Tag: birthdays

Utopia Around The Corner – 10th January 2024

~ tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

We should be living in a paradise by now
Yet wrapped in realities that ground our flight
Utopia hides, beyond the hillside brow
Amidst the chaos, in a darkened night

Around the corner, this dream quietly shines
A realm where peace sings a hopeful tune
Utopia beckons and yet this hope reminds
The journey will not be completed soon

In that elusive place, worries disband,
A sanctuary where souls find their rest,
Utopia calls from its promised land,
An oasis waiting, only found in death

Today I’m feeling:

Not too bad considering I woke up wanting to sleep more.  The abs exercises hurt as I was doing them and I can feel all the work that the muscles around the rest of my body had to do because my abs are still weak.  I’m now pretty convinced that my weak abs and connections to the hips are the cause of most of my body stress/weakness, down to my calves and up to my neck.  Slowly slowly.

Today I’m grateful for:

The Downy fabric spray that is trying to counter the smell of cat spray on the sofa and isn’t quite succeeding.

The best thing about today was:

My grade 10 class who were interested in learning, in the topic and discussing it as best as they could in English but mostly in Thai.  Having a keen, attentive class is a joy.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

Yesterday I got a message that today was a meeting for the foreign teachers to meet with the director but I sent a message to Kru Tang saying that I had class at that time and she was fine with that.

Later I got an assuming message from Nancy saying that it was a bit sad that I didn’t go and that I felt differently to the team!  FFS!

I told her that I had planned my lessons and that this one was quite important for my students this time and that if it was a different class then it might have been possible.  There was no reply after that.

That has upset me a little but I’m happy knowing that I’m doing the right thing for my students.

Something I learned today?

Today is Nomsen’s birthday.  Every day seems to be someone’s birthday.  Nomsen told me that she turns 14 but I’m not sure if she was counting correctly as another student in the grade above told me it was her 14th birthday today.

Review your acts, and then for vile deeds chide yourself, for good be glad. — Discourses 3.10

I comforted little Nicha who got reprimanded yesterday for having earphones in during class yesterday.  Instead of just being asked to take them out the teacher made a big deal of it and if she gets in any more trouble they’ll kick her out of school.  That seems a bit harsh considering what some of the other kids get up to.  Understandably she was a bit down.

I started my lessons on relationships for the grade 10s as Toon in that class requested it.  I made them Thai translations so that they could understand better the meaning behind the content.  In this case, I found that I wanted their understanding more than just using English.  Toon said she was happy with the lesson, so I’m glad about that too.

Tonaor reminded me that yesterday I told her I would give her a candy today. She caught me just as I was about to leave and I honoured my word, went to the car to get another candy and gave it to her. She was happy.

I took this picture because, for some reason as I approached the hospital to get some medicine, I was impressed by its stature. I’ve been here many times and not thought much about how it looks. Perhaps it was because it was approaching golden hour and the air turns a special colour.

Difficult Days – 31st August 2023

~ tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Give me a bad day
To show you who I am
Disturb my applecart
And mess with my plan

Look at you, all smiles
The sun, it always shines
The measure of the man
Is found in difficult times

An easy day for me
Fills me with compassion
For those facing struggle
And life comes down a-crashing

So give me a bad day
I’m gonna turn it around
Enduring all the pain
With this attitude I’ve found

Today I’m feeling:

Good for pushing through exercise this morning setting me up for my long day ahead. I’m starting to run out of time each day doing all the things I want to do and I think something is going to have to go and that will be TV and YouTube videos. I’m already cutting down just because of lack of time. Focus on the things I really prefer and enjoy to be doing. Stop wasting time.

Today I’m grateful for:

The language learning app Drops which I use to study Thai but which I have also asked a couple of my poorer students, Namsai and Nomsen, to use to study English and they checked it out this afternoon and seemed find it a little more compelling than Duolingo. I will introduce more of my classes to Drops instead and in the future. I think it is a slightly better learning tool despite not offering any opportunities to speak.

The best thing about today was:

Kinda improvising a lesson with one of my classes today and having it go really well. 

The original lesson I had planned wasn’t going to be long enough so I picked up a worksheet about ordinal numbers (they always struggle when asked what the date is) that could fill up the time. I started with it as I was expecting it to only take a few minutes. 

As they were getting themselves used to ordinal numbers I figured a best way to remember them was by doing birthdays so I went around the class asking everyone and writing them on the board. I noticed some smart students grabbing pictures so they could remember their classmate’s birthdays.

Once we had all the birthdays I got everyone and asked them to form a line from the first birthday of the year to the last and then spent 10 minutes sorting themselves out and finally I took a photo of them all.

By now time was too short to finish my planned lesson too. So I got them all to write the list of names in the order that had just just stood. This took them a good thirty minutes and I could see everyone puzzling out which name came next until finally they were done. To end, a long Kahoot to reinforce their learning. Everyone was happy and maybe they even learned something.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I decided I needed to catch up a handful of students in one class and the best way to do was to clear out the rest of the students so these ones could concentrate better. 

The class went well with the nine students, without all the usual distractions. They were initially a little miffed at their classmates going off for free time but soon understood the faster they got to it the sooner they’d be able to leave. 

With some slow careful explanations, I could see some twinkling of understanding in most of them. They finished with 30 minutes spare and off they went and off I went to House for extra coffee. 

Whilst I was there I got a message from our department head asking why my students were in the library at the time I was supposed to be teaching them. I got a little annoyed at this at first but I knew that it needed an explanation so I replied doing so. I didn’t get any reply.

Something I learned today?

Scientists have synthesised sugar out of carbon dioxide. Neat!

I took this picture because I wanted a record of the kids doing today’s lesson and lining up in birthday order. There are a few hilarious kids in this class and I hope this picture will be a useful reminder.