And the moral of the story is...?

I was asked last week to create the final exam questions for 4th and 5th grade classes. My co-teacher gave me a few packets and told me to shorten the stories and make up multiple choice questions. I read through the packets, just to get an idea of what to write. One of the stories was called "Monday Mornings" and is about a boy who wants to stay home from school. Here is the shortened version of what the brillant boys at St. Gabriel's must read:

It’s Monday morning and Tom is miserable. He lay in bed, thinking that he wished he was sick. While thinking, he felt that one of his teeth was loose. Aunt Polly would pull it out. Suddenly, he remembered something!
He looked at his sore toe. Then, he began to groan. His brother, Sid was still sleeping. Tom tried to wake Sid up. He groaned louder and shook Sid.
“What’s the matter, Tom?” said Sid.
Tom groaned again. “Don’t shake me, I’m hurting!” he said.
“I will go get Auntie. How long have you been like this?” Sid asked.
“A long time! Hours. Ouch!” said Tom.
“Tell me what is the matter? You should have woken me sooner.” Sid said.
“Oh Sid, this is the end. I forgive you for everything, brother…” Tom said.
“Tom, are you dying? Don’t Tom, please don’t!” Sid looked upset.
“Tell everyone I forgive them. Sid, give away my cat and belongings to the new girl. Tell her…” Tom whispered.
Sid ran out of the room.
“Auntie! Tom is dying!” Sid shouted.
“What? I don’t believe it.” Aunt Polly said.
Aunt Polly and Sid ran upstairs and sat next to Tom as he lay in bed.
“What’s the matter, Tom?” asked Aunt Polly.
“Oh, my! It’s… my sore toe.”
His aunt began to laugh. She laughed until she cried.
“You are crazy, Tom. You gave me a scare. Now, get out of bed.”
Tom felt foolish and his pain was gone.
“But Auntie, I have a loose tooth. It aches.” Tom said.
“There, there. Open your mouth and let me look… Ah, yes. I will pull it out. Get me a silk thread and a chunk of fire from the kitchen.”
“No, please! It doesn’t hurt. I don’t want to stay away from school!” Tom shouted.
“Oh, Tom. You just want to stay home and go fishing, I see. Not today.”
The thread and chunk of fire were ready. Aunt Polly tied one end of the thread to Tom’s tooth. She tied the other end to the bedpost. She threw the chunk of fire towards Tom’s face. The tooth was now dangling from the bedpost.
But, all troubles have rewards. When Tom got to school, all of the boys envied the gap in his teeth.

At least the story attempts to have a moral?

Endless dinners & early breakfasts

Since Chiang Mai, the past two weeks in a nutshell:

Teaching, work outs, training, celebrations, zumba, coffee binges, the Queen's birthday, volunteering at a women's shelter, strange dream interpretations, co-teacher dinners, talks of the future, awkward car rides, vacation planning, 5 seasons of the Office, the best shampoo ever, standing up for myself/retests, new goals, potential new memberships, fireworks, Toy Story 3, drinks that give you flashbacks, thoughtful postcards... and more teaching.

Hmm, so maybe this past fortnight was, in actuality, quite eventful.

I'll try my best to put the previous events in sequential order and hopefully explain what they actually mean, but I can't promise a full detailed account of each one:

Returning from my long weekend in Chiang Mai was a difficult adjustment but shortly after, we discovered that the Queen's birthday was 2 weeks away, which meant.. another two days off! We were thrilled for the vacation days as well as to see how big the celebration for the Queen would get. But first, the weekend prior would soon become the real birthday weekend. Two of my friends were turning the big 2-2 so we were planning some fun/alcohol filled activities.

Weekdays at school weren't bad, but nothing exciting was occurring. Oh, minus the re-testing that was going on. About two weeks ago, the students spent a week taking midterm exams, which was taken somewhat seriously. But for the students (and its a LOT of them) that failed the midterm, they were given the opportunity to have a re-test in class. This basically means, they are given shorter, easier sheets that they must score atleast a 10/20 on to pass. Seems simple enough? Just wait. Francis asked me to take a group to a separate classroom and adminster the tests. I gave them out, told the students they had about 20 minutes, to really take their time because they had to get 10 correct, check their answers atleast 3 times. I told them these were questions they had been given numerous times and it wasn't new. They finished and I began to grade them. Out of the 20 that retested, only about 3 passed. I gave the results to Francis and he told me I had misunderstood him. I was supposed to reteach the worksheet and basically give them the answers. They were all supposed to get a 20/20. Interestingggggggggggg.

