A picture's worth a thousand words

For anyone who knows me well, I love taking pictures. And the word love could even be an understatement. Either way, I love the quotation "A picture's worth a thousand words". The picture's below are a pretty accurate picture of the last couple weeks of my life here, though I will provide a description.

My Mattayom 6 students put on a surprise party for me the day after my birthday! It was a complete surprise until P'Mai (my co-teacher for the class and a good friend) sat me down and told me that my students didn't like me anymore and wanted a new teacher. At that point I thought something was up but I wasn't sure what. They had decorated the classroom and written notes on the board to me. They even have a class gift and cake!

My wonderful 6/2 class. Notice my sunglasses - I had an awful allergy that turned my eyes red and the students wouldn't talk or look at me unless the sunglasses were on.

Just another day in the English Office with the EP students. Most of them are Mattayom 2 (Grade 8) and they're super entertaining.

Ooh and me at our English department party! Our English director held it at his house, complete with a bbq, fruit salad, and roasted veggies. And of course, karaoke late into the night!

My Thai co-teachers and their families at the party

I adore these boys. They are in the highest level class I teach, and our English director is the father of the boy on the left, thus the reason they were at the party.

All dressed up for our Mother's day Parade last week.

A string tying ceremony at a village wat we visited this weekend with Haleys' host family.

Yup, that's a baby pig. It's called Moo Han here, which literally means 'pig turn'. It's apparently a delicacy here, cause we drove about 60 or 70 km to get this food, after eating almost all day.

Students on Suntonpoo Day. Notice the really pretty girl in the front with all the makeup? Yup, that's a ladyboy, not a girl at all! She even talked in the microphone after her dance and I couldn't tell, the students had to tell me!

More ladyboys waiting for their turn to dance

Some of my M6 boys dressed up for the special day.

We also had a recycle fashion show during Suntonpoo day and these girls were all dolled up. There were some absolutely amazing costumes.

So there you have it, a window into my life in the last few weeks. There's bound to be many more to come.