I haven't really been up to much besides slaying a small mountain of 840 essays :S I will learn not to procrastinate because I DO NOT want to do that much grading at one time EVER again!!!

So here are some pictures I've taken around the campus:

The trail through the rubber plantation.
I take this trail everyday to get to the office.

Rubber collection.
They wait until the cups are full.
Then the Rubber students (Sadly they aren't really made of rubber)
process it into latex.

Flowers blooming

Our buildings water tower...

If it's sunny we get warm water :)

Yay fresh water delivery!
(The entrance to my apartment)

Hard at work building the Stadium

Taking an afternoon break!

The weed whacker Ninja!
Yes they really do cut all of the
grass with a weed whacker.

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Building the Krathong

Carving carrot flowers

Folding banana leaves

Close up! Banana leaves, flowers, and long beans

The Contests

The Language students' Krathong

The white elephant Krathong...
He's so cute I want one!

Beauty contestants!

Waiting for to preform in the show

Talents!

Playing the Saw Duang

The students started screaming as soon as she did this!

At the River

View of the pier

Group shots!

Another boat out on the river

Careful!

And it's off...

to join it's smaller friends!

Ready...set...go!

Going...going...

Gone!

Or not :(

From the middle of the river

Silly students...and another lantern stuck in a tree!

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Last night was Loy Krathong, which is called the festival of lights for a good reason. The river was peppered with the light from the Krathongs (the banana leave boats) and the sky was full of moving 'stars' and a large bright moon. Occasionally the trees were also a light from when a floating lantern got stuck on its way up to the sky.

Even though this was my third Loy Krathong festival I still had a blast and had a strikingly different experience from the past two years. My first festival I watched the student beauty contest and then went to the river at midnight with a handful of students and one of the teachers. Last year, I watched half of the beauty contest and then went to the river with some of the students and hung out there until midnight.

This year, I started by watching some of the Language students build their giant Krathong for the contest. Then I went to the student meeting hall to watch the student Miss Loy Krathong beauty contest. They introduced all of the girls and then the first round began. To narrow the group down from 26 to 10 they did a ‘popularity’ contest. The 10 girls who received the most hearts flowers by the audience continued to the next round. I was planning to leave after getting some pictures of the girls but one of the girls who had continued on said I HAD to stay.

Both girls from the Language major continued on to the talent portion. I missed the first girls’ performance but the second played a song on the Saw Duang, which is a two stringed instrument. Watching her play was fascinating…it is amazing to listen to the amount of music that can come out of an instrument with only two strings.

After the performances there was a break where they announced the winners for the Krathong contest. The Language students won third place and the white elephant krathong won first place. For the beauty contest the Language girl who played the Saw Duang won second place.

After the contest I went with a group of the first year Language students into town to the main river. We took a slightly terrifying long tailed boat ride out to the middle of the river to release the krathong they built. Then we met up with some more students on the pier and they decided that they wanted to go on another boat ride around exercise island (a small island in the middle of the river). During the boat ride we watched the floating lanterns being released and dance across the sky. After the second boat ride where we almost flipped the boat getting off we walked along the stands and ate some snacks before we bought a lantern and set it free.

I had a fantastic night with the students laughing and joking around. All I have to say is thank god I don’t have classes on Friday since we didn’t get home until almost 1:30am :S Pictures will be in the next post there were too many to cram into this one.

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A fairytale by Japan, Mameaw, and Tittee:

Once upon a time in the far away land. There have a little home in the forest. It’s a witch’s house. She is evil she is ugly. Her name is Coverly.

She had long white hair. She hate childrend. If she found any childrend she turned them to mice.

One day when she read a magic book and she try to spell it but she spell it wrong. There was a big bom and the witch turn to nothing.

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(Joe)

Last week, I went to Amazon. I saw anaconda

(Kap)

The anaconda was bog and wild.

(joke)

“Oh! It’s dangerous”

(Tiw)

The anaconda wanted to eat me.

(Peace)

“Wow! The anaconda is dangerous for you.”

(Gong)

“I love it!”

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During the first week of classes I gave my students an activity to do in class. They had to write stories in a group. Each person began their own story with 1-2 sentences and then passed it to the next person who added another 1-2 sentences. They seemed to have a lot of fun with the activity and some of them even came up with some very creative stories. I will be uploading a few of my favorite stories over the next few days starting with a two stories from Mimmim, Nut and, Tong. (I have left the stories exactly as they were written…lots of spelling and grammar mistakes).

Story 1:

(Mimmim)

Once upon a time at Rose garden have one beautiful Princess she name is Mimmin who is so pretty girl, everyone call she is Rose Princess. Animal in Rose garden all love her becus she love and care its.

(Nut)

She have a couple name is nice, he so ugly and very fat but Mimmim so love him, a lot becus he make a magic with her.

(Tong)

And one night mimmim Princess and her Prince married and kiss. One year later, mimmim Princess have one son and one daughter. Children is lovely and smart. Everyone so happy very much.

(Nut)

In the morning when she waked. It’s just a dream becuz she crazy.

Story 2 :

(Tong)

Once upon a time at cabin have a milkmaid. She is hard and free. She have son and daughter, we are happy family.

(Nut)

Once a night have a ugly demon come to her cabin, it want to eat her cow. So milkmaid can kill it becuz she is a wondergirl

(Mimmim)

After she killed, Her neighbor call she is Heroine of village.

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I know everyone has been hearing about the flooding in Thailand on the news. The floods are in the Northern part of Thailand (here's a map of the affected areas). The only affects to the Southern part of the country has been a disruption in transportation through Bangkok by train and bus. Deliveries to stores have also been slowed since most of the distribution centers are located in the north. Deliveries have not been stopped but there is a noticeable lack of popular products in stores.

So don't worry about me I'm not being swept away by the flood waters!

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