Thailand part 1-Bangkok

Hello all from Thailand!

It is officially spring break and we are spending it in Thailand. The first part of our trip has been spent in Bangkok at the NESA convention. NESA stands for Near East South Asia and is the district that our school belongs to. It's like teacher conventions in the States, but in another country and way more ritzy. The conference lasted 4 days and included some amazing speakers. Never have I learned so much about teaching and been so inspired to improve my teaching. The emphasis this year has been technology. Not just integrating it into the classroom, but changing the way we teach because of all the new technology that is being created. My goal for the rest of the school year (which is only 11 weeks when we get back) is to learn how to create podcasts and use them as resources for students who were absent or who forgot what we learned. The other big push at the conference was 20 brain-based strategies to use in the classroom that will help our students remember what they are taught and become more active in their learning. For any fellow teachers out there, check out books by Marcia Tate and Heidi Hayes-Jacobs, they were my favorite speakers and both are from the States.

There was a lot of "school stuff" going on at the conference, but we found time to have fun as well. NESA threw two great parties during the conference. Both included amazing food and drinks, but each was unique in the entertainment they provided. The first party was in the hotel garden on the river and included a baby elephant who did tricks and posed for pictures. Even though he was a baby, he was still huge! The second party was inside which was good because we got a decent thunderstorm during it, and had traditional Thai music, dancers, and a puppet show. See below for a video of it. We had a great time bonding with our fellow staff members and meeting people from our other schools. One school that we made a great connection with was the American School of Dubai. They had a few teachers from Wisconsin who were our age and were very welcoming.

Despite being very busy with the conference we were able to explore the city a bit and see a few of the sites. The main cultural site we saw was Wat Po otherwise known as the reclining Buddha. It is a HUGE Buddha covered in gold leaf. It is in a building, but the building is not much bigger than the Buddha. Out of respect, you have to cover your shoulders if you are wearing a tank top and everyone must take off your shoes before going in. The architecture is so different than what we are used to seeing, it's beautiful.

Another point of interest was the night markets. It must have been acres and acres of shops selling anything you could want. We picked up some clothes and gifts. We figured if we bartered the price of something in half it was probably close to fair, but you never know for sure. The key is deciding how much something is worth to you and not paying more than that, even if that means offering an insultingly low price to start the bargaining with. Even still, they are the professionals and I'm sure we never really got a "steal."

Lastly, we finished up our time in Bangkok yesterday with hour long massages for only $10 a person. Jamie also picked up his new tailored suit. He got the tailored suit and two tailored dress shirts for the price you would pay for the cheap, off the rack, suit at JCPenny or Boston Store. He looks good ;)

We will update our blog with Thailand part II after we get back from Koh Samui.

Enjoy the pictures!

Elephant at the conference party

Typical Bangkok street filled with tuk-tuks

Jamie posing with the reclining Buddha.

Keep in mind that only it's head is in the picture.

The whole thing is 43 meters long.

Tara posing with a sweet statue

Tara's favorite picture thus far

Checking out the "fresh" fish

Dancers depicting a battle

Thai dancers

Thai puppet show

GALA 2010

To cap off a good week of school last week we had our annual gala (festival/carnival) yesterday as a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity.  Yesterday was also a scheduled teacher workday so Tara and I spent from 8 am- 3:30pm working and enjoying the gala.

To give you an idea of what goes on at the gala I'll list a few of the games and other attractions.
Horse rides, face painting, throwing a wet sponge at a teachers face (like mine), a variety of carnival type games where you win small prizes, a small blowup castle, garage sale, bake sale, cultural food fair, prize raffle and much more.

I would say after working voucher ticket sales (which were the currency of the day) that the event raised close to $8,000 for our schools Habitat for Humanity trip.

In other news we are leaving for Thailand in less than a week.  We are hoping to get internet and blog while we are away from March 26th to April 7th.

Enjoy the pictures!

The garage sale, we got a few books and a set of resistance 

bands all for $4.  What a steal!

A handful of our students working the snack shack.

