Week 5 with a song and a dance! 13/8/13 - 15/8/13

TUESDAY 13TH AUGUST
Felt grim and exhausted this morning when I awoke, I texted Jongrak and asked if I could skip assembly she said that was fine, her and Bla came round, annoying to begin with as they woke me but they fully came in, even though I thought I’d closed the door, tad invasion of privacy but I guess they panic if they don’t get immediate response…they brought me snacks and drinks and Jongrak told me to stay in bed and she’d come give me lunch at half 11. She asked if I needed to see the Doctor the Director was concerned, I said I was fine I just felt grim still, she said rest was the best. And so, only  briefly waking the odd time I actually had a good sleep until half 11 when Bla and Jongrak came with my lunch, she told me to take the rest of the day of and if I can do the after school class, I said that fine, I could try more if she wanted but she declined and told me to rest.
Did my washing, I had a good bit, tried to bleach tie dye my black vest top but the bleach here wasn’t strong enough, I decided I would get another brand to try, it was very sunny, went for a bike ride and found a water rice field area with maybe 4/5
HUGE purple herons, couldn’t get very close but got some great pictures of them at rest and mid flight! Went to Tesco’s and got some milky drinks and bleach to ease my throat, I tried to get a Chang beer for part of dads present but I got I.d’d and the paper copy wasn’t good enough, it was Tesco’s after all. Even if it is a thai Tesco lotus, I see the company is strict worldwide.  Unfortunately the new bleach didn’t work either. Went to the school and for the after school class gave them the test and then tried to show them were that information would be presented on a form, showing them D.O.B signatures etc, tomorrow I will show them telephone number and next of kin and move onto family. Got on facebook and uploaded photo’s scarred everyone with the picture of dead Mary which I’d tagged them in haha. Lauren thought the monkey with the breasts was Hilarious too, it cracks me up every time! Ashleigh apparently thought I was ignoring her, but I haven’t been on facebook, and thought the stat was  about her…wtf the world doesn’t revolve around her, we don’t speak that often nor did we speak that did I think…I added her just to cease the annoyance, went to Jongrak’s were she showed me how to make Omelette soup, the pepper one from the other day, and then sweet and sour stir fry veg, delicious! I’ll definitely be making Thai meals for the family at home!! Got speaking to them for the first time on skype, mum’s breathing was a bit off so I forbid her to speak and told her some of my adventures, told dad all about the elephants and complained of his poor advice when faced with the tarantula, told him and mum about Mary’s demise. Ryan believed he could have made it a pet, when I told mum her response wasn’t, im glad you are safe now, it was “what a horrid slow death for the spider” thanks mum. Lauren and Gemma said I was nuts for staying there haha. Rebecca wishes I was there as no-one wants to do anything, she tries to get them up and moving, she’s become me according to Ryan haha, and dad has dubbed her Napoleon, guess I’m still Hitler then, least we have Malta together! Apparently the divine Indian restaurant in Feungerola; Bollywood has closed down L tired so headed back getting a brief message to Cathy she got to see the Taj Mahal lucky biatch! Stuck the TV on for a bit , watched some news which had English headlines at the bottom, and then to add to the weird collection of Thai TV shows I’ve witnessed there was game show/song contest type show and the majority of the cast were blatantly lady boys. I really don’t understand the cultural acceptance over here, I admire it, I like the liberal attitude, but I don’t get how it fits in when they’re so reserved elsewhere?

