Before and After... missing my room

I was supposed to post this months ago, but my computer died :( I finally have pictures of my room, even though it's not as clean as I would have liked. I am home in NC now, but I guess this is better late than never...

So... I think I already put a post about how I have changed my room, but I've done even more this year, so I'd like to show you how far its come! I just can't live in a place without making it my own, whether I'm there for 2 months or 2 years. The rest of the house still needs some TLC, but it's getting there.
This is what my room looked like when I got here back in May of 2010...



No offense to the girl who lived here before me, but I just couldn't live for very long in the green room. I loved the LOVE painted on the wall, but it didn't match the new color I picked out, so it had to go, although you can still see a thick outline of the V if you look closely.

So I picked out a beautiful blue color... As I was painting I was afraid it might turn out purple, but once I got the whole thing painted, it was perfect! Just want I wanted.



As the year went on, I added a dandelion and a bookshelf and painted the green case.

Then over the summer I inherited some furniture from my roommates who left. I now have a fabulous wardrobe that is about twice the size of my old one, and a great big desk where I can grade papers. I have also added some pictures and lights and hanging stars, and even a princess canopy (aka mosquito net that I cut up and tied) :)









Now I love my room... it is my "hiding place" as my mom would call it. And it will be my home for at least another year since I have signed my contract to come back for the 2012-2013 school year.

Long Overdue...

So, this post is long overdue, but I didn't want to post it until I had the video, which I just got yesterday.
Every year we have a Christmas program at school, and it is a HUGE deal. We spend about 2 months getting ready. The music teacher puts together an indoor program, which is a lot like the choir plays that we would do at church when we were small. Each grade has different songs that they sing, and then there is a Christmas storyline which different kids audition for. Parents come and take pictures and all the teachers dress up super nice and we all have some kind of role or job to do, whether it's watching a class in their classroom until it's their turn to go on stage, being a "runner" who goes back and forth getting the classes when it's their turn, or helping direct and set up. There are always a ton of things to do and it can be stressful, but always worth it in the end. Then the program moves outside where the soccer field is converted into a giant area filled with tables and a huge stage. The stage is always decorated by the seniors and they have come up with some pretty cool backgrounds. Then dinner is catered by a company and we all eat and listen to the high school band play. Then each grade presents some kind of song/dance/performance that they have spent months working on and putting together. It's a lot of work for 5 minutes on stage, but SO fun to get to see each class perform. It's split up into 3 different nights... kindergarten is on Thursday, Grades 1-5 are on Friday, and Grades 6-12 are on Saturday. The kids have a lot of fun, and it's nice to get dressed up and get to hang out with the kids. The teachers also have to put together a performance.
It was a bit of a scramble this year because we didn't have as much time as we normally would. Because of the flood, we missed about 3 weeks of school when we would have been planning for the program, so instead of having 7 weeks, we only had about 4 to get ready. It was crazy trying to figure out what to do, but the kids enjoyed it.
We ended up doing something really simple... the students in grade 4 learned the words to the song "Welcome to Our World" and then we made candle holders out of plastic bottles. The boys in the middle "got" to hold a sign (mainly because I didn't trust them to hold a lit candle!) but in the end, we used paper to make pretend candles anyway. Then we had a Mary and Joseph and one of the students insisted that he get to be "the world".
I can't even tell you how proud I am of them! Some of my students cried when they first heard the song... I thought they were playing, but it really did touch them!
So here is the video of my class and a few pictures from the 3 nights. Enjoy!
(the video is too big to put the whole thing on here, so I had to cut some of it out... at the beginning the students read some verses about the Son of Man coming to save the earth)

Had a bad day...

So... I have a few posts started that are just waiting for pictures to be added (lets face it, I can't take pictures of my newly decorated room until I get it clean, and we all know that could take awhile). This has been a tough year with a tough group of kids, and there's less than 2 months left now. But lately it seems like the never-ending tunnel. I've been putting in several 14 hour days a week and still can't seem to get caught up and get everything done. By the time the weekend is here I usually just don't want to do anything, although I should be using that time to keep trying to get caught up. I've been trying to teach my kids about respect, because they've never been expected to respect anyone before it doesn't seem like. It's been a never-ending battle of owed recess minutes, lunch hours, dictionary copying, and the list goes on. I'm ready to give up, but at the same time I refuse to give in and let them win. I'm afraid they are going to end up hating me or thinking that I am super mean, but I keep trying to tell them that I love them and I'm doing this to try and help them learn an important discipline. I thought things were going semi-well until I found out every time my back is turned, they are making faces or talking across the room or pretending to play punch me or someone else in the room. I feel like all they've learned is how to misbehave and not get caught. Then tonight as I was trying to get things graded and copied and ready for the next day, the printer stopped working, restarted, and then got jammed. I was trying to pull out one of the papers when my hand slipped and hit the open copy door super hard and swelled up like a strawberry... I literally have a giant egg on my hand.
I know I'm so close, but at the same time, I'm so tired and worn down. I know I work to hard, but in the 2 years that I've been here I haven't been able to figure out the secret of getting everything done and having time off. I think part of it is me, I seem to work too hard at everything, and part of it is just the luck of the draw... a hard year with difficult students.
Hopefully one day they will look back and know that I did this to help them and they will see that I pushed them because I knew they were capable of more. I'll never really know. Right now I need patience... and a fast-forward button to the end of the year.
Depressing post, I know. More fun posts to come with pictures of my awesome room and my apartment. Just gotta find time to get my room clean....

