Graham vs 4th Grade Girl........Fight!

Yesterday was a tough one.  I confiscated a girls phone after she was sitting down playing on it during PE and after she'd flatly told me, no, she would not stand up and do anything. I told her she could have it back after class if she participated but still she refused to. Not only did she refuse, but she got a bunch of her girlfriends to stop playing too and to follow me around with their hands out saying phone...phone...

Anyway, after class she was like, ok, I want it back now, and I told her no, that she hadn't participated, and that she could have it back the following morning. I went back to my office and about twenty minutes later a teacher and throng of 4-5 of these girls came in. The teacher said I needed to give her phone back. I explained the situation to the teacher as best I could (she speaks alright English) and she was like, ok, that makes sense, I will explain it to her, and they left.

About 10 minutes after that they come back with another teacher, and they are like, we understand where you are coming from, but this girl's parents are really rich and she has threatened to have them call the cops on you, so you definitely need to give it back. At first I was like, fine, call the cops, they will see how ridiculous this is! The teachers were like, you don't understand, in Thai culture they are going to do what the rich people want, plus they won't be able to understand you anyway.

 I was so frustrated! I didn't want to let this little brat win! Natalie, thankfully, was like, Graham, why don't you just give it back, who cares, we won't be here much longer anyway. In the end me and the teachers and a guy who I think is like the vice principal made a deal that the home teacher would keep it overnight. They might have just told me that so I would feel better though, because after they sent the girl to talk to the home teacher, and I think to get her phone back right then. I don't know for sure, I didn't understand what anyone was saying!

The attitudes of some of these kids are ridiculous, and stories like this one make it so obvious why- because they get whatever they want! And these were my 4th graders!

It's so funny to be in a position where I am saying - kids these days..... on a common basis :) I think Natalie is hoping that this experience hasn't backfired and  left me scarred and scared away from kids for life. I don't know, but I am definitly looking forward to some detox when we finish in a month! Then its only seventh graders and older if you want to hang out with me :)

Thanks for reading and have have a great day! The subtext is that everything is going well in general, and we had a great weekend with some of our local friends. Natalie is working on a post to that effect which should be hitting a desktop near you soon! Bye!

Final Day of School In Sight - India booked!

Hola faithful readers! Wanted to do a small update because a couple cool/significant things have happened lately.  The big one is that we found round-trip flights to India for $180, booked them, and are going to be able to add another country and world wonder, the Taj Mahal,  to our trip. We're super excited, although it is a bit bittersweet because it means pushing back our return date a couple weeks (which is now a very solid June 15th), and we are missing home and friends and family a ton already. It's a destination we have both dreamed of visiting though, and who knows when we will be on this side of the world again??

Next, and this is more exciting than words can describe, we have an official end date for school!!! Planning is a laughable word in Thailand, at least the rural part of Thailand where we are based, and so from our school coordinator, to the head of the English program, to the Principal's secretary, to the other English teachers, no one knows when the last day of school is. And besides being not far away, their estimates vary across the timespan of a month! We signed a completely Thai contract that supposedly says we finish at the end of March, but everyone said not to pay attention to that, that it is just symbolic.  As the potential dates draw near, we've started to panic a bit about planning and visas, and finally in desperation contacted the program we came through, CIEE. They came back saying that we would be finishing at the end of February - just a few weeks away! We panicked a bit, and after some back and forth, finalized a final day of March 10th (thank you CIEE for you help!). We didn't have a strong preference to end at any specific time, but after so much work that went into figuring it out, we are just super excited to have a date set! That means that in just about a month we can start traveling, which is good for you also because we will have a lot more interesting posts and pictures that will be coming your way - win, win :)

Anyway miss you all and we will post again soon, next time with some new pics....till then, this is Grahamalie signing out

Welcome to the Jungle/Chatty Cathy was my favorite doll

(This is our first blog where we are experimenting with a new format of both Natalie and I writing parts, rather than just one of us doing the whole thing- let us know in the comments what your preference is!)

