Name that photo

This was a picture that Mike's brother, Pete, took on Christmas. It was so funny to me that I decided to make a little "name that photo" contest out of it. Post your witty title for this picture as a comment on the blog or FB note and perhaps you will be the lucky winner. The winner will get a prize sent to them all the way from Thailand! Good luck!

Want to see the picture better? Click on the picture to enlarge the picture (if you're on the blog, not FB).

Merry Christmas...

from our house to yours...

Mission Accomplished

X-ray vision successfully attained.

...and I'm lovin' it. :D

Pre-vacation vacation

[SIGH]
The end is in sight.
4.5 more days of school (which is finals week for the high school)
But for now, we're off to Cambodia for a pre-vacation vacation with some friends
Pictures to come...

I wanna be your partner...

It's no secret that I talk in my sleep quite frequently. The first time that I was heard talking in my sleep, I said, "DON'T PETER!!" (Peter is one of my older brothers, whom I adore, but we definitely irritated each other a lot growing up). During a family ski trip when we staying in a hotel, my mom once witnessed me sit up in bed and say, "SHHHHH!!! BE QUIET!" and "WHERE'S THE CHAIRLIFT?!"
My dreams and even what I say in my sleep often offers insight into my real life... like wanting my brother to quit pestering me, needing to know where the chairlift was so that I wasn't lost, and wanting silence, so it was no surprise that I told Mike that I wanted him to be my psychology partner in a recent dream...

I dreamed that I was a college student again taking a psychology class that dealt with human behavior & morals. Mike was in my class, but we weren't married or even friends for that matter, but in my dream I still new everything about him that I do now. So I knew that he had an affinity for board games... and that I didn't. :) Anyway, we were given the assignment of creating a board game that caused moral dilemmas and recorded the game player's behavior (or something like that), which sounded like a wretched assignment to me. So I turned to Mike and said (in my dream and aloud), "I wanna be your partner because I don't want to have to do any work." Mike happened to be awake at that moment and knowing that sometimes he can get me to answer questions or repeat what I've said, asked, "What did you say?" So I calmly repeated, "I wanna be your partner because I don't want to have to do any work." Mike's response was, "Okay." To which I apparently replied, "Okay, thanks."

You know you've been living in Thailand for a while when...

Your colleagues ask you what you're doing for the 3-day weekend and you say,"Meh, nothing much... just going to Cambodia."

Your conversation with your spouse on the walk to school in the morning goes like something like this:
Karly: It's cold this morning (80 degrees)
Mike: It's not cold. it's cooler, but it's not cold
Karly: I have goose bumps
[arrive at school and see a kid get off the bus dressed in a wool turtle neck sweater]
Karly: [pointing to the kid in the sweater] See? It's cold.

Drum roll, please...

And the winner is... Dana! Dana was the first (of those who guessed on our blog & on imported FB note) to correctly identify where we are going for our spring break trip. We are ecstatic that we are going to  New Zealand & are looking forward to the great adventures and memory making with seven other dear friends. More details to come... :)

Approved

I had my LASIK consult yesterday and I have been approved to get the procedure done. I have been thinking about getting it done for a while (both my eyes are -7.50) but am officially going to go through with it now. And just to make sure I didn't chicken out, I even set the date after the optometrist was done with the eye tests and I had received the green light. So Friday, December 17 at 4pm is the date. I'm doing it the moment X-mas vacation starts so that I have 3 weeks time to recover. I am not supposed to look at a computer screen for more than 2 hours a day for 2 weeks after the surgery, which proves difficult as a teacher, so vacation will be the perfect time!

I'm a bit nervous because it deals with my eyesight and there are definitely plenty of risks, but I know that the technology has advanced even in the time that LASIK was first introduced. The hospital that I am going to has been doing the procedure for the last 10 years and the optometrist that is doing my procedure has been doing it for a long time and said that the hospital has never had someone "lose an eye" (lose their vision) in the time that they have been doing it. It is also reassuring to me that people from all over the world will fly to this particular hospital for the quality of medicine & care it provides.