A little video

So... my class is quite challenging because their personalities are SO incredibly huge, which can make for a really funny day, but also really difficult days where they won't sit still or listen or pay attention. The difficult days happen more often than the funny days, but of all the students here, mine are the most fun outside of class... we're still working on when and where certain comments and actions are appropriate.
Anyways... before Christmas we had an hour added onto the end of every day to try and make up time that we lost because of the flood. (more to come on that later). So we had an extra hour of time, but you can't really teach two math lessons in one day and by that time they are so tired of being in school. Luckily there was a LOT to plan for because it was Christmas time. We had a Christmas program to put together which meant a song to learn and actions to practice, and we also had to decorate our classroom. Every year there is a contest to see who can decorate the best using recycled materials. We have yet to win, but we try really hard!
During this last hour we just got to hang out and have fun. It was a good time to spend with them, although at the end of every day we were so exhausted. I don't take as many movies as I should, in fact this might be the only one, but I hope to start taking more so I can look back and remember this year and these kids.
Here is the video, enjoy!

Long time, no see

I know, I know... I am AWFUL at keeping this blog up to date. It's not that I don't want to share. Like I've said before, I really don't feel like there's much to write, it's a pretty normal life here, nothing exceptional really goes on. My last post shared some of the difficulties that this year has brought. My students are more challenging that I anticipated and much of my time and energy has gone to figuring out the best way to discipline them and get them to act properly so that they can learn. We're getting there, but it continues to be a daily struggle and a huge drain. I also have a huge class (for Thailand) with so many levels of ability, so there have been many days where I work from 7:30am-9:30pm or later trying to get everything graded and planned and put together. There was also a flood that caused a ton of problems in Thailand. I was here for the beginning of it, but then I went home for October break (2 week break at the end of our first semester) and it got worse and school got cancelled for 3 more weeks. Some Thai schools just started back last week. There has been a lot of damage all over the country because of it, although the area immediately around me is okay and our school was not affected. But with the missed weeks, it has left all of us extremely behind. We have certain standards for each subject that we are required to meet and have an artifact to prove we met it, and I am struggling to make sure everything gets taught. All of this to try and excuse the fact that I haven't written in 5 months, and I apologize. It's not all bad. There have been a lot of good things... The Christmas program was amazing, I got to spend Christmas at home, my students can be quite funny when contained and at the appropriate times, and an awesome new mall opened up. I started working with the youth group at church, I've been on a few habitat for humanity projects, I've continued to decorate my room/house to make it feel like home, and I just signed another contract to return for another year. As soon as I have a bit more time and have gotten my pictures and videos downloaded and such, I will post some more fun exciting posts that aren't quite so... drab and sad.

Rough Start

It's been a rough start this year. I have a lot of challenges that I knew would make it difficult, but I don't think I realized how difficult it would be and how it would affect me so much. I find that I work ALL the time and have very little time for anything else, and if I do have time for anything else, all I want to do is sleep.
Part of this is the stress and uniqueness of my job, but I've realized that part of it is also me. I've never had a job that wasn't my life. At Disney, I lived there, ate there, worked there,and everything else I did was centered around that job. Sometimes I put in 16 hour days. Here I feel like I work from 7:30-11 some days and still don't get everything done.
Yes there is a lot to do, but there's got to be a balance. I'm trying to find it. That's the me part. Part of it is my job, I knew it was going to be hard and I was up for the challenge, but the other part is me... I guess I just don't know when to quit or how to be okay with doing less. Some things HAVE to get done... I have to know what I'm teaching and have the materials ready. But trying to always be on top of things and grade every scrap they turn in and make everything SUPER exciting has really just exhausted me, which in turn doesn't really help the school day.
I'm trying to get things worked out, and at least I'm at a point where I know something has to change or I'm going to burn out fast.
Another big factor that has played into making this a rough start is the fact that my remaining grandparents... my dad's mom and my mom's dad, both passed away within a month from each other. I knew it was probably going to happen while I was gone, but it was really hard to deal with and be so far away. I wish I could have gone home for just a little while.
So that's been this year so far. Lots of loss and busyness... lots of students and figuring out how to teach them and make things understandable. But I love my class and things are getting better. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I feel like nothing is that exciting and i don't really have that much to tell you, so these posts are probably going to be few and far between.
Here is a link to my sister's blog... she wrote a really cool blog entry about my grandma.

