Thailand Top 11

Here's me, 2 days before leaving China; I'm dreaming about Thailand.


Two days of sun later, enjoying Mexican food.



We are on semester break right now for the Spring Festival. During the break, we have a conference in Thailand. However, I'm here a little early with a few friends enjoying the sunny beach of Phuket. I'm so relaxed I don't even have a to-do list. But, I do have a list of my top Favorites of Thailand. Take a look:

1. Thailand tea
2. The smell of heat
3. Coconut, palm trees lining the water
4. A Potpourri of languages filling the air
5. European middle-aged men in speedos (Just kidding)
5. The smell of tanning oil
6. Banana pineapple fruit shakes for $1.75
7. The Thai, with a smile, customer service
8. Used book stores
9. Sun dresses
10. Bobbing in the salty ocean
11. Great friends to experience it all with

Appearance

Have you been told before that you need to buy more fashionable clothes? Or that you need to lose weight, but only above the waist? Or that your facial skin is dry and you should put honey on your skin once a week? Or that you have internal heat because you have some acne? Well I sure have, luckily not all in the same day.

As much as I love living here, there are some things that I never get used to, such as comments about appearance. I never get used to these comments, and I don’t really know how to deal with them. Maybe, I can pretend that I don’t hear those comments and not respond at all. Or, I could say that I like that aspect of myself..the dry skin, the lack of “fashion” sense etc. Or perhaps in my head, I can recite this little saying from childhood: “I am the rubber and you are the glue, everything that you say bounces off me and sticks to you.” Ha, take that!

A New Year's Extravaganza Performance

This year, to welcome in the New Year, our school had a New Year's performance...a two and a half hour performance. On a cold evening, attending a performance in a big, drafty auditorium would not be my first choice, but I had at least 3 classes of sophomore students that had worked hard preparing skits and dances for this performance, and I was honored that they invited me to attend the New Year's performances. They really did an amazing job.


Here's one of the performances. This student is lip-sinking (he's also the class monitor) while some of his classmates are dancing around behind him.


A teacher friend and me at the performance...I shared my blanket with her as we enjoyed the show.


A student and me...she played a beautiful maiden in a small skit. She has the "beautiful maiden" role down. She held her hands high and curved by her shoulders and spoke with a high, winy voice.

Classrooms

After reading Wallace Steven’s “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock” I wrote my own little poem describing the way I feel about the classrooms here.

The classrooms are haunted
By greying chalk walls.
None are spread with fresh paint
or bulletin boards to mark the seasons
or student’s pictures to show their pride
or large heads of famous people
to spur them on.
None of them invite a closer look
or have pictures of exotic places,
or shelves to put some candy snacks,
or nooks where you could cram a note
to another hopeless dreamer.
Only, here and there, an inch of tape
that held some balloons to mark a special day
that has long since been snuffed out
in this haunted place.

Sunday Morning Musings

Foggy morning.
Sautéed onions,
Bubbling soup,
Reading
in the kitchen.

Andy McKee,
Strong coffee.
In his palm, and asking
What’s next. . . .