It's definitely an investment, but the younger I am when I do the surgery, the more I'll get out of it. The surgery itself is about the equivalent to me spending 5-6 years money's worth on eye exams, glasses & contacts. So, Lord willing, if I live for another 5-6+ years, it will be financially worth it.

I don't know too many people who have had it done that have regretted it... so many people are so eager to tell me their positive experiences, which is also encouraging to me. So here's hoping that December 17 is one of the best decisions of my life. :)

Days

4 more teaching days until X-mas vacation
4.5 days of finals before X-mas vacation
8 days until Cambodia
14 days until Pete & Joey come to Thailand
18 days until beach trip #1 to Hua Hin
23 days until X-mas
29 days until Ben & Emily A. come to Thailand
30 days until Ryan & Emily F. come to Thailand
32 days until beach trip #2 to Phuket
127 days until our trip to ??? (Spring break)
182 days until the last day of the 2010-2011 school year

Where in the world....?

It has been decided. Guess where we're going for spring break 2011?? (No fair guessing if you are going on the trip with us/know about the trip!)

Happy flowers

I'm a little under the weather, so we skipped church today and had a low key morning at home. The only bummer about this is that our routine of ordering/picking things up from our favorite bakery each Sunday gets thrown off. So what did my sweet husband do? He went downtown to pick up our bakery order, do a little extra grocery shopping, and buy me some happy flowers. [Sigh] I love him. :)

Amendments

We've made a few amendments to the game playing log...

1. Since our group of friends often get together on the weekends to play games, and there usually are too many of us to play one game together, often times I find myself playing games without Mike. The whole game/meal deal was so that we would spend more time together, but arguably so, I am still playing games and even in the same room. Amendment #1: 1/4 time instead of no time.

2. I don't like learning new games. So in order to encourage me in this area, Amendment #2: for every time I learn to play a new game, I get 2X time.

3. "Free-bee" Amendment #3: for every 10 meals I earn, I get a free meal. (I think I need a punch card or something...)

Bernd

This is Bernd.

This is my game playing log.

 This is Bernd thinking he can be a part of my game playing log.

 Silly Bernd

Disgusting

This was the nice stack of papers I had to grade this weekend. (Notice the past tense! :) )

Gross, right?

GOA!

The latest craze in game playing is this game called, "Goa." It is a strategy/bidding game that involves buying spices with duckets to found different colonies. It has [too] many rules and takes about 2 hours to play. The first time I played it, I was literally banging my head on the table out of frustration and I think it took about 3.5 hours to play. It's the biggest hit among our group of friends now. The "prize" for winning is a picture of yourself on the FB "Bangkok Gamers" page, holding a spice & holding up the number of fingers of the number of times you've won the game.

 And in the words of Holly: at least Tuan wins the good sportsmanship award...

(sorry it's so grainy, the pic was taken on a phone)

Have I mentioned that we get together practically every Sunday to play? This weekend was a double whammy. Mike was thoroughly spoiled being able to play both Saturday & Sunday. He was like a little boy in candy store. :)

Dear friend

This is Holly. She is one of my accountability partners. She is my partner in crime. She is a Nepal trekker. She is a Korean-American who often thinks she's white. She is a prayer warrior. She is a relationship and deep conversation lover. She is a dear dear friend. She is a sister in Christ. She is a friend forever.  Love you, Hollster.

Angel

I made my first angel food cake with coconut. It was delightful!