(Natalie)Why is it that I always feel inspired to name our blogs some cheesy/bad song title or lyrics? "I will Survive" and "I can't live, with or without you!" have both popped into my mind as potential blog titles that would snag peoples' interest enough to entice them to read about our lives. But in this case, it is rather descriptive of what I did this weekend, which I guess makes sense, and I get to quote a song from a band that I used to think was the coolest of the cool. No, now I think the coolest of the cool are the 3 other girls I got to spend a lot of time with this weekend in Thailand's second largest National Park, Khao Yai.

Have you missed us? (UPDATED with pictures!)

We miss you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Giant "reclining" Buddah. Click Picture for More!

Sorry for the long hiatus on updating our blog. I guess it was for a number of reasons. First off, we have been very busy. We have also been on a roller coaster ride, and we figured that after our last few "honest" blogs, any more info on the tough stuff here would just start getting annoying to read (plus we want to remember and focus on the good stuff!) So, we hit a low point a couple weeks ago, but since then things have just gotten better. Our program talked about the "honeymoon" period being over, and the reality of being kinda stuck in a small town, working a normal Thai job, kicking in. That is exactly what happened to us. We know that this is an experience of a lifetime, and that we will never have another chance like this, and that living in any foreign culture has its good and bad points. We know that we will appreciate things we took for granted more than ever, and we will give big slopping kisses to all our friends in a few shorts months. But I want to give them big sloppy kisses NOW! We love actually teaching the kids, but the politics of the school are mysterious and often uncomfortable for us, and while we have gotten to see a ton, traveling anywhere from our small rural town is difficult. So, in a nutshell, our lemonade was becoming overwhelmingly sour, until we magically wished it sweet. And now it is.

Animal Farm

Once again, we hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! And happy almost New Year! How in the world is it almost 2011? I still remember the fear of Y2K like it was yesterday. Ah poor little 13 year old Natalie with her velvet overalls was so scared. Anyways, our experience here has continued to present us with a fair share of challenges, and we keep overcoming them. I worry sometimes that I am becoming paranoid, every time someone talks to us I am afraid they are going to say something bad! But, we continue to learn and expand our comfort zones. And I am VERY proud to say that we have even had the extra energy and internal resources to have done some volunteer work (in a sense).

Christmas: Part Nueng (One)

Hello family and friends! We are planning on writing a longer post about our whole Christmas experience, which was pretty insane. We didn't get around to it yet, but I did put together a video of a small but really fun part of it, a trip to the aquarium and zoo. As you will see we got to hold orangutans and "baby" tigers!! The first crazy part was that it only costs seventy cents to do so. The second crazy part was when we realized that even for so little, we might have gotten more than we bargained for when the tigers started nipping and swiping at us! The camera was put down quickly when it started happening, but you can still catch some glimpses of the situation.

Make sure to check back in a day or two (or just subscribe for automatic updates near the top left hand side) to get the full story of our day. Much Christmas love to everyone, and Happy Happy New Years!!!

If the video isn't playing here, double click on it to play directly in Youtube. 

Thanks for the love, and Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

Ah, THANK YOU so much to everyone for their outpouring of love and support after we covered some of the hard times we've experienced lately! We really appreciate everyone who's reached out, even when we are so far away; each message has made both of us smile and feel infinitely better. Many of the people at our school have also been very supportive, which feels great! We were even told what great teachers we are, which is nice because in general people in Thailand are not very open about giving praise.  Personally, we are trying to stick together and have bounced back from negative emotions really quickly.  Living and working sure has given us a lot of opportunities to learn and grow.

While we have been missing out on a number of treasured holiday traditions, we have had fun teaching the kids about Christmas (I have gotten better about teaching them songs haha) and have gotten a bit into the holiday spirit. We have been making Christmas ornaments which the kids LOVE and we continue to settle in and tweek our teaching styles to be more effective. We also may or may not be having a Christmas celebration tomorrow, we will update about that too:) I went to a yoga class last night, which was especially meditative because it was all in Thai. It was fun to be the only farang doing yoga in a class of middle-aged Thai women. I also have gone to an aerobics class at my school a couple nights, which is always fun. It is the closest I have gotten to dancing lately. But this will change in a week when we go to the islands for New Years!

