book, the main Elite in the states choses the books, and we just do them. so they kept saying it wasnt my fault, but still! i made a student cry my first week! ah!

then after another student dropped out, the education director told me we were going to drop hard cell book no one liked, and do short stories instead. what a relief! and the director had done them before so she already had a lot of lesson plans.

i thought it would be better but this week two more students dropped because they thought it was silly to do short stories and not a real book. oh my goodness! but they said they will come back fo the next book in three weeks. wow, so here goes the new teacher dropping enrollment like crazy.

then at our staff meeting the topic came up on how we dont have as many students registered for classes this month. which means low profits, which means not making budget, which means not being able to give as much money to the non-profit we support as we need to. the discussion led to how the teachers need to make our classes fun so that students want to stay because of loyalty to the teacher. so i was feeling a bit pressured, but i realize that its not really up to me. i know God will give me the strength i need and wisdom for fun ideas. i hope He does at least, cuz i need it bad.

but i really enjoy helping the SAT students, especially when they have questions after class or about their essays. it is sweet to try to help them and then seeing them do better. wow, i guess it is cool to see the whole process of teaching work, you tell them something, they apply it, they improve. what a cool concept when it actually all flows like it should.

FUN STUFF BLURBS:

-i went to the snake farm! we saw snakes get their venom sucked out, and i got to have a heavy smooth rubbery feeling python chill on my shoulders. fun times!

-today i went to the bangkok refugee center to help teach english. i went with alice, who is the other teacher at Elite, and a woman from my church. we went to three different classrooms to teach kiddos. we sang songs, and helped work on pronounciation of tricky sounds like "th", "l", and "r".

most of the refugees are from laos, china, sri lanka, nepal, and congo. i was so excited to see two of my former students i taught during my CELTA training there! i will hopefully be going back every tuesday i have free to teach for an hour or so. but it is so hard to be there, to think of the refugees and how they are stuck-- jobless and homeless, waiting for hope. yet, it is a joy to be there and have a chance to try to love on them and give them a taste of the hope they are waiting for.

-im going to vietnam!! im so excited. ja, the director of elilte, alice, and i are going nov. 4-6 fot the weekend. ja found a super cheap ticket on air asia one day and was like, want to go to vietnam? sure! so were going! im so excited to experience another place...its so sweet how close all these places are that you can just go to another country for the weekend. i feel so blessed..i cant wait!