Let's Celebrate!

Celebrating has been a theme here in Thailand. The Thai's love to celebrate anything, everything, nothing! This has lead to many of our frustrations, crazy right! Celebrating being frustrating? But it's true. There have been many times that we have come to school or gone to class to find there are no students because they are celebrating something- a brothers birthday, (not a homey- brother but a Catholic brother) the opening of Christmas celebration, the school's 50th anniversary, sports day, and one of the latest a talent show. This bothers me more than Ed- I have a schedule and a plan we need to follow.

For this talent show everyone in the entire school prepared a dance for it. Who knew soooooooo many students were great at dancing? Well they didn't come that way- that type of showcase needs practice! So when do we practice? After school? No way! This is going to take some serious class time to practice for! After all we need to be prepared to celebrate, what else would you use class time for preparing for a test? So that is what happened. For the WEEKS leading up to the the big show classes were cancelled or rearranged (all while teachers were writing finals). One week I only saw half of my classes and still only half of the kids in the classes I has- it's okay they had a pass. All in all it was a big deal- there were 20 rows with 20 tables with 10 chairs at each table. Each chair (ticket) cost 500 baht or about $17.00 USD. OMG!!!! There was a huge stage and lights and speakers like a rock concert. When stuff like this happens you can't fight it! I mean they have the right to P...A...R...T...Y!

Last week was no different- it was Chinese New Year. This of course meant a celebration was in order. It's the year of the rabbit! So they decided that there should be no classes on Thursday, we have many families with Chinese Heritage and so many will not come. Very true! On Wednesday I had one class with 19 students absent and a different class with 16 students absent. I teaching though correspondence now.

So maybe the students haven't learning much the last few weeks but I have or trying to. It is to relax a little and just celebrate anything, everything, nothing!

Chrristeila