We both miss our families so much! And a special shout out to my brother Clark who just finished college at UC Davis with a degree in civil engineering, and Weston just finished his first quarter of college at UC Davis. I am sooo proud of both my brothers and love them with all my heart!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (as I'm typing this I am singing it in my head!) and Graham and I are sending love from Thailand!

UPDATE - New Pictures: It was supposed to be so eeeaasssyyy

Click Here for the picture gallery that goes with this post!
Today's Theme Song: Here 

Oh my gosh today has been one of those days, ugh. While both Graham and I try to be positive about our experiences here (and life in general) the flood gates of ick really opened on us today. So to all of you who may be a bit bored at your jobs, wondering what the world has to offer, let me tell you-what you got isn't so bad trust me! Today we suffered the consequences of simple mis communications that have resulted in a day full of frustration. No one can be blamed, but the inability to speak with people here, coupled with layer upon layer of social customs and norms, can be incredibly difficult to handle. And then we have some lingering problems in the states, which also sucks, especially when we both worked so hard to clean our slate for our time here. Ah, life, sometimes you are a....um, difficult. Thank you so much to our parents back home, especially my mom, Lynn, for all of their help making this whole dream (right now it seems like a nightmare-were we crazy to come here? sometimes I think so!) a reality. Teaching has also been very challenging at times. Today I actually had to hide some tears, as I dodged things getting thrown at me as I sulked out of my classroom. After trying so hard, walking around singing "We wish you a merry christmas" like a total idiot for an hour, with the kids being so loud and disrespectful, I could not but momentarily give in to the stress and cry quietly behind my fake purple RayBan glasses.

Island Fever

Koh Larn from the sky

Last weekend we traveled to an island and met up with several fellow members of the teach-abroad organization we came here with. The island was called Koh Larn, and it is a couple hours bus ride from Bangkok, and then another half an hour ferry. Because it is relatively close to the Capitol it was rather crowded with revelers who came for the day, but after 4pm the beach cleared out and it felt like we had the island to ourselves. Of course nothing here is quite as straightforward as it first sounds...

Karaoke and Suphanburi

Sunset from a cool little bar over the reservoir by us

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all the American's that read our blog! We hope that it was a truly great holiday weekend for everyone!!!

Graham and I were so sad to not be with family this year :( I enjoyed skyping with everyone but missed experiencing my family's crazy antics in person, although they did a great job of making up for it throughout our entire call. Graham especially missed not being in the States for Thanksgiving, because it is his favorite holiday, and the food his favorite. Poor guy did manage to make pretty good mashed potatoes by boiling them in a hot water heater though, which I thought was very inventive of him. We were joined by our American friend Katie, and our English friend, Jessica, and had and  a nice "Thanksgiving" dinner of pasta, mashed potatoes, and fried chicken, so not all was lost.

Loi Krathong Festival-Our Night as Popstars

Hundreds out of thousands of flower boats which were floated away for Loi Katron

Note: We will do our best to make sure that the first picture in the post always links to the full gallery, while the rest will just link to larger versions of themselves.

Loi Krathong is a Thai festival to thank the goddess of water for the rainy season, and offers celebrators a chance to symbolically let go of all their grudges, anger and defilements to start life anew on a better foot. For us it meant these things, but it also meant an awesome party at our school! We arrived straight from Bangkok into the craziness, and as we were walking past tons of lights, with multiple sources of music blaring in the foreground, we felt as if we were walking to a rave or something.

Five Year Anniversary In Bangkok and Meeting some New Friends

From the rooftop restaurant where we rang in our 5 years together!

Hello!
We hope everyone is doing well! It is yet another very tired Monday. I just taught 2 classes and Graham is teaching his third class right now. Only a couple more to go! The good news is the reason we are so tired is because the end of last week and this weekend were incredibly fun! I guess I will start at the beginning (a very good place to start...)

The Best and the Worst

Group of guys, including a monk, hanging out and watching a soccer match.

