My routine

(I sent this out as an e-mail to friends back home, and figured I'd share it here as well.)

I've now been in Bangkok eight months. Thinking back, it's crazy to think how much of an adustment I've had to make. Living here in the beginning just shocked every part of me. I'm a creature of habit, and this threw me off. I had to figure out where to buy clothes that fit me, where I could get food, what I could eat for breakfast, how to wash clothes, how to work the shower, who my friends were going to be, how I was going to work out, how I could afford life, how to survive the 7:45-4:30, how to handle the heat, the smells, the beggars, the lady-boys, the prostitutes, the communication.......but I have more or less figured it out now.


My Routine



Getting Up

As I've figured it out, I've settled into an approximate routine: I wake up in my spacious walk-in closet at 6:20 every morning. Because I went to sleep too late the night before, I immediately hate life, and hit the snooze button. After ten minutes of wishing I could fall back asleep, I turn my alarm clock off, and lay in bed for five more minutes, mustering the strength to get out of bed. I then drink a yukha (yogurt drink that somebody told me helps me stomach. Anything that is ever rumored to help my stomach, I drink.), take a shower, get dressed, and jump from my apartment balcony on to the Bangkok Sky Train. (Ok, it's not REALLY that close, but it's close) I get off the sky train, and if I'm on time, hop on the little open air school bus that takes me to school. If I'm running a bit late, I hail a moto cy driver, and have him zip me to school for 33 cents.


At School
Once at school, I immediately go to the school store and get a bag of freshly picked and cut papaya for 75 cents. I then walk towards the office. On my way to the office, the national anthem is played. I due my duty, withstand the heat, and stand, frozen, for the duration of what feels like the longest song in the world. I arrive at the office, and change into my mismatched work shoes (I came to Bangkok with an already ratty pair of shoes. Being in them all day at work, and jumping around in class basically destroyed them, so I caved and bought a new pair. Two weeks after buying the beautiful new pair of shoes, I left one in the phone booth. This meant I had to revert back to my old pair of shoes. After a week or two, the right footed shoe just completely broke down. Fortunately, I still have my RIGHT footed NEW shoe. I don't want to spend 30 dollars on a new pairs of of shoes, so I just wear the two mismatched ones.[at least their both black] So far, the only person to say anything is my boss, and he thinks it's funny)

With my shoes on, I am officially dressed for class, so I go over the lesson I am going to teach next, prepare worksheets and games for class, and leave for my class a little later than I should. As I get to the hallway in my school where the 6 classrooms that house 250 2nd grade girls, I am greeted by waves, and pleas for "hi fies." Upon prompting, they correct their pronounciation to high fiVVVVe, and I oblige them by making them jump for a high fiVVVVVe. (They get an incredible sense of accomplishment of having to jump for a high five. Interestingly, this is not limited to second graders. I've done it with adults, and it's more rewarding for them too.)


Class
Upon my arrival at class, I forget to sign the sign in sheet. My arrival does nothing to calm the bedlam in class, only leading to more students asking for hi fies, and some especially eager student wondering if we're going to play "freeze." My co-teacher arrives, and yells at the kids in Thai....I never have any clue what she is saying, but they all get a look of shame, and quiet down and come to order. I assume she is chastising them for acting like seven year olds.

She then takes half of the class upstairs. The remaining students then organize themselves into teams (each row is a team) The first team to come to order gets to pick their name first, and gets a head start on points. (Points are the lifeblood of class. Kids will do anything to earn them, and cringe at the mere idea of them being taken away) I then start off the class with a game of freeze, where I command the students to do various things in english brush teeth, eat noodles, watch TV, dance, sing, and then will suddenly say freeze. I then walk around class imitating and making fun of the positions they are stuck in. "I said to SWIM! You have your mouth open! Don't swim with your mouth open! If you swim with your mouth open, you will swallow water!" (I imitate choking and drowning)" We then start the actual phonics portion of the class, where I try to trick the kids into learning, by allowing them to earn points for it.

After managing to hold their attention for up to 6 minutes, I hand out a worksheet, with instructions to a draw a specific picture on the back after they are finished. During this time, the gifted, achievement oriented students finish early, and come over to my desk to do word box (I have a system for more advanced students where they take home 10 words at a time, master them, then come back and say them to me. After they have mastered the phonics 180 difficult English words, I give them three small stickers.) All the hyper ones finish early, and goof off. Everybody else just wizzes through the worksheet, and try to spend an obscene amount of time drawing the perfect picture.

