Kanchanaburi

So this past weekend I gave the monkeys at Erawan Waterfalls a second chance. I didn’t just go to see if they were going to be a little bit nicer. Instead, some of the girls who I haven’t seen since Christmas hadn’t seen the waterfalls yet so I decided to head to Kanchanaburi with them. Liz and I took the rinky-dink Suphanburi bus to Kanchanaburi Friday after school. The one positive thing to taking this route was seeing the gorgeous sunset over the mountains. It’s hard to describe the beauty of the sunsets I’ve seen in Thailand. There’s something about the colors in the sky and of the sun that match perfectly with the bright green grass and trees that make it more unique than any other sunset I have seen. Words really don’t do it justice though.

We met the other girls at our hostel and had a delicious dinner. We laid low Friday night to be able to catch the bus bright and early to Erawan.  Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who had the idea of catching the early bus. It was packed. All 7 of us ended up having to stand on another rinky-dink bus for almost an hour and a half bus ride. When we arrived to the waterfalls, we decided we would power up to the 7^th tier and take our time on the way down to swim. As we began our hike and were admiring the 1st tier of falls, sure enough those darn monkeys slyly approach me from behind. Good thing Liz was there to warn me. I don’t get it! I had nothing in my hands that the monkey would have wanted, especially food, but maybe my camera?! Idk…either way they freak me out. Thank goodness there weren’t any other hissing monkey encounters like there with my mom and brother.

After three hours of hiking and swimming, we made our way back to the hostel and enjoyed a Thai massage. A man riding on a moped with a baby strapped to his chest in one of those baby carrier things stopped to say hello to the massage ladies. The baby was adorable! The dad was definitely not Thai, but the massage ladies told us that the baby’s mommy was. However, she died two months ago in a car accident. What a sad story L The rest of the evening was a lot of fun! I had a really good curry with tofu and vegetables for dinner.  We played some fun drinking games back at the hostel on our porch and ended up playing pool and dancing the rest of the night. Being extremely pumped for Super Bowl 45, I wanted to be sure everyone knew who the Packers were and what game they were playing in come Sunday, February 6^th. Unfortunately, majority of the people I was telling didn’t seem to care nearly as much as I do. Sometime during the night, some Thai woman got pretty upset with me. I could tell she was giving me bad looks and talking smack, but I didn’t really understand why. Liz explained to me that apparently, on accident, I bumped her cue stick as she was trying to shoot. Then, I mistakenly decided to join in on her game, but I wasn’t down for playing fair and decided I could move the white ball whenever I wanted. She clearly wasn’t in the mood for any fun and games. Oops…oh well! Good thing I’ll never have to see her again. The next morning, Jenna and Liz woke up spooning each other in one of the small twin beds, both claiming they didn’t know how it happened. Ha-ha! We were able to sleep in Sunday morning and enjoyed a late breakfast before we parted different ways. It was a really fun weekend!    

Today at school, I found out we will only be teaching for another four weeks. I cannot believe time has gone so fast. It seems like just yesterday, I was arriving to Bang Plama and playing ice – breaker activities with my students. Now, I’m already planning their finals. It also seems a little strange that the semester can already be almost over. I don’t feel like I’ve taught much during the second part of the semester; maybe just because last week my students seemed to be more of a challenge than usual, almost like it was the beginning of the semester again. Last Thursday morning, the day I teach all M2’s, started off horrible. As soon as I stepped away from the board and tried conducting a speaking activity for the students, they went nuts. It’s like it’s a free for all when my co-teacher is not in the room; an opportunity for them to run around the classroom while hitting each other in the butt or the head along with screaming and singing at the top of their lungs. The classroom was unmanageable. I couldn’t just laugh it off this time. I left the class feeling very down and disheartened and that my efforts teaching here are a complete waste of time when students act like they did in that class. It is pretty much impossible for me to control the naughty students and still have time to teach the studious ones. Needless to say, I became very frustrated, very fast. I was not looking forward to the rest of the day… thankfully it did become a little better. My disheartened feelings didn’t really go away until the next day when I taught with my M2 co-teacher, Ajarn Napasorn. She asked me when I would be leaving Thailand and said she hoped that I would stay and that she enjoys having me teach here. It was the first time I had gotten any type of feedback on my teaching. It made me feel like my time teaching here has made an impact on my students and their learning. It’s just hard to know the real impact I have had so far when no one evaluates my teaching abilities. Finally, after receiving the comment from Ajarn Napasorn, it gave me a little better idea of how I am doing; but I feel I would benefit more from receiving advice towards the beginning of the semester instead of towards the end. Oh well, some advice and/or comments is better than none at all….Mai pen rai!