I have been wanting to write this post for awhile because, like most adventures, this one has pushed our usual range of happiness, sadness, and every other emotion to the poles. There are so many fantastic things we are experiencing, but definitly a fair share of difficulties to accompany them. Here therefore is our list so far of the Best and Worst of Thailand.

Life in Dan Chang

There are so many little things that are different about life here. In this post therefore, rather than focusing on any larger experiences, we wanted to zero in on some of the details of daily life. Warning: this may only be interesting for our more hardcore readers.

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Thailandish Weekend Warriors

Soooo, we just got back from yet another sweet weekend in the town of Kanchanaburi. Prior to the weekend we had another busy week helping with spelling bee word pronunciation, feeding puppies, and eating an amazing dinner hosted by our new friends James and Taygan (local falangs, the Thai word for foreigners with white skin, who we are soo happy to meet!). The range of emotions I have felt (and that I know Graham has felt) since we got here has been really all over the map. Last week was hard because English teachers are being shuffled all around, and we never know what exactly we are supposed to be doing. I feel like I am already pretty go-with-the-flow, but seriously after this I could be a Taoist teacher. Either that or I might turn into a water puddle, I'd go with the flow so much! Life in Dan Chang is treating us well overall though.

First Week Of School and Weekend in Bangkok

Last week was our first one teaching, yet it already feels like a lifetime has passed since then. We were picked up by our coordinator bright and early that Monday morning, with the expectation that we would be given a tour of campus and get some paperwork sorted before starting our classes on Tuesday.  When we arrived at school our first impression was that it was a lot bigger than either of us imagined. There are a total of 1400 students who go there, all in grades K-6th, making it by far the largest school in town. Most of the infrastructure is basic, but there are obviously a lot of buildings and facilities to host that many students, and most of the campus is very green and beautiful.

Beijing and First Days in Thailand

Hello!!!!! Finally was able to find a decent internet connection, so I wanted to update, although I only have about 10 minutes till this place closes. The bottom line is that Natalie and I are having an amazing time! Thank you to our families for sending us off in such great style. We miss you all a ton. (Meghan, the camera you got me is amazing, as you will see in the pictures, and thank you Lynn and Jim for taking care of Gazzette, our cars, and for our going away party and for driving us to the airport! The leftover cake lasted us a couple days, and was always a nice treat)

We plan on writing with more detail once we are more settled, but quickly:

Beijing - Amazing modern city with not a single car that was more than a year old. Our couchsurfing host, Darlene, showed us the best time ever, and we saw way more than we ever could have without her. The Forbidden City was definitely up there with the Vatican, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, etc. as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Everyone we met was super sweet, and overall just an awesome time, even through our dreary eyes.

Thailand: Amazing - we have already met so many cool people and eaten a TON of good food. The program is fantastic and we feel like we are getting a lot of great training and being very well taken care of.

They are shutting down so thats all for now!  Check out the pictures though, and will write more soon!

Getting Ready To Go!

We just bought our flights and are super excited! We will be leaving October 11th, arriving in Beijing on the 12th, staying for almost 24 hours to quickly check it out, then flying to Bangkok on the 13th. Our first week there, we will be given an intensive training on everything from the culture, to the language, to how to teach English!

We still don't know the exact date that we start teaching - sometime around the beginning of November we think. After five months of teaching we are going to travel around Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam for about a month, then fly to the Philippines for a week or two.

Our goal is to update this blog at least once a week, since apparently they have internet in the town where we will be living (HERE are the details on our teaching assignment). You can follow our adventures in several ways. The easiest is probably by subscribing with your email address on the left hand side of the screen where it says Follow. If you have Twitter, you can also use that to get updates, and every time we post a new entry here, it will update to Facebook.

We are both very excited, kind of nervous, but overall ready to embark on a great adventure. Thank you for your interest, and wish us luck!

P.S. The above picture highlights the part of Thailand we will be teaching in (Province of Suphanburi, town of Dan Chang). For a more detailed view of the country, HERE is a good map. Additionally if you are insanely interested in seeing what the future holds for us you can check out THIS BLOG which was written by a couple who embarked on a similar adventure teaching in the same town about a year ago.

P.P.S. Come and visit us!!!!!!!