WEDNESDAY 14TH AUGUST
Assembly seemed to drag on forever but at least I was up and about, marked the tests from yesterday, one girl got 20/20 amazing!! that’s grammar and everything! Impressed! Had a class of P.2 with Hodele, thankfully I only did a 15minute one, vowels, names and introductions, very short, I then fled to bed for a 30-45minute nap before returning to the other P.2 class with her and doing the same thing. This time I went to the resource base and chatted to Gemma on facebook and updated my blog, still haven’t finished writing up the Cambodia section though, oops.  Its Dang’s birthday today, she will be 50! After lunch I had P.3 with Bla, I quite enjoy these classes with her, there’s more opportunities as well, for this I taught them the colour song, which is colours in a tune to head, shoulders, knees and toes, and then I decided to add dance movements to it, the pictures at the bottom gave me the idea lol. It was hilarious, the kids seem to love it, especially when I added it some funk and swing to it haha. Sneaky Bla took a video and showed me after, cheeky! Haha!  We did phonetics and one of the words was “mirror” so I taught them the phrase from snow white, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all” I liked Bla to it on facebook and afterwards started uploading some of my videos, such as the animal noises, Glong Yaow, Thai dancing and MARY! Been drinking away at these yoghurt milk drinks Jongrak gave me, delicious strawberry flavour.
Went for a bike ride, it hasn’t rained yet and seems like its not going to again so went on down a main road then a rice field area, made me start to think, life is sort of like riding along a rice field plot, you can take the random paths given you, left, right or straight, they may be bumpy or smooth,  dry or littered with the odd death (there was some dead creature on one of the first paths =/) but you continue on no matter what, some people take the more difficult route unexpectedly or find its and easy straight path, others may have to create their own path, move the chaos aside and dig a new way, some find they prefer the easy route, and cut through the green field much to the farmers dismay, but at the end of it all, we come across these different paths and choices and must decide which unknowing route to take and wait to see where it takes us, crossing the bumps and troubles when we come to them and being able to ride over them if we can, forever trying not to turn back and redirect.
Random thoughts when I have so much time on my hands!!! Got myself a Fanta strawberry slush puppy, yumyum, then had an after school class, only had a half hour one with only 4 at first, not sure why, taught them family nicknames and categories, such as siblings, parents, mom and dad. Got them to tell me who was in the family and how many siblings they had. one of the girls who doesn’t speak much, came out with a great convincing accent, so I told her so, impressive!! Finished the blog for my 2nd week and posted it, got speaking to Cathy she’s lunch master next week and has to tell them a bit about N.I so she asked me if I knew of any sunburnt Irish people picture haha, googled sunburnt ginger, she’s going to say its like India with the monsoons but when its sunny everyone gets naked and burns haha legendary! She thinks I should visit her when I’ve got the few days off, little temptress! She dubbed me a “princess of the east” earlier in a comment, looked through her pics, riding elephants seems so much better in India, you can ride side saddle and the elephants are all painted brightly, no grumpy Jasmine’s there! Afterwards I borrowed Wat’s scooter, headed past Waisali which was cool, they had a large market with a bouncy castle in it!! Felt so alive doing up to 60 :P with the wind in my hair listening to “man I feel like a woman” haha!

 Moped life

 that's right, i've become a mod

Upon return I learnt we were to go out for dinner for Dang’s 50th,  so I wore my 50s dress and did some flimsy curls, just so I can say I actually used the bloody straighteners! Need not have bothered, they were all casual / half in their work uniforms, Jongrak’s husband and her son were there, she kept calling him fat but he’s not really, kind of felt sorry for him. Her husband didn’t come with us at all, I wonder why they came but her family didn’t? and why didn’t J’s husband do anything, this is the second time he’s done that, weird… we had another hot pot, the shop beside the woman who makes my vegetarian meals, the sauce Pet Nid Noi was delicious on so many levels, had some lettuce, yumyum and asked why there was no mushrooms so they went to the market and got me 2 types, awk bless! So nice, didn’t think it would be filling with no rice but I was wrong, had soy bean noodle things, tasty. Wat turned up in his Girlfriend’s car, she isn’t that pretty and as some sort of air about her, skinny like him too, he must have decided to give her another chance. I had said I liked lemonade so the woman made me up a fresh one, they obviously but sweet and salt in it for flavour which is how they balance/create taste, was interesting but nice, im sure too much of the lemonade would be sickening though! Back at Jongrak’s having picked up the cake with Bla I was made to start of “Happy birthday” haha. The cake was delicious, strawberry coulais on top and creamed sides, they definitely know how to make good cake here! Got my laptop, was bricking it as no one had locked dup, as I was unable to as the lock had shut and had presumed someone would…thankfully my laptop was safe!!! Jongrak cant do anything with me this weekend as she is busy, as are the boys, so just going to be my usual wee rebellious self and go to Attayuthaya by myself and then going to Kaempheng Phet on Sunday as Tom said it was fine if I wanted to go to the historical park with him and his mentor, it is only 3 hours away after all J

 my bathroom, and charming green bucket

WEDNESDAY 14TH AUGUST
Assembly seemed to drag on forever but at least I was up and about, marked the tests from yesterday, one girl got 20/20 amazing!! that’s grammar and everything! Impressed! Had a class of P.2 with Hodele, thankfully I only did a 15minute one, vowels, names and introductions, very short, I then fled to bed for a 30-45minute nap before returning to the other P.2 class with her and doing the same thing. This time I went to the resource base and chatted to Gemma on facebook and updated my blog, still haven’t finished writing up the Cambodia section though, oops.

