Friday, December 14, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Livin and Lovin
As I was walking back from teaching a great math class, I saw about 20 elementary school kids walking single file up towards the dining hall. All of a sudden a huge palm frawn cam crashing down about 10 feet from the kids. Everyone gasped at the same time, then after a few second of silence, all the kids starting clapping. I started laughing, it was such a funny thing to witness.
One interesting/surprising thing (maybe) about Thailand is that, unlike a lot of other Asian cultures, Thai people don't use chopsticks. In Thailand, almost everyone uses a fork and spoon to eat all their meals, which is much more practical for curry and rice than chopsticks. The spoon is the utensil for eating and the fork serves to guide the spoon and help push things on to the spoon. Just thought I'd mention that.
One interesting/surprising thing (maybe) about Thailand is that, unlike a lot of other Asian cultures, Thai people don't use chopsticks. In Thailand, almost everyone uses a fork and spoon to eat all their meals, which is much more practical for curry and rice than chopsticks. The spoon is the utensil for eating and the fork serves to guide the spoon and help push things on to the spoon. Just thought I'd mention that.
Free Time
I had the entire day off after working the morning shift. Most of the day was spent arranging things, and teaching. I also started looking into plans for my break in March. Unless I come up with something better, I found a cool trip to Uganda to build houses. We'll see how that plays out in the next few months. At night I found myself bored so I read the book of Job and then the book of John. Both were great reads. Job was challenging.
I always thought the book of Job was mainly in order to show that bad things do happen to good people. The meaning of the book is much deeper and more theological. The point of the book is mostly to disprove the idea that "being good" causes God to reward you and "being bad" causes God to punish you. God doesn't operate like that - you don't stub your toe in the morning because you sinned sometime recently. The book of Job shows two things: the sheer size of God, and that sometimes it seems that the evil prosper and the righteous suffer. In the end however, God is just and rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.
I don't think I've ever read the book of John in entirety and it felt really good. I've known almost all the Bible stories and especially the life of Jesus since I was a young child, but to actually read the words themselves all together was something new to me. One thing that stood out to me was how many times, at the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples that they could ask anything in His name and it would be given to them. Jesus goes on to say that they should do this while letting His words abide in them. In other words, when you know what Jesus is about and what he wants, you will know what to be asking for. Very cool indeed. I stopped reading for a second and asked God to do work through me in India next week and here at the school.
I got bored later on and decided I would like to start memorizing all the bones in the body, starting with the skull. I can now identify all the bones of the skull including the foramen, lines, and sutures from all views except the interior and inferior (inferior is hard, I'll save it for later).
I always thought the book of Job was mainly in order to show that bad things do happen to good people. The meaning of the book is much deeper and more theological. The point of the book is mostly to disprove the idea that "being good" causes God to reward you and "being bad" causes God to punish you. God doesn't operate like that - you don't stub your toe in the morning because you sinned sometime recently. The book of Job shows two things: the sheer size of God, and that sometimes it seems that the evil prosper and the righteous suffer. In the end however, God is just and rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.
I don't think I've ever read the book of John in entirety and it felt really good. I've known almost all the Bible stories and especially the life of Jesus since I was a young child, but to actually read the words themselves all together was something new to me. One thing that stood out to me was how many times, at the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples that they could ask anything in His name and it would be given to them. Jesus goes on to say that they should do this while letting His words abide in them. In other words, when you know what Jesus is about and what he wants, you will know what to be asking for. Very cool indeed. I stopped reading for a second and asked God to do work through me in India next week and here at the school.
I got bored later on and decided I would like to start memorizing all the bones in the body, starting with the skull. I can now identify all the bones of the skull including the foramen, lines, and sutures from all views except the interior and inferior (inferior is hard, I'll save it for later).
Friday, December 7, 2007
Let's Talk About Sun
No, I'm not referring to the large star which our solar system centers around, I'm talking about a 5th grader in my homestay.
Sun is a Thai 5th grader who lives in Sakthong house, and is probably one of my favorite humans. Sun is about 90% bilingual from what I've experienced. I believe the following events will help best describe Sun.
Sun is very well behaved but about 1 week ago I heard a lot of noise coming from his room after I had sent him and his roommates to bed for the night. When I opened the door I found some kid running around with a plastic scythe. What the heck is this? It turns out the scythe belongs to Sun and that it is a leftover from his Halloween costume. Since then I have seen him wandering around the house with his Scythe.
Tuesday night I heard a lot of noise coming from Sun's room again. When I opened the door I found him and his roommates dancing around to what sounded like an African drumming CD which was playing from a boombox in the closet. I tried to go turn it off but Sun was trying to push me away. I put down my stuff, picked Sun up and threw him into bed as he continued to suffocate himself with laughter. Without saying much, I yanked the boombox out of the closet, cord and all, and left the room laughing to myself. Sun is known to dance around when he thinks no one is looking.