The thing was...I didn't misunderstand him, because a testing process should never turn into that. The kids who failed and didn't study and who aren't paying attention in class because they'd rather draw anime characters or pretend to shoot eachother with their pencil boxes were now getting higher grades than the students who go home every night and do their homework and raise their hand in class. It was unethical & something I would not support, I couldn't succomb to that process. This was one procedure that I culturally and educationally could not accept. I told Francis this. Needless to say, he retested the rest of the classes that week.

Aside from the academic drama and me standing my ground (which I do not regret), I decided that week that I was out of shape. For many of you that know me well, I'm not the most athletic of people but I do try to make an effort. Being in a foreign country and with so many delicious temptations around me, I had to set a goal. I researched and found out about the Bangkok Marathon that takes place every year in November. So you ask, is Emily Cotter Hauze is going to run a marathon?!?!?! No, she's not... but she is going to partake in the 10K! Still a respectable aspiration in my book and something I've never done before.

The work days went by and the awaited weekend began. Friday night, Theme one: Decades party. I decided to embrace my birth decade and work it out 80's style. I threw on some leggings, an off the shoulder top & neon colored sweatband. All of us teachers dressed up (a few 80s, some 60-70s, an avatar, some 90s, one 50s houewife) and hung out on the roof of our apartment, which gives us a wonderful view of the city and just a great place to lounge and talk. We headed to Khao San after to get a drink, & the night ended with McDonald's...obviously.

The next day was spent zumba-ing, starbucks-ing, shopping, then to the spa/salon to prepare for the next extravaganza, which was a little more elegant. (By the way, this salon is amazing & cheap; I got the best shampooing ever! My hair was rejuvenated & style, and got an intense head massage which was surprisingly relaxing)

The restaurant that night was called Longtable and was located on the 25th floor of a hotel in downtown Bangkok. The view was incredible, we saw the entire city lit up. There was even a pool on the deck/balcony. It was a little pricey but we felt extremely grown up & definitely worth the experience. Afterwards we decided to partake in a pub crawl nearby, which was a good time, just to dip into the Bangkok nightlife scene, which I really didn't have a chance to experience until now. Successful!

The three day workweek is something I wish was more frequent. It was easy and I was excited to spent 4 days in Bangkok. We decided not to travel anywhere because 1. We were lazy and 2. We really didn't feel like we had gotten to know our current city of residence. Wednesday, we had a meeting with one of the Brothers of St. Gabes and were given a free dinner, in honor of the Thai Mother's Day (Happy Mother's Day Mom! Love you!). It was very generous of them. After the day was over, we decided to go get some sushi and a quick drink on Khao San. When we were finished we decided, well, we're not ready to go back yet, let's head to Mulligan's, our favorite Irish bar (well, my favorite for obvious reasons). I decided to treat myself to a pint of Hoegaarden, which came in the same huge glass that I had drank from at every Monday night pub quiz at BeerHaus in Cork. Definitely brough back some memories; it's amazing how one sip can surface a flood of memories, but I enjoyed it. After Mulligan's, we decided we still weren't ready to go home.. so we went to Roof bar which had a live band, and weirdly enough was airing Children of the Corn on their TVs (last week they played Alien). It was crowded but a fun atmosphere. Some of the girls wanted to head back, but one girl & I decided, nah, we weren't ready. We had another beer and starting talking to two nice guys from London. Oh, people speaking English, how refreshing!

We ended up staying until the bar closed, then headed down the street (are we seeing a trend?) to a late night restaurant & ordered a bucket. Made friends with a little girl selling flowers & bought her dinner. Is the night over yet? We headed downtown to a club called Narz, which was basically a techno-disco club and danced all night. There may or may not have been midgets dancing on stage as well. When we got tired of the midgets, can you guess where we ended the night? Good ol' Mickey D's...and without any concept of time, we watched them as they put up the breakfast menu. It was 6am and the sun was coming up. Needless to say, I slept until 3pm that day. Happy birthday to the Queen!

Earlier that week, my co-teachers had invited me to a Mother's Day dinner with two of my friends. I had heard from friends about the infamous Thai dinner outings so naturally, I was curious and accepted their invitation. Well rested, my one co-teacher, P.Oi, but I'll just call Oi, met me and my friends Paulina & Chrissy, at the school with her husband. They drove us to the restaurant which was a ways away. Francis (The Fran Man) drove himself and met us there.

