Friday, October 30, 2009
Scott Neufeld
After school today we had a "friendly" game of football (soccer to you folks in Canada) at the school. It was the bitter rivalry between the primary staff and the secondary staff. The youth and speed of the primary group versus the skill and experience of the secondary. The good looks and incredible talent of the primary versus the guys who talk slow and whose eyeballs don't quite match up. I played for the primary in case you couldn't guess. After 90 minutes of hard fought football, incredible goals, unbelievably bad calls by the ref, and alot of fun, the primary gang edged out the secondary squad 8-3. It was a victory of epic porportions and one that will go down in the history of Regent School football as one of the greatest matches of all time. Years from now our childrens children will be talking about this match and the skilled men who played it. Names like Reardon, Willms, Arnold and even Neufeld. And now, onto the weekend.....Brilliant!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Jasmine Neufeld
So on our last day of classes before the midterm break our school had a fun day. We had been doing "literacy week" and had a bit of a dress up party on Friday to culminate it. Jasmine and I dressed up as football (soccer) players as that is what the year 3 class was studying all week. There was all cooking, Alladin, and food options, but we chose football. It was quite a fun day, and the kids all looked great.
Once the day was over, our week off "mid term break" began. We had decided that Bangkok would be a wonderful option for a few days, since it was close, cheap, and unexplored to this point. We and a group of friends stayed on Khaosan Road and enjoyed hanging around and exploring Bangkok. The shopping is incredible, and cheap, the food is very good, and the sights are amazing. Jasmine and I went on a boat ride around a Bangkok village that has roads made of water. It also has a floating market, many cool houses, many shanty town houses, and a cool spot where you can feed some fish. You throw bread into the water, and these huge fish come by and eat it. The size of these fish was amazing to say the least. We also saw the Kings old palace and the largest Buddist temple in the world. (We didn't go inside this time, but we will next time). We had a great time with our friends Rich and Claire, James and Lesley and Vicky. In Bangkok they have "Tuk Tuks" which are little motorized taxis that will take you anywhere. Since we were only there for three and a half days, there was much more to see. We are hoping to go back soon. Oh, we also found out that we missed the ATP Asian open tennis tournament by a week or two, so we will definetely be looking for that next year.
Once we got home we were quite tired (or Knackered as our English (Thanks Claire!) and Welsh friends would say) so we just relaxed for a few days back in Pattaya. We headed to the zoo, but on the way it began to rain really hard, so we stopped in a mall till it stopped. When it did stop the rain was making its way to sewers at a rapid pace and the street we were on was jam packed and flooded.
Nevertheless we made our way to the zoo, where we had a great time. It cost us each 3 bucks to get in, and they had an amazing display of animals. Lions and tigers and bears (don't say it). Gorillas, monkeys, porcupines, elephants, birds of all kinds, exotic animals, crocs, and many more. Jasmine and I went on the night safari which is where they take you on a tram and shine lights on the animals in the open so you can see what they are doing (apparently animals become more alive at night). I loved it. I don't think you can every really outgrow the zoo. We didn't take a lot of pictures because it was quite dark, but here are a few.
The next day, we had a lot of fun just hanging around Pattaya. We went and played Badminton, which I have not played for at least ten years, and man did my butt ever hurt the next day. We also went to Pizza Hut and enjoyed a pizza, bread sticks, and some pop. Pizza hut had a promo on that day. It was a pizza with a bunch of toppings. Fish, Squid, Shrimp, and other such vulgarities that do not belong in pizza. Have a look at the pic and tell me if that looks appetizing to you. We passed. Thanks anyway Thailand Pizza Hut.
