and this one time, i moved to bangkok: English Camp

I already have a feeling this blog is going to have tangents. Just...so you know.

That being said, I'm going to go on a brief, clarifying tangent. I want you to briefly look back on field trips you had in high school. Do you remember how often attendance was taken, how you were never allowed to be alone, and how you could never ever go in water aside from a shower, or have co-ed sleeping quarters? Yeah? Ok, think the opposite for Thai field trips. We took students to see a movie a few months ago, and they all lined up and then just scattered--some jumping on motorbikes, others walking, others taking the bus or a taxi, and others who probably just went home. It's just up to them to get there. Insanity. Now, this works. I'm not shit-talking Thai field trips. I'm merely pointing out the difference.

So, English Camp. Don't let the name fool you, there is very little English spoken on this 3-day excursion. We took our LVT (language major) students, levels 1-3, with higher vocation students there to be our helpers. Going into English camp, I was by NO means looking forward to it. I had heard just terrible things about it, and that the students were awful and that it was just going to be three days of no fun. I was pleased to find that I didn't feel that way. Would I ever want to do it again? No, probably not. But it was so much more fun than I had expected.

So we left Bangkok at "7" am (The "" are because in Thai time that really means like 9:30) and headed south. We went to a resort on the Ocean (that might not be true, it might have been the Golf of Thailand.) that was about six hours south of Bangkok. We stopped at a Temple on the way there, but I don't think I was appropriately dressed and I was starving, so I didn't really look around there too much. It was pretty though. Lots of mountains. We got to the resort and everyone grabbed their luggage and then we found our rooms. The teachers had a house, the older students had a house and the rest of the students were in the hotel part of the resort. Worked out pretty well, actually. So then we sat around. Mostly what English Camp consisted of was waiting. Always freaking waiting. So everyone got changed and we met back at the beach for games and silliness. We played tug-of-war. And a lot of it. I hate tug-of-war. But it was fun to watch the students. So then we all jumped in the water and played in the waves. That night there wasn't much planned except for some stupid games that had absolutely nothing to do with the English language. Then all the students got drunk. Hi-Laaaaaarious. That means hilarious. I thought I would hate drunk students, but boy was I wrong. First of all, they're all drunk so they're super nice and generous. Especially generous with their whiskey. So we kinda toured a bunch of different rooms, said hi to the students we like. The first years, who are only like 15 got super drunk and it was just....it was just really really funny.

The next day we went to a temple that was way up in the hills over looking the water. It was stunning. There was a little temple thing at the entrance, with a huge statue. It was awesome. Then if you walked for like ten miles and up fifty-one thousand stairs, there was a huuuuuuge temple. Once again, I wasn't appropriately dressed, so I couldn't go in, but I hung out outside, and it was gorgeous. That afternoon we had to play more stupid games, but this time the teachers ran the games so there was actual English being spoken. I got tired of my game by the end and just had students tell me a word in English, but it went well overall.

The second night was "fancy night." Students got all dressed up, which was fun and cute, and there was a talent show thing. Teachers sang, students sang, students danced, students dressed in drag...there was a lot going on. But it was silly. Then the teachers had to do a fashion show. And anyone who knows me can probably guess how I felt about that. If you don't, I'll tell you. Barf. Barf is how I feel about that kind of thing. So Nick dressed as Harry Potter and I was Hermione. So that was awesome. After our fashion show we [teachers] sat on the beach and were given pieces of yarn or string or something. The students then came up to us and kneeled and we tied the things around their wrists. It was just like a respect/good wishes/thanks type thing. It was really pretty, actually. There was also a seafood buffet that night and drinking and general merriment. The next day we sat around for about 13.6 hours and finally made it home. So, I guess that's just the gist of it. I'm not sure how this got so long. Sorry 'bout that. But here are some pictures:

[One of my favorite students, Mai. She's just wonderful]

]Teachers playing tug-of-war. Terrible]

[Clearly more concentrated on smiling for the picture than on the game.]

[The class these kids are in makes my head nearly explode. But these kids are okay.]

[Big ass statue]

[IEP, higher vocational, kids]

[View from the temple]

[Foreign Language Teachers! L to R: Nick, me, Nahoko (Japanese), Ploy, Liu (Chinese) Som, Jill, and Joel]

[Nick and Ploy]

[Teachers. Stairs. You know.]

[This is Ching. He never speaks or does classwork. I just leaned he knew any English at all. And he spends his class time messing with his hair. But for some reason he's pretty much one of my favorite students. I've heard him say probably a total of 15 words.]