First Week of School

Orientation

After our first day of school.

Feels like we have been in school for three long months- in fact it's only been a week.
I had my first day of teaching 6th graders today. Whoa are they squirrelly! I've got 21 for a double block and half of them barely speak English the other half are fluent. We talked about Superheros today and I had them create an alter ego for themselves- I really could have used one myself!
The pace of our life here feels very good. I love being able to pop over to Daniel's classroom and say hello. We are kept busy after dinner by stopping for a quick game of ping pong, playing "hunters and gatherers", reading and drawing. We also managed to score the fifth season of "The Wire" which we finished before it was released in the US.

Saturday

One of the things I miss most is coffee. Only Nescafe on the mountain. 

Marka and her brother Quattro came for a visit.  Our first visitors! We drove up to Doi Suthep Wat and then made them follow us around looking for a sofa in a hip neighborhood which turns out has tons  of cute boutiques but no sofas. Big news though we did manage to get a sofa. It has hideous cushions that we plan to have recovered in beautiful Thai silk.  I will do a before and after later.  At the moment Im just glad to not be sticking to the brown pleather couches that welcomed us.

ice cream, hunting and gathering

burger time!

Independence

Having a car has given us some independence.  The most lovely part of the school is it's nestled in the jungle feeling- also makes having a car a necessary tool to avoid cabin fever.

We went for our first explore yesterday evening.   We traveled past the school and further into the jungle mountains with a pit stop in the local village for some fried rice at dusk.

I was afraid Pokey might not make it up the steep climb- but she did - no problem.

Wheels!

Our new car- "Pokey"

Daniel gets used to driving standard on the left side.

Our Local gas stop.

Off the mountain for a snack

The Big C

Our Own Private Paradise

The view out our balcony

The fog of jet lag has just begun to lift. This morning I unpacked my books and we made lists of what we need to get in order to make this place feel like home. Home for two years.  The sound of the BART has been replaced by bird songs, cicadas, and the occasional pounding rain. Last night it rained harder than I can ever remember hearing.  Just when I thought it couldn't get any louder it would crescendo to a whole other volume. There was a toad the size of grapefruit on our steps last night.  

 

Our days have been occupied by meeting our lovely fellow staff and going to the mall- they keep taking us to the mall.  The stores have a bunch of people standing around waiting to help or follow you around while you look at irons.