If we still have time after giving them 20 minutes to draw a picture, we'll do what the most vocal 15% of the class wants to do: play a game!!!!! Run and hit!!???? At the end of class, the team with the most points gets my signature in their "Achievement chart." After I sign their chart 18 times, they get three small stickers.


After School Club
After teaching three four classes like this, all remarkably similar, I finish off my day by doing an after school english club with my second graders. I start off this club by asking them how they are. For the next ten minutese, I hear a variety of responses............ "I'm hungry!" What do you want to eat? "Pizza and teacher Chris!"......................."I'm hungry!" What do you want to eat? "Ice cream, 100 scoops!"..........."I'm sad." Why? "May hit me!" (imitates action, everbody laughs)........................."I'm sad." Why? "My grandmother died." (me...*blinking*...."sorry")............................."I'm happy" Why? "I love conversation." ................"I'm happy." Why? "I see Teacher Chris is Monkey!"

We then do the most dramatic reenactment of Jack and Jill ever, and play their favorite game ever: Four corners. Each corner of the room is asigned a word. I close my eyes, and tell them to do an action...run, skip, shop, shave. When I say stop, they must stay in their corner. I say one name of one corner. Whoever is in that corner is out. This continues until their are only a few left in the game.

We play random games for the rest of class. The Thai teacher in class ends it five minutes early. 75% of the class grabs their backpacks and screams out the door. The rest stick around to plead their case for stickers. After giving the worthy ones stickers, I head back to my office, put my tennis shoes back on, and head to the outdoor cafeteria for some Thai food. After seeing that the food is not edible for a person with functional taste buds, I head to the gym, and stop by Subway for some food.


The Gym
Upon entering the gay club masquerading as a gym, I am bombarded by techno mixes of the worst songs known to man. The gym teams with people. There are gym-certified trainiers in red polos and popped collars hovering, hoping somebody will hire them to help them magically become fit. The music is not the only thing I am bombarded with. In the locker, which is always stuffed with people, I learn that Thais definitely prefer skimpy briefs to boxers. Outside the locker, I face the shortest man-shorts I have ever seen, people working out in jeans and dress shoes, and a rash of "men" with FABulously styled hair.

I work out with my buddy, buy a fresh young coconut for 60 cents, catch a hot, crowded bus back home. I spend between 3 and 4 dollars on a delicious dinner with friends, poke around on the internet for too long, and go to bed at least one hour later than I should.

And that, only slightly embellished and generalized for the sake of your amusement, is my average day in Bangkok. I spend my average weekends playing basketball, going to church, and mybe doing a bit of volunteering. (This past weekend I spent some time with a refugee from Sri Lanka)

New Year Part 2

Continuing things I learned:

4. I can survive:
a. a room the size of a walk in closet
b. A shower/bathroom, the size of a linen closet, with no tub, curtain, or medicine cabinet
c. . A shower/bathroom, the size of a linen closet, with no shower, toilet, or medicine cabinet
d. Without live sports
e. An ulcer
f. Eating a grasshopper, and whole red hot chili pepper, soon after discovering I had an ulcer.
g. Applying to 13 law schools while in Thailand
h. Without a kitchen
i. Street food
j. Motorcycle taxis
k. Cambodia
l. Burma
m. Isaan
n. The revenge of the spicy Thai food
o. Caroling through a red light district.
p. Jet lag to end all jet lag
q. Working the 7:45 to 4:30.
r. Potentially malaria and dengue fever carrying mosquitos
s. living in a country where I am wholly ignorant of the language.
t. monkeys
u. without protein powder
v. a buzz haircut
w. without four eggs before I go to bed
x. Having to be an entertainer
y. Without decent health insurance.
z. Teaching crazy second graders

New Year Part 1

So a New Year doesn't really change much. Theoretically, it's foolish to wait until Jan. 1 to make new resolutions that could better your life. But it does provide an artificially good time to reflect on the old year, and look forward to the new. Let's start with....

Things I've learned:

1. I get along better, and meet people better from foreign countries than from my own. For some reason, I assume they are friendler--making myself more friendly (Haiti trip, trip to Thailand)

2. Traditional church in America has failed. They focus on doctrinal differences, superficial things that make attendance higher, and building bigger buildings. White, Christian America has hidden themselves from the poor in America, so they don't have to deal with guilt of not helping them. This is just touching the iceberg of the deficiencies. (Trip to Haiti, attending Church Under the Bridge, attending New Song, reading the news)

3. I love the energy kids have. Fear and pain steal away the excitement for life. (Haiti, teaching at my Thai school)

In a few days, I'll post things I've learned.....I can survive. (I know you all have short attention spans, and I want to create the illusion that I blog semi-consistently.

