Happy birthday to... ME

Birthday #2 in Thailand. This year I had Spanish themed birthday with the Nepal posse. We ordered food from an authentic Spanish restaurant called "Spanish Tapas on 4." I can't remember the last time I had such good paella and Spanish omelets!

... picture comments to come...

How to entertain small children

Materials: muffin tin, muffin cups, teaspoon, measuring cup popcorn kernels and a small child of your liking...

This kept sweet little Noah busy for a LOOOOOOOONG time while his parents were able to visit with us quite undisturbed. Hip-hip-hooray for the "dump & fill" stage!

Weekend glutton-fest

Saturday: Mike & me + 4 other friends + all you can eat buffet at my favorite restaurant, Akiyoshi.

Sunday: Mike & me + 5 other friends + deep fried anything you can think of (snickers, potatoes, eggplant, chicken wings, dough, mushrooms, zucchini, etc.) While we ate all that food, the girls watched Julie & Julia (about food) and the guys played a board game (sort of about food... spices).

I didn't get any pictures of any of the *ahem* healthier things that we fried... just the snickers & the dough. Sorry that I didn't include a picture of you, Brian... all the pictures I had were terribly blurry!

Beach trip

I failed to mention that mid-September I took a trip to Cha-Am beach with my friend Diana. We went with the finance director of the school, Yai,  & her sister, Lek. It was a wonderful and much needed (for sanity's sake) trip.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Cha-am, but frequented Hua Hin for food and for the night market. Our trip was filled with reading, relaxing, getting several massages, and having good conversations.

Just looking at these pictures makes me excited for our next beach trip. We're headed back to Koh Chang for October break (again)! Pictures to come!

Riddle me this, riddle me that...

What do baked potatoes, a unicycle, squeaky rubber chickens & roasted chicken have in common?






... give up??

Perhaps a few videos & pictures of our night at the "Flying Chicken" restaurant will help you make the connection. :)

Unicycle dude showing off that chickens are a piece of cake because he can spear limes

Grant getting his helmet strapped on.

They had us try to catch baked potatoes. I was thankful that it was a baked potato and not a chicken!

They gave me one more try after this video... and I got it!

Here's proof that I did catch the potato (notice the worker's "jazz hands" in the back... I think he really wanted me to win a rubber chicken because he was guiding my helmet head to the right place. :) )

The prize for getting catching the baked potato on the helmet spoke.

Mike was too fast for me... he got the potato on the spoke on the first try,  but I hadn't started recording yet, thinking I had some time. :(

Ryan showing us how it's done (sorry it's sideways... I don't know how to turn it if it's recorded this way!)

Our fun group: Ryan & Jaime, Carolyn & Grant,  & Mike & me with the owner of the restaurant and the two talented unicyclists/food launchers.

Warning

The other night I dreamed that I was teaching middle school Spanish. They were being so ridiculously destructive, mean & ill-mannered that I marched to the principal’s office and told him, “I quit!” It didn’t matter that it was the middle of class or the middle of the school day, I clearly had had enough. I woke up feeling very tired… not just sleepy tired, but physically exhausted after disciplining to no avail in my dream. I went to school, wondering if it was a foretaste of things to come, and dreaded seeing my students. I actually felt a little hopeless as I watched them walk through the door and look expectantly at me. To my relief, they were [their usual] angels for me. I spent the rest of the day being very grateful for my sweet students. I even had one student ask me, "Mrs. Karly, why are you just staring at us and smiling?" It was a great opportunity for me to let them know how grateful I am for them and the fact that they aren't middle schoolers.I guess my dream wasn't a glimpse of what my day would look like; but rather, a warning to never go back to teaching middle school... sorry, Stephen. ;)

Don’t mess with Minnesotans

I recently blogged about how my students make fun of me for my {amusing} MN accent. My students were in fits of laughter yet again, as the pastor of one of the major churches here in Bangkok, made fun of Minnesotans during chapel today. He was discussing the vastness of creation and how minute we are in comparison to the world, yet how God lovingly knit us into being. In order to best illustrate this, he talked about the size of the world and mentioned Dave Kunst, a man from Waseca, MN who is the first person verified to have circled the land mass of the earth on foot. But then went on to say, “I guess Minnesotans have nothing better to do with their time.” I bet he didn’t think there would be someone from Minnesota in the crowd. I almost booed him… just kidding. To add insult to injury make it even better, one of my students (who was sitting next to me), turns to me and asks, “Since you’re from MN, would you do that, Mrs. Karly?” Needless to say, I gave her some major eye-rollage as I offered her some casserole and asked her if she was a scrapper, don’t cha’ know. :)

Bursts of laughter

One of my Spanish 2 classes erupted into laughter today when at the end of class I held up a bag and said, “Is this anyone’s bag?” It was about 2 seconds of laughter and then, as if they had planned it, they all simultaneously said, “BAAAAAAAAG!” and then burst into laughter again. I don’t even know why I asked in English… slip of the tongue, I guess. Either way, apparently my accent is quite entertaining to them. They made their way out the door in fits of laughter.

Later, as I was sitting in my room at my computer one student walked by my semi-open door, made sure I was looking, and yelled, “FLAAAAG” as he waved his hand in the air like a flag flapping in the breeze.

It’s just too easy to pick on a Minnesotan. Glad I could make their day. :)