28

It's not just the number of how old I am... it's also the number of the best cribbage hand I've ever gotten! Despite my ridiculously awesome 28 point hand the other night (which is only 1 point away from being the best hand of 29... Mike robbed me of (k)nobs), it was a close game. I won... and Mike was ticked because he was left in "the stink hole." :) Muahahaha. I told him that I have to win every now and again because it compels me to keep playing and adding to my game log for my yummy dinners (of which I have accumulated 2, [and am 2 hours and 16 minutes away from #3] thank you very much). :)

Reliance issues

Today things did not go as planned… and I was really disappointed. We were supposed to be putting Christmas shoeboxes together as the 10^th grade class, but several kids didn’t bring in the requested items and the person who was supposed to bring in the boxes, didn’t. So we were only able to put together 2 boxes (with shoeboxes that students brought in). I got frustrated because part of it is that these kids just don’t really know how privileged they are.  How can you make them grateful for what they have? How can you make them want to bring in items to donate when they don’t care? How can you open their eyes to the world? But the other part of my frustration stemmed from having to rely on other people to accomplish a task. As I thought about it though, I realized that it just goes to show that we are human, we are frail, we are sinners, and we let people down… which can be disheartening if that’s where our thoughts stop. How grateful I am to know one who is worthy of our dependence, of our praise, of our loyalty and of our love… and what’s even better is that He will never fail us.

A politics man

I love ESL students because they grapple with language like none other.

I love ESL students because they say the greatest things as they are lacking the vocabulary.

I love ESL students because they make good stories for my blog. :)



Remember THIS POST?   Well, that same student that wanted some understandings had a lot to say about Cuba after school today...

Student: I was wondering if they will ever do a telehistoria in Cuba.

Me: I don’t know!?

Student: Hmmm… I don’t know either. Do you think communism will ever end in Cuba? Cuz if it doesn’t, then we’ll never get a telehistoria from Cuba. I mean, how can they film in Cuba if it’s communism?

Me: If it’s communist? I don’t know that either. I suppose communism in Cuba could come to an end if with different leaders. I guess that means we need to pray for the right leader. I’m not really big into politics though, so I don’t really understand the whole situation.

Student: I am into politics. I want to be a politics man.

Me: You want to be a politician?

Student: Oh yeah, a politician. But I don’t want to be a communism.

¡Viva España!

Check out the sweet new computer skin/sticker I got for my mac. I am pretty stoked about it... I wonder why?!

Unfortunately, I had to cut off some of the red on both sides, so the yellow appears a bit massive and out of proportion, but hey, you can't win 'em all. :) So I used the extra scraps for where the palms go when you type...

 Can you see that I cut out the Spanish flag again?! :)

¡Viva España!

I can't wait to show my students! I know, I know... I'm a nerd Spain fanatic, but I just can't help myself; I swear I'm a Spaniard at heart (lisp and all).

Name that bug...

Give up?

Yeah, so do we...

It looks like beetle with little black pom-pom balls on it's antenna's.  Mike took it to school to see if the kids knew what it was, but they didn't know what it was either. I guess he'll forever remain a mystery, unless one of my readers is into entomology.

Cute kiddos

Babies are being born (& made) left and right at ICS! Here are a few cute little faces...

Lennon & Gabi

Gabi almost fits in the doll stroller

Celebrating Becky's little girl EDA: end of November

 Jonah-boy and the pink tea set... making his daddy proud. :)

 Liana's cheeser face, Jonah & his pink tea set, & big sister Noelle

Tea anyone?

Soccer 101

October 14 was the annual teacher vs. student (varsity soccer team) games. You can obviously tell who's more of the photographer in the family since Mike didn't take very many pics of the women's soccer game. Then again, he doesn't find women's sports very interesting/entertaining...

 Women teachers lost again this year 0-1 (last year 2-3)

A little warm-up action

Praying before the game

 Liana: should I be a soccer player or a mommy? I don't know!

 Liana demonstrating the proper way to hold a baby... watch out Paul & Becky!

 Wanna taste something yummy on the end of my finger?

 Here ya go... isn't it good?

 Cheering because the men teachers were down 1-4, but in the last 10 minutes, tied the game up. So it went to over time.

Discussing their next play...

Teachers win in OT, and students go wild (I'm surprised the students were even cheering for the teachers...)