The Indonesian Delegation

Today saw my presentations skills stretched to the limits as a surprise visit by a group of Indonesian heads of department and school admin staff on a factfinding mission in Thailand caught me somewhat off-balance. I say surprise but only to those who had to receive them. The school admin apparently received the invite weeks ago.

So anyway I'm asked to give a short talk for 15 minutes on the history of the school and I am given a small english pamphlet outlining the main details in English. on which to base my facts on. It turned out exceedingly useful.

To start with the delegation is 30 minutes late, then when they arrive it turns out that none of them can speak English. Fear not as Mr Bustle can speak fluent Passa Indonesia. So off we go on our presentation once the 40 people file into the room all wearing a uniform of patterned brown clothes (plus 3 kids wearing a more traditional looking costume.)

Mr Bustle is soon replaced by the Vice Consul of the local Indonesian Consulate as it becomes apparent that none of them understands his translations. I finish my rather disjointed presentation hoping that the teachers will be up for coffee sticky rice and a quick tour. Not so. The delegation have long lists of questions and no-one but me seems to have a clue how to answer them, so I end up giving explanations answers about topics as diverse as the school day, to school planning and recruitment policy, administration structure, and all sorts of other things that I have very little knowlege about...still we seemed to have got away with it and after 1 hour of this we have a short tour round the school, followed by inevitable photo taking.

I must say that Indonesians are a lot more touchy feely than Thais, with lots of arms being put around me, and having me link arms with the children.

I then had a very nice chat with the Bangkok Cultural Attache to Indonesia, before they all left to continue their whirlwind tour.

Despite it being completely un organised we pulled it off rather well. Though I might have to brush up my knowlege of the schools history if I'm to attempt that again.

Songkhla Schools Parade

Today was the opening of Songkhla's government highschools' annual 3 day athletics meet. Most of the day was concerned however with the opening ceremony. This involves a lavish parade which disrupts the whole of central Songkhla for an hour whilst hundreds of brightly and creatively dressed kids march, play in a band or get carried on platforms through the streets. (By the way I'll hopefully have some photos up soon, but I've got to nick them off Charlene as I forgot my camera today..Doh!

If only the kids put this much effort into their studies as they put into the preparation for this spectacle. Once at the stadium, I wandered round chatting to students I knew, getting fed by diferent sets of teachers sitting in the different colour sections...I must have eaten about 5 if those Chinese steamed pork and egg buns by the time I'd got round once!

The parade culminated in a big display in the stadium and was over by about midday, after which the sparts began (and I went home!)

More on this tomorrow. Incidently this is my 200th blog!!

To Jump Or Not To Jump

In the UK it's called skiving, in the US it's called skipping. In Thailand they call it jumping. It is the art of avoiding work. Here in the Wor Zone students are particularly adept at this skill, often managing entire class jumps right under the nose of the teachers.

Today, however I witnessed the most inept display of class jumping I have ever seen in my life. Tellingly it was by one of the most intelligent classes in Matayom 3, who clearly had little experience in the noble art.

It started with an empty classroom 10 minutes into the class. Suddenly five students show up, on asking if their friends would come they said "yes!"
So I sat down and chatted to them for 15 minutes, and thinking that no-one else would show told them that they could get on with some homework they were intent on doing.

I then made my way downstairs planning to have a snidey coffee and an e-mail check in the teachers' room. No such luck.

As I got down stairs, I spotted the rest of the class furtively moving upstairs, and on seeing me , some of them tried to make a run for it, but I got behing them and shepparded them into the classroom. With only 10 minutes to spare, I decided to ask them why they were late and to extract information about which teacher made them late...the umming and arring they made made me smell a rat.

Suddenly at the door with 5 minutes before the end, two more students appeared at the door. One shouts "May I come in please?", in an angry voice and storms to her desk slamming down her books, and bursts into tears.
I ask what is wrong and she says,

"My friends tell me we are jumping, but they don't tell me they come here! They shit!"

