Wonderful

I am reporting that I HAD A WONDERFUL DAY! Wonderful- from top to bottom? Is that a possibility? I know my memory is terrible, so I'm sure I forgot some not so great parts but overall a wonderful day. I think it happens when perspective changes and you realize some little students are actually people and have lives, and aren't just there to get on your nerves! What can change a wonderful day when you arrive at school at 7am to ''The Chicken Dance" followed by Sharron, Louis and Bram's Skid-amirinkidinkedink (sp?)you have an hour to prep before you have to be at ''hard court'' a daily meeting for the students where they repeat their Buddhist rituals and vows to the school- to be a good student (it's Scout's day on Friday so they all come dressed in Scout uniform, very cute, but at the start somewhat of a problem as their scout uniforms don't have their names written on them, but their school uniforms do).

Anyway hard court today was someone in our key stages turn to lead so we started the morning off with a rousing round of Y-M-C-A! Followed by my weekly trip to the very cozy and cute coffee shop around the corner from the school where I get a mocha Frappe. Well this morning was a special treat- last week they began serving breakfast and so today I partook in a delicious spread of ham, weiners, very thin and de-crusted bread, 3 slices of tomato and a lovely sunnyside up egg done to perfection in the shape of a heart! The deal is it is only 20 baht more (about 70 cents) than my regular drink I get...except I get breakfast too- go figure! (Somethings just don't make sense out here!)

The day continued well- my day teaching one less class than normal was a nice change- and I got to hear the bell chiming throughout the day (have I told you the school bell is to the tune of ''it's a small world afterall'' ? And although some classes were difficult I was able to navigate my way through the difficult students by giving talkings to- rather than yelling at them, and describing in detail how much it makes me sad when they talk the whole class or are not complete their homework-- Overall I got fairly good responses.

The school day ended with a lovely round of ''let's try to play dead for Mr. Damon'' Damon teaches after my last class on friday (he teaches a homework class-- incase going to school for 7 hours straight wasn't enough for them...) and yesterday he decided to try and get the students attention by lying on the floor and playing dead-- as nothing else was making them quiet... well it took them 3 whole minutes to notice he was even on the floor and then they looked at him quizzically and said, ''Mr. Damon, what are you doing on the floor!" Needless to say his method didn't work... Sooooo the homework students and I decided to wait quietly in the dark- playing dead for Mr. Damon to arrive.. Well it worked- except one of the student actors rose from the dead to yell at him as soon as he came through the door-- so he left and reentered- we were all quiet then and Mr. Damon started to sing a victory song- and we all had a laugh.

ANyway Spaghetti and such for supper- a quick clean of my room and then watching Erin Brokovich (sp?) with friends-- Ahhh what a lovely evening.

Well laundry should be done- and I'm off to console my neighbour who just returned from working late at school- only to tell me that she got locked into not only the school.. and had to escape through a window-- but then got locked in the school yard and the gates were even locked so the guard could not let her out-- and she had to climb the fence! Ha... what wonderful adventures--ha.. glad it wasn't me!

Well now that I've told you about a typical wonderful day I'm off to hang up my laundry and get to bed-- I'm teaching Saturday class tomorrow- thankfully We get to leave an hour later than usual! Woo hoo... isn't it sad when 7 oclock is sleeping in?!

:)Sigh....

Live well.

ps I even got a gift from a student today- I'll keep his last initial anonymous, as I have two of them in my class, but Gun (yes, his name is Gun) gave me a present today! It's in a beautiful box I think I'll dismantle and frame.. but check out the ingredient list (Moon Cake: Sugar, Cashew Nut, Salted egg yolk, sweet pork, wheat flour, squash, watermelon seed, white sesame seed, sweet apricot kernel, macadamia nut, vegetable oil and egg... hmmm scrumptious? I guess we'll see tomorrow!)