Tag Archives: Ban Bung

Falling off the Boat

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I’ve fallen off the blogging boat, or blog train, or blogging bandwagon. Whatever you want to call it, I’m very behind in my blogging.  My life in Thailand settled down into a routine: wake up at 6:45, stare at the ceiling not wanting to go to work, get out of bed at 7:00, check for ants, get ready for school, leave for school at 7:30, arrive at school at 7:45, sign in, go to morning assembly at 8:00, get breakfast at 8:30, teach classes where the students don’t pay attention, leave school at 4:00, try to find something to entertain me until bedtime at 10:00 sometimes 9:00. It was boring to write about and I’m sure it would have been boring to read. Continue reading →

All That Glitters

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Finals season is upon us! I have not been writing blog posts because I have been writing finals. I told myself that I would do nothing until my finals were written, no reading, no writing, nothing until I had finished my exams. There was a lot of staring at a blank page on the computer screen. Writing multiple-choice exams is very difficult; there is a gap between what I think the students should be able to do, what the school thinks the students should be able to do, and what the students can actually do. In addition, the school had me write a 50 question multiple-choice exam for incoming M1 students in the English Program. It was a nightmare to write, again because of the me-school-student gap. I added readings from Harry Potter and some Finding Nemo references, because writing exams is boring. Continue reading →

Culture Day (Among Other Things)

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In my haste to get last week’s blog posted, I forgot to write about my hectic Monday (January 18). I was running late to work because I did not want to get out of bed and on my way down the stairs, I saw my gecko friend Georgie. (I have named all my gecko friends, there is Grant and Gertie who lived in my room and now live on my balcony, I can hear them chirping at night, and there is Georgie, who is super tiny and likes to hide by my hiking boots.) As I neared Georgie on the stairs, I expected him to run away, but he did not because he was dead. I was so upset. I had not seen him in my room for a while and there he was, on the stairs, belly up, dead. Continue reading →

Ridiculously Overdue

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Monday through Wednesday was fairly uneventful. Except for waking up on Tuesday to find ants in my garbage. Little devils snuck in during the night, ignored the ant trap, and went straight for the garbage. On Wednesday I was sitting at my desk, trying to write a blog post, when from behind my Christmas tree came a huge black wasp. It was one of the scary looking ones where you can see all of its segments, and it was about as big as my thumb if not a little bigger. This thing was huge and I was terrified. It flew from behind the Christmas tree, right at me, around me, and out my open balcony door. I thought that was the end of that but then it came back! Continue reading →

Late New Year Post

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I had a 4-day weekend for New Year’s which was great. However, I did not want to spend it stuck in Ban Bung, I really needed to get away. My first plan was to go to Koh Chang, relax on the beach, frolic in the ocean, and do a little scuba. That plan fell through when the only accommodations I could find were about 200 USD a night. So I had to fall back to plan B: Pattaya and Kanchanaburi. Moral of the story is plan ahead. Continue reading →

Christmas Season

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I used to be so good at writing down everything that has happened, but lately I have been falling behind. Looking back a week it is difficult to remember everything that happened but I will try my best to recall everything.

Monday and Tuesday were regular class days; I struggled to figure out lessons since I had already reviewed for midterms in the classes. In the English for communication classes, we played the matching game from two weeks earlier. I told the students to use English and the English they used sounded a lot like Thai. Continue reading →

December!

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I am grossly behind in my writing. I have been a little busy as of lately. However, here are the past several weeks…

Went to Koh Samet on Saturday (December 5), it was about 6 hours of travel. I did not have a reservation at a hostel; I planned to go from hostel to hostel trying to find a room. I figured since it was the King’s birthday, everyone would be heading to Bangkok. Wrong; there were people sleeping on the beach. On the ferry over, I met a very nice man who helped me find a place to stay for the weekend. A woman rented me a house (really a house: two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room). Continue reading →

Falling Behind (Week 6)

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Monday morning I scared the living daylight out of myself. On Sunday, I had put some bubble wrap on the floor to pop it and I saved some for Monday morning because I knew I would be grumpy. Well, I did wake up grumpy, did not want to teach, and I forgot all about the bubble wrap on the floor. Stepped on the bubble wrap and freaked out at it popped. I was awake. It is very difficult getting out of bed each morning when you know your students do not want to learn. We tried playing a game in M1 and they were not going for it. My first graders in China loved that game, so did the fifth graders in China. They were all over it, they were even cheering on their classmates. Not with M1 in Thailand. Continue reading →

Shots in Bangkok

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Friday I woke up early to Skype with my family during Thanksgiving dinner. I am thankful for modern technology that allows me to be with my family during holidays even though I am on the other side of the world. There were ants in my bathroom again. Not one, two, or even three, lots of ants. I was not happy. However, I had chocolate balls left over from my Thanksgiving dinner. They tasted like brownie batter and were delicious. They sort of made up for the ants. Chocolate balls are not a filling breakfast so I stopped by the street vendor selling the pork on a stick I have had before. I burnt my tongue; apparently, they were fresh off the grill. Continue reading →

Festivities of Week 5

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After an exciting weekend, going to school is not what I want to do on Mondays. With M1 we watched Schoolhouse Rock, the noun, adjective, and verb ones. I had them make lists of the nouns, adjectives, and verbs they saw in the films. It was kind of a blow off lesson, I did not feel like teaching, and they did not want to learn. Having them first thing on Monday is rough, they have just come off the weekend and they do not want to learn or be in school. However, they seemed to enjoy Schoolhouse Rock, or at least they pretended to enjoy it just so we would watch movies instead of doing anything else. Continue reading →