The cat's out of the bag. I don't know whether to be amazed at the English ability, shocked at the swearing, or angry at the deception. The three combine into amusement. I give some vague lecture about it being sad that intelligent students should be so stupid, and don't listen to your friends if they want to jump and you don't and just left it at that. What's the point, they've shot themselves in the foot and they look stupid in front of a teacher. Lost faces all round.

I have already touched on Silly Season and how every afternoon for three weeks is being spend sitting on arses eating lookshin or playing volleyball or basketball. There's really no excuses for jumping at the moment, especially considering the inevitable antics next week. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday is the annual Songkhla schools' athletics competition, where all classes are cancelled and we all sign in at the stadium for three days.

Silly Season at the Wor Zone

Last week, I mentioned that silly season had got underway, that time of year where for 2 months of the four month semester every week has at least one major interuption to timetables, leading to situations where some classes just don't get seen from one month to the next.

Having put the school on 40 minute classes all week, to practise for Sports fortnight, the school has cancelled classes tomorrow because of 'Founder's Day'. This is followed by the opening ceremony for the Sports Fortnight to begin in earnest...cue banging drums and screaming kids every afternoon for 2 weeks.

The following week is the stadium sports days featuring all the highschools in Songkhla, an enjoyable three day where we all sign in at Songkhlas large stadium, get offered Khao Tom 20 times a day and each cheapy food stand food in the blazing heat whilst the school's mighty athletes do their thing and the school Katoeys lead the parade. Here's a pic from last year's event.

This followed by provincial sports day a week or so after that. Not so involved that one, but the kids all skilve off anyway on the pretences of watching it.

At some point the mid-semester tests are scheduled, and following that at some point is the Queen's birthday..another public holiday. Following that will be English camp, then God knows what else.

The point is that in the middle of all this unpredictability, I've some how got to test 140 students 5 times, plus teach them enough material to be able to do this credibly. The teacher in me thinks that all this sucks, but the skiver in me thinks it's excellent.

To use Slippery's phrase: So it goes!

The Wor Zone's finest.

Expert domino players, these gentlemen are legendary within the Wor Zone of playing as much of it as they can get away with. Watch out world when this crew graduates Wor next year. If they can keep those Mor Sors at bay that is. Bwahahaha! I hope the shadow of M.7 does not fall. Don't worry I don't really have a say in the matter. 555

Pictured from the top clockwise: Teerawat 6/4, Woratep (Num) 6/8, Siriwat 6/4 and Kakana 6/5
M6 terrorists the lot of 'em.
(They're all right really!)

Wai Kru Day

To see a slideshow of the day click here or click on the gallery links at the side of this blog.

Wan Wai Kru or teachers day is a traditional Thai ceremony held once a year in June to celebrate and pay tribute to teachers. I know, it's not exactly going to take off in the West, but as a teacher in Thailand I find the whole ceremony rather charming.

The preparations, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago take place two days in advance with a practise run two days before and a whole afternoon the day before for each class to produce an ornate flower arrangement.

On the day the students gather for assembly as usual for the flag raising ceremony, though they also perform three royal wais. After that the students come upto the front where the teachers are sitting and present them with the flower arrangements and wai at the teachers' feet. The flowers are then all placed on a table for judging. After this the school director presents the students with prizes for acheivement and of course, for the best arrangement. Following speeches the ceremony finishes. The students then take part in peer-run activities, which largely seemed to involve voting for a favourite class.

From 12:50 onwards it was classes as usual, though pedictably, people were a bit thin on the ground. On the whole a nice relaxing day, spent playing on the Internet.

Hi 6/8

Shouts going out today to 6/8, one of my more talented classes. So hi to...........(in no particular order)

Jate, Noom, Natty, Som, Ood Ibb, Pixie, Aom, Laos, Fallang, Lux, Gift, Midia, Zine, Nuna, Titty, Bee, Aey, Taen, Jeab, Nam, Fai, Fa, Pam, Eig, Toom, Pu, Poo, Mon, Por, Toop, Boobu, Beau, Si, Kwang, Gan, Tacky, Nok, and Ying.

