nothing surprises me anymore.

The photocopy shop our school uses has had a broken photocopier for the past 2 weeks so we have had to outsource our copies to other shops in town.

The first one I went to took 1/2 and hour to make one class sets of copies because the shopkeepers were so talkative and when they heard I played soccer the conversation just kept on rolling...I was pretty excited to find this place and one of the guys who works there now plays on my team.

I went back 2 days later and their only photocopier was broken and I had to go find another shop.

I was looking around the neighborhood for another shop that was close but was unable to find one. I asked one of the staff at the school and he said there was one real close and he offered to take me there on the school's motorbike. As we were driving there I was telling him how I allready looked and hadn't see one anywhere. As I was explaining this we pull up to the store that sells Thai-style coffins....they also make photocopies.

Of course they do.

Why hadn't I made that connection is beyond me, I mean, it's such a logical choice: if you are alive you need to make photocopies and if you are dead...well, you need a box. This is the definition of monopolizing diverse markets.

Since then I've made note of all the shops that sell things I would never associate together:

A butcher shop that sells football jerseys

A restaurant that also sells jewelry

A women's clothing store that will also sell you fresh fruit

Life is full of surprises.

baskets are for flowers.

I made this video when I arrived back in Thailand, the school neighborhood is still flooded in some spots... specifically my street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdq3fJWn3uE&feature=email&email=comment_received

Wrist Tying.

Yesterday our school celebrated the Karen Wrist-Tying Ceremony – an event dedicated to remembering and giving respect to the ancestors of the Karen people. The students at the school represent many different ethnicities from Burma, but yesterday all the students and staff wore traditional Karen clothing as we went to a monastery to celebrate with the Karen community. We all met at the school and piled into what looked like a prisoner transport bus and headed off to the monastery. Upon arriving I was overwhelmed by the amount of colours and the amount of people.

Almost as soon as we arrived people came up to us and began to tie pieces of thread around our wrists, say a blessing and then take the remaining thread from the piece and put it on our heads. I quickly realized that myself and the two other teachers from school were getting a lot more attention than the students...by the end of the day I think the three of us had more threads then all the students combined.

You could buy thread from vendors or there were people distributing it at the monastery, but my favourite thing to do was take a thread off my shirt and tie it on to friends I saw at the event. Karen shirts have a lot of loose threads dangling from them and traditionally this was the only thread used to tie wrists. You would take a thread from your shirt, break it off and tie another`s wrist in memory of lost ancestors, family and to embrace your heritage. Think of it as tying a thread around your finger to remember something important.

Now all the young generation wasn`t just wearing traditional clothes...they modernized them with bling like belts, jewellery, hats and...jeans. I was really only me and old men who were wearing the Karen longi. All the other dudes were wearing Karen shirts with tight jeans and hipster shoes.

Whatever. We looked great.

The other thing I soon realized is that this is a great event for the young generation to meet people. Students would joke about finding some attractive guys and girls and making sure that they tied their wrists...some things are universal!

After we celebrated we went to a local park and took lots of pictures of all the students looking Karen-trendy and made our way back to the school.

It was amazing to see people of different ethnicities embracing each other`s culture and celebrating together – something I also think Canada invests a lot of time in.

dusting off the blog.

It's hard to believe that it has been about 4 months since the last blog post. I actually really enjoy writing a blog - it gives me time to reflect and internalize the lessons learned being a teacher. Life has been moving at a fast pace these past few months - so here's a time lapse of stories that stick out in my mind.

I am teaching math and science and so far things are going great. The school comes well equipped with science resources.

One of the coolest things we got to do was teach about static electricity using an old van-der graff generator that was in the science room. It didn’t work when I pulled it out of storage but yet again google proved to have all the answers. I typed in “how to fix a van der graff generator” thinking this was a longshot and found a website from a company that makes them with all the common problems they encounter...crazy.

As I demonstrated last year, teacher/student relationships are slightly different here: I had all the students stay over at my place for their first new years...probably will never get a job anywhere else in the world if that gets out...this weekend is the Queen’s birthday here (also Mother’s Day) and we asked the students if they wanted to do something special to celebrate the holiday:

They responded that they wanted to dance and watch scary movies...needless to say we watched a scary movie and had a “dance off” in my living room.

Chances of me getting another job...well I probably have a better chance of playing in the NBA at this point..

This is my first Thai rainy season which has definitely kept me on my toes.

Literally.

The street my house is one has no drainage. Boys come and go fishing on the street and show me their "prizes" before they head off to the next street. Small fish, eels, crabs...no big deal.

Rainy season forces everyone to adjust their lifestyle to the environment - something I rarely do when I am back in Canada: when it's hot, I turn on the AC; when it snows I put down salt. Now that it rains most days it is difficult to dry wet clothes, and keep the mold from creeping in the house. At school, there is a team effort to move all the clothes on the drying racks in and out of the sun during the day when the rain stops to get everything dry.

It has been tricky to play football with the students because our fields are flooded - and yes, we have tried and it was a lot of fun...hard to run when the mud sucks the shoes off your feet though...

Every Friday the two schools in our neighborhood join forces and run electives (run by teachers and staff to let the students try something different. Other teachers are running some great programs: Yoga, cooking, guitar, sewing, puzzles....myself, on the other hand, look for any opportunity to yell at kids and pump dance music so I run a fitness bootcamp elective. The only word that I can use to describe it is Hardcore. All of the classrooms are being used so we go outside and do fitness in the rain. By the end of the hour everyone is soaked and covered in mud.

We don't have a lot of resources so I try to do exercises that don't require a lot of set up or equipment so the students could do it themselves if they wanted to. Some of my favourites:

A tire pull with old tires

Ladder/ quickfeet drills using scraps of wood and rope

Shoulder exercises with textbooks

The last day is “the gauntlet” – a fitness obstacle course through the neighbourhood. Most unexpected obstacle: having street dogs chase you down – the students finished much faster than I expected.

Life is has been busy these last 3 months but I am constantly reminded that each day is a gift and there is a lot to be thankful for.

Next blog will not take 4 months to post...