All in a Weekend

My recent weeks have been mellow...

I went into Bangkok for a few days, hung out with Renee and Angie there, loaded up on tons of new DVDs, and got a free makeover at the Clinique counter (Renee's didn't turn out so good). I also managed to pick up a box of pop-tarts to bring back to my friend Mac in Nakhon.

Came home and haven't really had to teach since then since the schools have finished teaching and are now in their final testing stage. I caught 6 boys copying on their tests today and gave out 6 0%s for their efforts.

Now I'm coasting.

We put the final touches on the world map at my large school last Friday. I actually really happy about how it turned out:

The kids drew the country names out of a hat to see what country they would get to paint. I kinda felt sorry for the kids that got Switzerland and Figi... and you know, Lesotho.

We still have to write all the names in Thai, but at least the painting is done.

My co-teacher got to paint Chad, which he later told me was the most beautiful country on the map.

I spent Saturday with 3 of my students who had done a lot of work in English this year and had earned a trip into town to go eat ice cream. BUT, those girls had something else in mind because they also tricked me into getting photos taken and singing karaoke at the mall:

Maybe I was in the photos with them. Maybe I had on reindeer ears and was holding the snake. I love Thai mall photographs.

My friend Ashley was super amazing and hung out with us all day. (Dear Ashley, I love you. Please don't leave Nakhon).

I went back into town later that day to get a 5 dollar massage, have dinner with some friends, and go out to the local bars where Ashley and I met random people like these guys:

I asked the guy with the LA hat if he knew what it meant. He had no idea. Typical Thai.

And then on Sunday, my new Nakhon friends came to my town to hang out on the beach and make dinner at my house.

Sometimes I forget how beautiful my site is. Oh, and I stole these pictures from Ashley's blog.

So while we were at the beach, something interesting happened. I really wanted to get rid of the strap lines I had from a previous suntan. My idea was to turn my swimsuit top into a tube top. Seemed like a good idea until I started to go into the water. 2 times. And then a huge wave crashed up on the shore. 2 times. And then my top came down. 2 times. And then my friend Mac got a little game of peek-a-boob. 2 times. After that, the straps went back up.

But I was really happy that everyone came out to Tha Sala. For dinner that night we had: nachos (using Pringles), hot dogs with toasted buns (my mini-oven=best purchase in Thailand, other than my AC), homemade tortillas, refried beans (VERY hard to come by), salad, and salsa. It actually worked out pretty well.