Sorry if I missed anyone, I did check my register though :)
So guys, I want lots of you to leave me a message under this entry by clicking the comments button...Ok?


Just say something like "Hi, this is __________."
Then say whatever you want to say.

I'll try and find some more pics, and put them on my gallery.
Sometimes this class is very good but sometimes they are very annoying, and complain about being hungry for the whole class.

Congratulations to Lux and Natty (left and center) who came top of 5/8 last year. Fallang (right) wasn't so bad either :)

Update: Thanks for the comments keep it up..I'll try and post more pictures.
What other class would you like to see up here? Keep the conversation going.
Use the Shoutbox if you want, but I prefer comments because they're easier to read.

Wor Zone Silly season Underway

Now that May is out of the way, school starts being unpredictable this first semester. This years silly season has started inevitably with Wan Wai Kru or Respect Your Teacher Day. There is so much respecting of teachers that the preparation takes the whole first period two days before, the whole afternoon the day before and the whole of the actual day. It's not exactly respecting my teaching schedule!

Speaking of which, one of the few sensible reforms in ages, making the class periods all 1 hour long, and scrapping the 10 minute break have been rolled back to the original 50 minute classes, with now two 10 minute breaks, one in the morning after period 2 and one in the afternoon following period 6. They have not however re-added the 9th period which means that teaching now finishes at 3:30 Mon-Thurs, with the last half hour devoted to relaxing activities to stop the students from getting "stressed".

My rant continues below.

This rollback was due to the Thai teachers complaining about how teaching for 1 hour was too tiring. I personally liked it as all the periods started at 20 past the hour and I had enough time to do what I wanted to do in class. Sure three in a row was tiring, but the benefits to the students were clear. The only thing I didn't like was the 16:20 finish time for period 8. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't complain as I'm being paid the same amount to finish earlier, but sometimes that just isn't the point.

Now with the 10 minute breaks reinstated the inevitable "10 minute becoming 20 minute impromtu dinner breaks" have returned with a vengence to plague my classes meaning that for many of my now 40 minute classes become 30 minute classes, after everyone finally arrives. I'm going to have to do some arse kicking to sort this out. What I don't get is that we've gone from the bad old ways to a new and improved way, to even worse ways within a month, and then we get told it's government policy to stop the students from getting stressed! So why extend the periods in the first place? Thai logic indeed!

Silly season is set to contuinue with the 3 week sport afternoons due to start soon, followed by the area sports day in July followed by provincial sports day shortly after that. Then there'll be English camp, the Queens birthday, and various other more spurious days off. Before I know it my carefully laid teaching schedule has gone to hell and I'll be scratching round the last few weeks trying to catch up with getting half of what I wanted doing done. Roll on October!

Thai a tie

Learn how to tie a neck tie. Especially for our new teacher Bart. Welcome to the Wor Zone! Hope this site helps you out.

Bizarre Student Answers

I set some homework to a class of M6 students last week. I posed the following question, "What things remind you of English class? Give me an example from each of these catagories and explain why they remind you of studying English."

The catagories were:

• Food


• Tools


• Rooms In a House


• Clothing


• Transportation


• Feelings

I was looking for answers along the lines of:
Food - Chewing gum, because I always chew it in class.
Tools - Eraser, because it doesn't matter if I make a mistake.
Rooms in a House - Kitchen because teacher always cooks us delicious English activities.
Clothing - Tie because I can see lots of Thai people. (groan!)
Feelings - Happy, because I am happy to learn (ick!)

In fact I gave these as examples and asked them to come up with their own.

Here are some choice quotes from random students, those who amongst the majority did not copy each other word for mis-spelled word, and the results were, as usual, not exactly how I'd envisaged they'd be.....

