Anyway, this week was eventful. We managed to successfully have a week of English classes with Lauren gone on a retreat, so that is something to be proud of! She put everything together so that it would run smoothly while she was gone, and as far as I know, everything went smoothly. Classes were a lot of fun this week, even though it was a lot of grammar teaching about the simple past and simple present tenses, my students really got into it and enjoyed learning all the irregular past tense verbs in English....
“'Talk' in the past is 'talked'. That's regular.”
“What's 'sleep'?”
“Ah, well that one is irregular: Sleep is 'slept'.”
“What's 'eat'?”
“That one is also irregular: 'ate'”
“'Read'?”
“Heh, that's a fun one....”
And so on.
Then we had a carnival themed Friday night party with kettle corn, hot dogs, water bottle bowling, a photo-booth and several other very fun games (No snowmen this week, but we taught them how to play "ninja"!!!!!!). The students are getting more comfortable wit the group and with the games. Some of the less outgoing people have finally begun to exert themselves in the games. And it was a lot of fun to see how excited some of the students got when I announced the party to my class on Thursday. “Another one?” “Yes!” “We will come!”
So, another success! Hurray!
Before I get to today, though, I'm sure some of you will remember that the Evangel team that was in Cambodia came this week to Thailand and was staying here with the Evangel team working at the English Center. So, on Wednesday we all went to the Elephant Camp here in Chiang Mai and we got to see an excellent elephant show with elephants that painted beautiful canvases, played football (soccer), basketball, hula hoop with their trunks and pick up sticks. (By the way, when making a list of three or more things in English the intonation goes up for each item in the list except the last one, that one's intonation goes down... All these things I am learning about my own language by teaching!!! That one was free ;) hahah) Anyway, the elephants were absolutely amazing!!! They did even more in the show than that, but then there would be no reason for you to go look at my facebook pictures from it. ;)
Then we got to go on an hour long elephant ride through the jungle. It was amazing as well! I have officially ridden camels and elephants... For some reason I feel I have accomplished something in doing that... But that's not exactly earth shattering. It was a great experience! Entertaining as well when the “driver?” for our elephant, trainer I guess would be the best word, or maybe... our guide. Anyway, the guy sitting in front of us (one of the Cambodia team members named Ashley, and myself) on the elephant found out we were from the U.S. and promptly tried to sell me a U.S. $5 bill for 200 baht. A $5 bill is worth 150 baht.... So, yeah, I turned that one down... He didn't talk to us again the rest of the trip, but we gave him a nice tip anyway.
Then on the way back to the hotel before our classes at the English Center we stopped at a butterfly garden and orchid farm. Again, mind-blowing pictures on Facebook. Check 'em out.
;)
So, anyway, the Cambodia team left last night on an overnight bus to Bangkok and then flew this afternoon back to Cambodia (They will be there another 6 or 7 weeks. Don't ask why they came or the details on all of that, I still don't understand it all). They went to the zoo on Thursday, though (I slept in). And then two of them and one of the Evangel-Thailand team members hiked up the mountain (that we are located at the foot of) to go to see the wat at the top of it. It's a 3 hour walk or so, and I will definitely be making it soon, but I didn't even have the energy to think about trying it with them Friday morning. As I mentioned many times I wasn't feeling well last week. I eventually had to go to the pharmacy and get some antibiotics (over the counter here). So yesterday I finished the 4 days of that, and even though I have been feeling 100% better physically since I got them, I just didn't have much energy at all all week. So, pray that I can get my energy back up since this week we will start another teaching routine, as we'll be going to another town nearby and teaching two days a week there. It will be different, because I am pretty sure we have to figure out our own lesson plans and things like that for those teaching days. So we're just getting busier, but it's gonna be great!
Today was “Quest” and looking at the length of this post already, I think I will post about it separately, in the morning. But it was incredibly fun!
Blessings!
-Kristen
P.S. It's not Father's Day in Thailand, because in Thailand Father's Day is celebrated on the King's birthday as far as my few seconds of Googling can tell me. So that means that “Father's Day” here is in December. However, it is Father's day in many countries and this I will once again wish my favorite familial patriarch a pleasant day. :) Happy Father's Day daddy!!!
Ashley and I on an elephant. :)
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