The restaurant was very nice. It was surrounded by bamboo bushes and seemed to be built directly over a pond. They served traditional Thai dishes that I will never be able to pronounce. The meal (if that's what you wanna call it) consisted of (in order) ...pork kebabs, raw shrimp, one whole fried fish (complete with head, eyes & tail), prawn soup, papaya sald with crab, vegatable stir fry, fish "donut holes" (not at all tasting like donuts), a huge assortment of fruit, seaweed crisps, strawberry ice cream, and another whole fish. Oh, and our glasses never went empty; they were constantly being refilled with Chang beer. The evening was spent eating, of course, drinking, learning new Thai phrases, sharing stories about America, and cheers-ing, which I'm pretty sure occurred every 5-10 minutes, like clockwork. "Cheers to happiness times", they would say. It was definitely a night full of laughter & conversation, and even a little singing. With no control over the night, the girls and I were there for somewhere between 5-6 hours. In America, if you sat in a restaurant for that long, it's possible that the owners could ask you to politely move on. Not here. Oi kept saying, "Oh just 30 more minute, is that okay? The men like to talk and drink". Although the three of us were exhausted and full beyond belief, we made the best of situation to show how grateful we were of such a meal. When the Thais go out, they go out hard.

What happened next was something that put us in a very awkward and uncomfortable position. Yes, the men kept drinking and it was all in good fun. But as it was time to leave, we thought about our journey home. Was Oi's husband okay to drive? Would she drive instead of him? Would we not make it home? All of these answers were a definite no. Her husband was not able to drive but he did. Oi did not step in like we thought, but don't worry we safely made it home in a taxi by someone who was sober. But it was a struggle for us to even get Oi's husband to pull over -- she kept saying "No, we're going home, don't worry, I must go home too, we take you to John Mary" (our apartment building). We tried the "We're uncomfortable" and "We don't do this in America" as he swerved and stalled the car. Finally, we brilliantly came up with the idea: "Oh, we're actually meeting friends in the opposite way, how about we take a taxi and save you the trouble?" Whether or not we offended Oi & her husband or not, we left the car -- scared, relieved, and damn proud that we spoke up. All of us equally agreed, and I can't speak for them, but drunk driving is probably the last thing I want to be involved with, for more than the obvious reason.

**Sidenote: The story above is not meant to say that the Thais are ignorant or irresponsible, because after a night like this, they treated us in such an incredibly generous and considerate way, and most Thai people do, in social scenes. Playing the culture card is not an excuse for the behavior but its the only way I can try to understand their decision making process in this particular situation.

So.. an adventure it was, and no hard feelings (I don't think), because the next morning I had promised Oi I would help out in setting up for the St. Gabriel's open house. She greeted me as if nothing had happened, which I prefered. I stayed for about 2 hours, trying to help them make a bulletin board about the English Department which basically just looked like Rainbow Brite threw up on it, which I guess is appealing to the parents the future students.

The next two days I was able to transition smoothly from full grown, somewhat mature adult to a giddy, innocent toddler. That night I saw Toy Story 3 & had flashbacks to my childhood. I loved every single second of the movie & made me miss my toys, wishing I could play with them one more time (the Playmobile, Barbies, My Little Pony, the hundreds of stuffed animals). I laughed, I (almost) cried, I was scared, I was just downright happy leaving the movie theater. Not the mention, I had pizza with scallop potatoes on top (quite possibly a dish created specifically FOR me) and croissants from an amazing bakery. "Ladies, that was a top night" (Name that movie, Glynnis). My Sunday evening was spent at the Bangkok Aquarium, which although small compared to Baltimore was amazing. They had a decent variety of animals including jellyfish, crabs, penguins, OTTERS, sharks, and tons of cool fish. And, one of those underwater tunnels where the fish swim above you. It was pretty damn cool and I was not the oldest one there.. another success.

So I had planned on making this a quick recap but my ability to ramble combined with my joy of writing intervened so here we are. Hope my avid readers are still avid, because there is more to come and a silver lining is STILL revealed in every experience! CHUA!!

Lastly, I'd like to truely, genuinely thank EVERYONE who has sent me such thoughtful postcards over the past 3 months. Each week I get more and more and I could not feel more loved that being here. It's an amazing feeling! THANK YOU.