Luckily I got to spend some time with them both before I came back. Here are some recent and some not so recent pictures:

Koh Tao

So we had a long weekend a few weeks ago, so me an my roommates (both who happened to be named Sarah... that gets a little crazy sometimes) decided to go to Koh Tao, which means turtle island :) Apparently sea turtles used it as a mating island, but since people began inhabiting it, they all went away, so we were hoping to see some, but didn't. Although it turned out to be a wonderful weekend.
It all starting in a bit of a hurry. Sarah G and I had gone to get the tickets earlier that week, and one of the ladies who worked in the office had arranged it to have a taxi come pick us up on Thursday at 7. Well... of course it would have to start to rain! Rain here stops EVERYTHING. You would think they would have a plan, since rainy season is an annual thing, but no, traffic STOPS. So our taxi drive was stuck and wouldn't make it on time, and due to what would now be an hour or more of extra travel time, the lady from the office called at 6:30 and said we needed to leave right away. Of course I wasn't dressed yet or done packing, but it was quite a scramble. We were out by the sidewalk a few minutes later attempting to hail a taxi in the rain. 5 taxis probably passed us by before we finally found someone who would take us. It ended up taking about an hour to get to the bus station, but it was a VERY eventful ride. Our young taxi driver was very entertaining. He was teaching us Thai and telling jokes and telling us about his life.



We got to the bus station with some time to spare, and of course had to stop by 7-eleven to get snacks. We finally loaded our bus (which pulled into the wrong terminal #... thankfully a nice Thai woman was there to help us out) and got ready for the long 6-7 hour drive. I of course slept without any real trouble, I just bundled up and dozed off. My roommates didn't fare as well. We arrived at the bus station in the south around 4am and had to wait there until 5 to catch our shuttle to the pier. Once we got to the pier and boarded the ferry, it was a 3 hour trip out to the island! In all it ended up being a 15 hour journey to get there, but it was SO worth it!!
We checked into our cute little hotel, and then set off to explore.



We walked all over the island. We saw some whale bones! and then hiked up to an overlook point. NEVER have I ever hiked something so steep! One nice woman let us come into her house halfway up for a break and a look at the view! Then we continued on. We got to the top and saw an overlook of a beautiful island next door that we were bound to get to the next day.







We went back to our hotel and swam for awhile before venturing out to find dinner. Being teachers, and having worked so hard the month before, we decided to go to bed at 9 :) We got up early the next day for a full day of snorkeling! A car came and picked us up and took us to the docks. We were supposed to leave at 9, but being Thailand, this company didn't have any way of capping the number of customers, so they had 300 people to accommodate. We ended up waiting for an hour before we could board a boat. There were some Thai people there who wanted to take pictures with us (we get this request a lot). So we took a few jumping pictures and talked to them for awhile.
We finally boarded the boat and it took us all around the island. We stopped at about 5 coves to snorkel. The fish were beautiful, but I have seen a lot of them before in Hawaii and Koh Phi Phi. What amazed me the most was the coral, and the amount of it! It was SO colorful and abundant. I wish I had an underwater camera so that I could show you! We had lunch on the boat, and then our last stop was the island we had seen the day before at the overlook. It was GORGEOUS! We hiked up to an overlook and then around a boardwalk that wrapped almost all the way around the island. Of course there were more Thai women up at the overlook wanting pictures. We were really sad to leave this island. And then of course being so tired, we went to bed early again that night.











The next day we did some shopping until it was time to board the ferry again for the long journey back. We were shuttled back to the bus station only to have to wait 2 hours to board our bus. We decided to go next to to Splinter's for some dinner. It was a really awesome restaurant. They assured us they were open, eventhough there wasn't another soul to be seen besides the workers. We sat down anyway, only to find out that EVERYTHING was in Thai. Of course we can't read Thai, and there were no pictures. Luckily we knew a few dishes in Thai and were able to order them. I'm not sure if they actually had them on the menu or not, but they made them for us. It was SO good!!!
Then another 6 hour bus ride and an hour taxi ride, and we were back at school. It was a wonderful vacation, but I wish it could have been longer!! We have another 3 day weekend coming up in two weeks, and I think the plan is to just stay at home. I need some rest, and I REALLY need some time to get my room clean and get things organized.