Food: Curry, because Mary as well as her family like hot curry.

Transportation: Train, because I feel good when sit by train.

Feelings: Amused, because Henry along with two accompanists was able to keep us amused the whole evening.

Clothing: Nightshirt because it wear happy.

Rooms in a House: Hall, because it great but to be empty to be the same also.

Oh well, at least they handed it in on time....

Back To The Wor Zone

School started back in earnest today, with the official start of semester. Well, that's the way it looked, but looks can be deceiving. The first casualty of Wor is truth. Wor for those of you not yet familar with this pun refers to Woranari Chaloem School, my erstwhile employers, who are known as Rongrien Wor for short.

A more military style was my first impression of the assembly this moring which made a nice change from the disorganised mumbling and gossip that plagued last years, the national anthem was still barely a whisper, and my head of department gossiped with us all the way through it, as we stood at the back in the shade, however one of the shoutier teachers got everyone silent and the solitary student singing into the mic managed the whole song rather than just the first line. Rasta Monkey!!

The Thai English teachers were all absent today, finishing their teacher training course, leaving yours truly to sort the troops out with their timetables. The problem was that, some useless intern had been put in charge of the timetables which were ill-thought out and almost nonsensicle in places. Our poor new teacher Charlene ended up with stupid amounts of hours covering courses that I'd never heard of, whilst old Slippery Rick got away with fewer hours than everyone else as usual, like a jellied eel on an ice rink that one. I have been given 6 hours on a Monday and Thursday, which has GOT to change, especially as on Wednesday I have two classes spaced at stupidly distant times. Anyway we got Charlenes timetable sorted down to a more managable load, and I'm going to sort my load out myself

Well, as I said the first day of semester is always a deceptive term at Wor. The illusion of 3,000 people at assembly, was promptly shattered by 12:30 when my first class was due and only 20 of the 50 kids showed up. The second and third classes just didn't bother at all save for one student who felt it polite to at least tell me before he himself slipped away quietly.

No internet at school as of yet. Our hub has grown legs and walked away.

Now I've just got to find two teachers who don't read BBC News and can tell the difference between the Wor zone and a war zone in Songkhla. Seven Thai teachers took early retirement last semester leaving the school in the shite Thai staff-wise, which puts extra onus on me to find the rest of our Farrang staff. Something should sort itself out. It always does.

www.louisminson.com....ahem

www.louisminson.com....ahem.

Hey I just found what should be a great site in the near future. In the meantime why don't you gawp at the oh so incredibly 5 minutes effort swish effects. I'm pondering php at the moment and realising how little i know about anything.....trying to extract information out of mysql databases...arrrgghh.

Weather full-on...hot as hell. I went to Sadao border for another 30 second Malaysia visit. It was the last day I could use my 1 year visa for an extra 3 months before I have to go to Penang for another....joy!

Border runs are cool cos I like going to the duty free shop. Bought a bottle of Wild Turkey Bourbon Extra Rare, very tasty and a bottle of brown Tequila, for nights when I want to get that retching buzz.

End of Semester

Whoohoo, that's it....free for 2 weeks, til my summer classes start on April 2nd, and then it's mostly Blue Peter style "makes". Here's one I made earlier-tastic.

Kan just made me a really nice, creative dinner, and I'd thought i'd share it with you, (virtually anyway!)

From the top and clockwise thereafter: A spicey sardine and grated green mango salad in a tomato sauce with shallots and hot chillies, stir-fried prawns with peppers and onions in a mild chilli paste sauce, and stirfried Brussel sprouts in oyster sauce. Arroy arroy!

It's funny what being in SE Asia does to your memory, I could have sworn that 2 1/2 years ago, I hated sprouts, but seeing them for the first time in Tesco Lotus over here gave me an instant urge to buy them. I gotta say that they taste a lot better stir-fried than boiled to death with meat and 2 veg.