 Flag raising ceremony

 learning to cook with J last week

After lunch I had P.3 class with Bla, I quite enjoy these classes with her, there’s more opportunities as well, for this I taught them the colour song, which is colours in a tune to head, shoulders, knees and toes, and then I decided to add dance movements to it, the pictures at the bottom gave me the idea lol. It was hilarious, the kids seem to love it, especially when I added it some funk and swing to it haha. Sneaky Bla took a video and showed me after, cheeky! Haha!  We did phonetics and one of the words was “mirror” so I taught them the phrase from snow white, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all” I liked Bla to it on facebook and afterwards started uploading some of my videos, such as the animal noises, Glong Yaow, Thai dancing and MARY! Been drinking away at these yoghurt milk drinks Jongrak gave me, delicious strawberry flavour. 

Cycled to the post office, sent all the postcards in one envelope to Nan and Gag, asking them to post the ones for my friends and give the ones to my parents, “the Crawford clan” only 48b!May get some photo’s printed out while I am here as apparently its very cheap, I couldn’t them last night for Nan and gag, I have 2020 pictures and videos in my T.E.T album, that’s nuts! Its only 5 weeks in!! to be fair though I have went to 4 different countries in that space of time, and lots of the photos are taken by Bla or Tom!

Added some more photos to my Cambodia blog and made a start on Chang Mai, then went for a quick wee ride on Wat’s scooter, think I need to start paying more attention at junctions, im not Thai after all!

Showed the kids from my after school class that I had a different facebook from the one they tried to add before so hopefully they will add/accept me now. Then had Thai dancing class, went over the 1st 3 songs again, finally got them! Then learnt the first, it’s the same hand movements as the first song but the foot work is harder, 0..right foot tap behind, 1.step back on right and lift left. 2. Left foot downright foot step forward 3.lift left and tap behind right. Repeat. Hand on Wang (up) for tapped foot. Dang also lent me the cd to save to my com, but it’s the wrong format so I need to convert. 

Packed up and had to grab my computer, as I was trying to catch up to Bla before she locked the room I cycled really hard and nearly crashed into some old silly thai mother on her motorbike, they never look to see if the coast is clear!! My brakes barely stopped me in time, my front wheel touched her back one…could have been messy. There was an accident on the main road beside the school yesterday, Bla pointed it out, glass and bloodstains scattered in the centre…eek! Chongrak told me earlier that they found the body of a blonde female tourist hacked up and shot in a bag in a river in Bangkok :O

We headed at 5, stopping at a 7/11 were I got a latte/ovaltine mix. Bla got food of course! I think she’s got my sore throat, so when we arrived at Chongrak’s she headed on home, read some Game of Thrones and then we headed to the market, started to rain, but it was only light, its been threatening to the past couple of days. If I was in the north east of Thailand I would be getting very heavy rain, its forecasted for 27 provinces due to a typhoon set to hit part of China, raging! I checked the link from Del, im fine as is Tom, but bringing an umbrella and my black shirt just in case!

Chongrak got me DURIAN, its nearly out of season….no!!! CHEUN DRA TOOTREAN!!! <3 we had noodles with a pork veg soup, obviously I didn’t eat the pork bit, and we added some sour, sweet and spice, was delicious! Dang and her son then joined us, I don’t know if she has a husband or not? And Chongrak’s wasn’t in yet. I mentioned that Tom always goes on about the Big C as they mentioned it, and I said I’d never been, so they decided there and then that I must go so I can tell Tom that Nakhon Sawan’s is bigger and better and we also have 2! There’ 4 floors, one with lots of food and shops, the main supermarket floor, with other shops and on the top floor, there’s a cinema with 5 screens that sometimes play in English, along with a karaoke club and bowling, the popcorn is a fortune thought the cinema is cheap, over 100b for popcorn whereas a ticket is like 10b! And you cant even sneak stuff in, that cinema brand checks your bag! Not fair!! The bottom floor was definitely my favourite, computers etc. they had laptops notebooks for 10-13,000B that 2-300 pounds, 2-4gb ram. Very tempted as they’re smaller, faster, fancier and much better than my old one, which has definitely seen better days, it hasn’t had an on button for over a year!! Up in the supermarket section I looked in the camera store, saw some 16gb digital cameras for 2-3000B and then small DSL’s with panoramic, one with 360* panoramic between 3-6,000 sooo tempting, but I’d also asked about the thai head pieces which I really want, you can only really get them in Bangkok as they’re hand made but I can order it through the post office, they think I should get the full set, I probably should especially if I want to dress up properly and dance in it, small ones that’s just the small head ornament are from 2-500 and the full sets can be 1-2000, Dang things silver is better, I really do want though. So much I want, and its such good value, but I have no job when I go back and Malta and I feel awful for lending or asking from Nan and gag, I’ll mention it to them and see what their opinions are, and Ryan’s and Rebecca’s obviously for the technology things. Got shown the other Big C, were the walking market is tomorrow and the riverside market. Going to the walking market tomorrow night if I come back early from Ayutthaya.