The Best Idea I've Ever Had.

So, I was thinking about what to do with my classes, and I decided I would teach them about syllables. Then, as I was thinking about that, I had the GENIUS idea to teach them how to write a Haiku (a 3-line, 13-syllable poem, with lines alternating between 5, 7, and 5 syllables each). As it turns out, I did this only for my amusement. I was not disappointed. My students can barely string a sentence together, so I knew that trying to get them to write poetry would just be magic. Ohhhhhh, it was. Anyway, I don't have much else to say about it, they will really speak for themselves. If there are words in [these], that's just my way of correcting things that were spelled very, very wrong.

Okay, here we go:

This is genuine

Import from America

Are you nauseated?

Thai land and people

I like Girl Frieng [Friend] beautiful

I dinner boy fring [friend]

(This next one goes out to Sarah Fasen...)

I would have a show

For when I'm a billionaire

Sarah so stupid

I tired of waiting

Angelina love Brad Pitt

I'll be playing ball

I have one mobile [as in phone]

My mobile is beautiful

and I like mobile

I have dog and cat

my dog is so very fat

my cat is so cute

How I'm I!

My name is Jelly

I like to took [talk] tellphone [telephone]

I'm smile so cute

Britny [Brittany] is teacher

teache is very beauty

chilred [children] lovey she

(and now, for the grand finale....)

Market has seller

seller selling children

children expensive

Okay, that's all. Seriously the best idea I have ever had. Ever.

Ancient City

Last week we were off school for most of the week for the Queen's Birthday. They take Mother's Day prettttttty seriously around here. So, because we were off, we decided to go to the Ancient City (it might be called Ancient Siam...I'm not sure). Anyway, we met Kat, who used to teach at CSB (where I teach), and we headed out of the city. Once we got there, we rented bikes for the day. I think it is technically a museum, but it is HUGE. There were just temples and statues and ruins everywhere. It was amazing. We just got to ride our bikes around wherever we wanted, and go into certain temples, and pass by others. There was even a small floating market in the middle of the place. It was seven thousand degrees that day, so while the bikes were awesome, it was disgustingly gross and sweaty. After we had been there for a few hours, and had seen a lot of the place (but there were whole areas we never even got to), we decided to call it a day. We were walking around, and we saw these steps. So, we decided to climb them. Every time we reached the top of one set of stairs there was another. On each level there were different ruin-type things. So we climbed and climbed and climbed, and we reached the top. It was gorgeous. Well, my typing this doesn't really do it justice, so I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures. So this is a visual blog.

Okay, I guess that's it.

Sidenote--does anyone read this?

Amphawa and Fireflies

So I am really no good at blogging.

I should have written one about our holiday to Hau Hin. I'll sum it up for you:

1. We stayed at a place called the Fat Cat Guest House

2. It was cloudy and we got gnarly sunburns

3. Nick ate good seafood

4. I stepped on an urchin and the bastard stung me six times

[I should write all my blogs that way.....]

Anyway, last week, I think, Nick and I went to the Amphawa floating market with our friends Matt, Kae, and Taw. They are my favorite Bangkok people. We always have a ton of fun.

The market is about an hour and a half outside of Bangkok, but, lucky for us Taw has a car, so she drove us. Before we got to the market, we went to this super old temple. It was kinda in the middle of nowhere, and it was awesome. The temple was literally in a tree. It was amazing! We walked around there for awhile, and saw these statues of super old Thai soldiers preparing for battle. So, naturally we had some good, inappropriate fun with them. Here are some pictures of that: Also, I just realized I have no idea what the temple was called. But I'm okay with that.

[Outside of the temple]

[Inside of the temple]

[Weird fighting statues]

After we walked around there, we left for the floating market. I don't know if you guys know what a floating market is, so I'll explain it. I sure didn't know what it was before I went to one. First of all, it was huge. AND SO CROWDED. There were so many people there. The market was on a river (at least I think it was a river. That may be incorrect), and there were boats on the water that had fresh seafood that was cooked on the spot for everyone at the market but me. Because that stuff is gross. Pretty much anything you could ever want is at the market. There were clothes, and toys, and bags, and food. OH, THE FOOD. All we did from the time we got there until the time we left was eat. [I'm going to go off on a huge tangent for a minute...I really like having Thai friends because I really like going out to eat with them. At any point of a day there are people eating all over the city, and I love that. So when we go out to eat, we order like ten thousand different, amaaaazing things and all share. I've had some of the best food I have ever eaten in my life. And had it not been for my Thai friends I wouldn't have had it because for the most part menus are not in English. Okay, that's my tangent. Food is awesome] So at the market we ate. And we ate a lot. We had little sweet bread things, meats on sticks, seafood, dumplings, fruit, noodles, and so many other things that I absolutely cannot remember. So for most of the day we walked around and tried on funny hats and ate food. It was so fun. It was one of the best days I've had in Bangkok. Here are some random pictures from walking around:

Taw and I were feeling especially adventurous, so we decided to get fish massages. I've seen these all over Bangkok, and have been totally creeped out by them. I do not like fish. But, I was feeling gutsy. So all you do is stick your feet in a tank full of these little fish, and they just attach themselves to your feet and legs. They're very cleansing, and suck out all the bad toxins, energy, and eat dead crap. Now, feet and fish are two of my least favorite things in the world, so at the beginning there was A LOT of screaming and screeching on my end. After about five minutes I got used to it, so that was good. Pretty much it felt like a mixture of vibration and slight electrocution the whole time. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but it was....interesting.

So after walking around and eating more food, we waited for it to get dark and we got ready to see the fireflies! Amphawa is famous for being near one of the largest natural habitats for fireflies. So we got on a really long boat, and they took us for a ride on the water. So for an hour we just got to look for fireflies in the trees. It was gorgeous. I didn't take any pictures of the fireflies, because that would be dumb, but I did take some from the boat. So...here they are.

So, that was our day! I wish I would have written this right after we went, because there's probably a lot I'm forgetting. So I apologize if this is super lame. I'll try and be better. But it was amazing. Definitely a day I won't forget.

Today we went to Ancient Siam. I'll try and blog about that soon.

ps, I can now say "shut up" and "you are lazy" in Thai. I feel like I've learned all I can.

pps/pss, Hi Lauren. Thank you for being such a dedicated blog reader :)