All in all, a very restful and relaxing week. Oh, and during this week my Broncos won again to go 6-0, and my Oilers beat James Canucks 2-1 so it was a great week. Jazzy and the girls got their hair chemically straightened, we watched a movie (Law Abiding Citizen) in a theatre, and we had a wonderful incident with the Thailand police that worked out well in the end. So we are rested and ready to get started back at school for six weeks until our Christmas break, where we get three glorious weeks off. Beautiful. Thailand Beautiful.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Scott Neufeld
Hey, I have a question. What?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Scott Neufeld
When we came over here we knew we would have some challenges diving into a new culture. Our school is made up of many children from many nations. Korean, Indian, Thai, Chinese, English, American, Saudis, etc. There are many great aspects to working in our school as well as many challenges. The learning levels of all of these students range widely, so its tough to keep them on a moving path through the cirriculum. For example, in year three they are learning a list of 100 spelling words in term one, and my learning support kids are still on the first ten, while the other kids are learning the latter half of them. Some of my kids speak such good English that they won't shut up, and some hardly understand a word. In math, they split up the four classrooms into levels, and we work with the lower level. I asked one of my year three kids last week what 11+11 equaled, and after thinking about it she blurted out....."Twoty Two". (I had to stop myself from laughing right in her face, but it was super cute). I asked one of my students in year two a few weeks back to give me a word with the letter "E" in it, to which he replied, "E....U....N....A.........mouse". Hmmmmm. The other apsect is that it costs a lot of money to send your kid to this school, so most of our students are rich kids with maids and such, and don't know how to do alot of things on their own. Plus, in some cases, the parents don't spend a lot of time working on things at home with them, so at times this school makes you want to pull your hair out in terms of progress. Still, there are such wonderful pleasures in small rewards. I watched Jasmine teach her class the other day, and it was clear that the kids all love her and love music, and get excited to be in her class, even though they don't understand everything yet. Its quite a site to see a bunch of students dancing in a theatre and singing, "Peel Banana, Peel Peel Banana" while they dance around. And the girl who said Twoty Two was on the right track.....baby steps. So for now we will simply enjoy the process of helping our kids learn literacy, math, music, and become members of a sociological process, whatever that looks like. It is certainly good to be a part of it. And I think sometimes, we learn more from the kids than they learn from us.
Monday, October 05, 2009
Scott Neufeld
So we were downtown in Pattaya one fine night with some friends of ours, and we decided to stop in at KFC for a little snack. Right beside KFC was a band playing a bunch of cover songs and generally just having a good time. As we stood in line the girls, (we thought) were just waiting outside. When we came out we learned that not only were they not waiting for us anymore, but they had literally become the lead singers of this band. The former lead singer, a ladyboy to be sure, had been kicked to the back to make way for Jasmine and Lesley (Canadians) and Vicky (British). They made us proud, belting out a Katy Perry tune and dancing on stage. Well done girls! Surely, the music scene in Thailand will never be the same thanks to these three!
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Scott Neufeld
Okay, okay. I'll admit it.....I kinda miss our cat out here in Thailand. He is pretty great and does make life very fun. We often think of him and his crazy personality. He is scared of his own shadow, so it would be great to have him out here so he could be terrified of all the crazy traffic and the barking dogs and such. He would freak out all the time. He would never be able to relax. Dexter, for a cat, is a pretty great cat for sure. He has this fun side where he will play hide and seek with you, or fight with you for a bit while he purrs away, and then he has a super cuddly side where all he wants to do is lay beside you and cuddle up and sleep the day away. If he didn't shed so much he really would be the perfect cat. So as a tribute, and because we do miss him a bit, we dedicate this blog post in honor of our cat, Dexter. And a special thank you to Melissa who is looking after him for us while we are away. Melissa also has a cat named Dexter. They are becoming quite the pair. Here are some pics I stole off of Melissa's facebook page:
After school today we had a "friendly" game of football (soccer to you folks in Canada) at the school. It was the bitter rivalry between the primary staff and the secondary staff. The youth and speed of the primary group versus the skill and experience of the secondary. The good looks and incredible talent of the primary versus the guys who talk slow and whose eyeballs don't quite match up. I played for the primary in case you couldn't guess. After 90 minutes of hard fought football, incredible goals, unbelievably bad calls by the ref, and alot of fun, the primary gang edged out the secondary squad 8-3. It was a victory of epic porportions and one that will go down in the history of Regent School football as one of the greatest matches of all time. Years from now our childrens children will be talking about this match and the skilled men who played it. Names like Reardon, Willms, Arnold and even Neufeld. And now, onto the weekend.....Brilliant!