Holidays

So I've been terribly delinquent with my blog. Sorry.

I had a good Christmas in Bangkok. I definitely missed my family, but I had about three days straight of Christmas parties, so I didn't feel lonely.

New Year's, I went up to Northern Thailand (Chang Mai, Chang Rai, and Mae Sai). I FINALLY rode on a elephant, went rafting, and went to some flower festivals. More than anything, it was a chance to get away from the pollution, heat, and chaos of Bangkok. I also met some really cool people, from a really cool organization, called YWAM. Internet is rough here right now. Check facebook for pictures.

bangkokimprov.wordpress.com

Check out bangkokimprov.wordpress.com for videos me doing improv.

2nd grade story

Tears were shed in one of my classes.

One of the girls, let's call her Jen, is the most popular girl in the entire school. She's mixed (Western/Thai), so that automatically makes you more popular here. Plus, she's kind, socially and mentally intelligent, a great singer, and assertive. She has a bunch of lackey's that basically follow her around the school.

Anyhow, in class, I was going over the idea of ______has a _______. I would let the students fill in the blanks, then draw a picture of their sentence. One of the sentences they created was, "Jen has a pencil," and one of Jen's lackeys, Ploy, came up to draw a picture.

Well, this lackey happens to have a sense of humor, and started drawing Jen with big, buggy eyes. Jen gave a look of extreme perturbation. Ploy didn't notice, and moved straight to the mouth, where she drew a goofy smile and massive buckteeth. The fact that Jen's real face was now permanently buried in her forearms tipped me off that she wasn't in on the joke, so I told Ploy to stop, and quickly erased the HILARIOUS picture.

I changed the sentence to _____is in a_______ and asked for the another student to fill in the blank. Jen's most adoring lackey, Wan, quickly shot her hand up with "Ploy." When I asked for the next blank, she whirled around, shot a look of venom at Ploy, and said a word in Thai. I have no idea what it meant, but I don't think it was nice. I definitely didn't ask Wan to draw a picture of the sentence.

The rest of class, I could see the a look of regret in Ploy's eyes. She had dared to poke at the holy socially status of Queen Jen, and could sense the social scorn.

I taught a bit more, then worksheet time came along. Thankfully, Ploy and Jen are excellent students, so they whizzed through their worksheets. I walked over to Ploy and asked her how she felt about the picture she drew of Jen.(Thank God she spoke some English). She sorrowfully said that she thought it was just a joke, and informed me that she was sorry. She affirmed that she wanted to apologize to Jen, so I called Jen over. As Ploy apologized, her eyes welled up with cleansing tears, and she soon deteriorated to the point that she could only nod or shake her head.

I finished off the ritual by letting Melanie know that when she was sad, Ploy was sad. (I should have yelled at Wan, and made her apologize too, but that occurred to me too late.)

As I walked into school the next day, I saw Ploy and Jen playing together---all anger and sorrows forgotten---I love the transient sadness of little kids. In some ways the story shows how grown up they are. The seven year olds share kindred needs and insecurities with twenty-five year olds. But they forget their worries and animosities much quicker, and their spirit always drifts back towards joy.

Isaan

I recently went to Isaan, Thailand. Through New Song, I had met two sisters who had moved from a poor, remote village in Isaan to Bangkok in hopes of earning more money for their family. They had managed to find jobs, but their aging parents’ house was now decrepit, and in danger of collapsing. The house needed to be torn down and rebuilt. Though seemingly daunting, the house was dilapidated enough that tearing it down was easy, and Isaan “houses” are simple enough that they can be rebuilt in a few days. About twenty of us gathered a few tools, and made the ten hour journey to Isaan to take care of their parents.

The poverty in the remote village was just as stark as the poverty in Haiti. There was no running water or refrigeration. Children had only one or two pairs of clothes. Many children’s parents had died an early death, and I could see weary and pain in the eyes of the adults. But with the pains of poverty came the harmony of community. The lack of running water, refrigeration, and clothes were a trivial part of every day life. The children whose parents were gone had aunts, uncles, and grandparents who loved them like their own. Pain had wearied the adults in the community, but they still had the heart to come together as a community and help those in the direst need. To be able to help these people, and see their joy and thankfulness towards us was a thrill. I was blessed to be able to help them.