Sun is actually very intelligent and resourceful. Somehow, he knows ever teacher's last name. 2 weeks ago Sun's laundry returned but with no underwear. He never said a word to anyone until we caught him a week later. He had been wearing the same pair of underwear for the whole week, and he had been washing it in the sink every day.
Sun clings to you and asks you incessant questions. He is known to hang off Ms. Paula and anyone else who will tolerate his hilarious clinginess. Sometimes I catch him talking to himself and he just looks at me says "waat?". I'm not exactly sure how to describe how awesome he is. He's always doing something funny or saying something funny without knowing it.
In any case he's actually very intelligent and one of the most well behaved and obedient kids.
Sun is great.
Sun is a Thai 5th grader who lives in Sakthong house, and is probably one of my favorite humans. Sun is about 90% bilingual from what I've experienced. I believe the following events will help best describe Sun.
Sun is very well behaved but about 1 week ago I heard a lot of noise coming from his room after I had sent him and his roommates to bed for the night. When I opened the door I found some kid running around with a plastic scythe. What the heck is this? It turns out the scythe belongs to Sun and that it is a leftover from his Halloween costume. Since then I have seen him wandering around the house with his Scythe.
Tuesday night I heard a lot of noise coming from Sun's room again. When I opened the door I found him and his roommates dancing around to what sounded like an African drumming CD which was playing from a boombox in the closet. I tried to go turn it off but Sun was trying to push me away. I put down my stuff, picked Sun up and threw him into bed as he continued to suffocate himself with laughter. Without saying much, I yanked the boombox out of the closet, cord and all, and left the room laughing to myself. Sun is known to dance around when he thinks no one is looking.
Sun is actually very intelligent and resourceful. Somehow, he knows ever teacher's last name. 2 weeks ago Sun's laundry returned but with no underwear. He never said a word to anyone until we caught him a week later. He had been wearing the same pair of underwear for the whole week, and he had been washing it in the sink every day.
Sun clings to you and asks you incessant questions. He is known to hang off Ms. Paula and anyone else who will tolerate his hilarious clinginess. Sometimes I catch him talking to himself and he just looks at me says "waat?". I'm not exactly sure how to describe how awesome he is. He's always doing something funny or saying something funny without knowing it.
In any case he's actually very intelligent and one of the most well behaved and obedient kids.
Sun is great.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
90%
I woke up this morning late because a power surge in the night shorted and destroyed my phone. To compound this, there was no running water available in our building - so forget a shower.
There is a poem taped to my refrigerator at home that is easily as old as I am. The poem is entitled Attitude. Life is 90% attitude, the poem says. I shrugged these two problems off and my day turned out to be great. Despite waking up late I was still able to catch the tail end of breakfast, and I patiently spent a good 5 minutes blotting the oil off a delicious omelet with a ton of vegetables in it.
At work I finished planning math lessons for the rest of the semester. Dinner featured a very spicy panang curry and a great fish dish. After dinner I saw Mary (the AP English teacher who is in her late 50's) and helped her carry in all the stuff she had bought during the teacher's day trip to the mall. She was grateful and gave me a bag of homemade cookies she bought at a local market which I later gave to all my homestay kids. She and her husband David (who's math class I'm taking over) invited me in for tea and a little tart which was amazing. They put on music, turned on their cool Thai lamps and we just sat and talked for a good half hour. It was so nice, just sipping tea and enoying eachother's company.
At study hall I prepared a number of math questions and instructions for N'John, a kid in my math class who is very very far behind. After 3 days of trying to break him of faulty habbits I think he finally understands regrouping for subtraction. It was one of the most satisfying moments I can remember. I had him do 5 or so problems, and he got them all, I was so happy!
Life is what you make of it.
There is a poem taped to my refrigerator at home that is easily as old as I am. The poem is entitled Attitude. Life is 90% attitude, the poem says. I shrugged these two problems off and my day turned out to be great. Despite waking up late I was still able to catch the tail end of breakfast, and I patiently spent a good 5 minutes blotting the oil off a delicious omelet with a ton of vegetables in it.
At work I finished planning math lessons for the rest of the semester. Dinner featured a very spicy panang curry and a great fish dish. After dinner I saw Mary (the AP English teacher who is in her late 50's) and helped her carry in all the stuff she had bought during the teacher's day trip to the mall. She was grateful and gave me a bag of homemade cookies she bought at a local market which I later gave to all my homestay kids. She and her husband David (who's math class I'm taking over) invited me in for tea and a little tart which was amazing. They put on music, turned on their cool Thai lamps and we just sat and talked for a good half hour. It was so nice, just sipping tea and enoying eachother's company.
At study hall I prepared a number of math questions and instructions for N'John, a kid in my math class who is very very far behind. After 3 days of trying to break him of faulty habbits I think he finally understands regrouping for subtraction. It was one of the most satisfying moments I can remember. I had him do 5 or so problems, and he got them all, I was so happy!
Life is what you make of it.
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