Jamie being splashed at the sponge toss.

We all pitched in to blow up balloons to sell.  We filled them with

helium and had a bit of fun at the same time. (said in a high pitched voice)

A sign we pass by everyday on our way to work.  Thought you'd enjoy it!

It's heating up!

Well, summer weather has officially begun here in Saudi.  Today saw a high of 93 and it looks like it should hit 96 by the end of the week.  At this rate, we'll be hitting 100 before spring break.  I just hope this warm weather heats up the pool soon.  We went swimming yesterday and I felt like a big baby.  I can tell we've adjusted to the warmness here because the pool felt cold and it took me a good 5 minutes to get in. 

School has continued to be busy.  Tuesday was the science fair.  This is something that I've been working on since November and it was a huge success.  We had about 35 elementary projects and 3 high school ones.  Not bad for only being the second year of the event.  It was so much fun to see the kids explaining their projects and getting excited about their new knowledge.  This year we decided to do prizes for the high school kids so we should have more participants next year solely because they will work for a prize. 

We were able to take some time after school on Wednesday to try out the new rock climbing shoes we bought.  (Katie, you'd be so proud of us)  Our school has a climbing wall in the courtyard and we have started climbing and bouldering as a part of our workouts.  We're hoping to do some climbing in Thailand when we get their and try our shoes on some real rock.   

That's about it for now.  Sorry we haven't taken any pictures lately.  We'll work on that for next week.

Tara

Bahrain Day Trip

After a long week of school, where Tara had to organize Jubail Math Day for our junior high/high school (a three hour math competition among the students), we headed out to Bahrain.  We took a couple of friends with us who needed to pick up a car.  These friends have each been here a long while and know their way around Bahrain quite well.  It was nice to have our own guides because we don't know the island very well.  Here is a little synopses of our day.

We started with breakfasts at Ric's Kountry Kitchen, where we met up with another couple.  Tara had a BACON, egg and cheese biscuit which she fully enjoyed.  I had the American Special which was two eggs, BACON, hashbrowns, and biscuits and gravy.  It was the first bacon we have had since we've been over here.  It was good and very very bad for us (especially mine).  The restaurant was like walking into a small town diner in the U.S.

After breakfast we picked up some movies at our movie store we like, ran into Brent and Laura, more friends of ours, and headed to the salon/spa in one of the many malls where two of the ladies had pedicures or something and Tara had her eyebrows threaded, yes, I said threaded.  Apparently it hurts.  One of our friends husbands walked into the salon and said "hey, she's getting her face flossed."  People laughed and then he was unceremoniously kicked out because men are not allowed into those kind of places.  When Tara was finished Brent and Laura met up with us at the mall and we left the others behind to finish their spa treatments and headed out to lunch at another mall (I have never seen so many malls in one general area of a city).  After lunch we shoe shopped for Tara and then shoe shopped some more.  Finally, Tara has replaced her white strapy shoes she wore to her friend Katie's wedding almost three years ago that broke this fall. 

Our last stop was at a bookstore and bike shop.  Tara browsed books and I browsed road bikes I won't be buying anytime soon.  At about 8:30 we headed back to Saudi Arabia and got stuck on the causeway in traffic for about 45 minutes. 

Once we got back into Saudi, we stopped at Ikea in Khobar to pick up a couple of things and once we got into the store Tara suddenly realized she had left her abaya in the car!  She said she felt kind of naked.  We hurriedly grabbed what we needed, caught some looks, and made it back to the car without incident.  Ever had that dream you got to school or work only to realize you aren't wearing any clothes?  Tara said it was kind of like living that dream.  She almost forgot her abaya twice last time we stopped in Khobar coming back from Bahrain.  It's easy to do once you haven't worn it all day.

That about wraps up our day.  This week is the science fair at school which Tara is also on the committee for.  Only three more weeks of school before spring break!

Oh, and Origami club is going well.

Signing off, Jamie

 

My awesome American breakfast. Yum! Yum!

The breakfast club. From left to right: Meg, Soraya, Terri, Matt, and Me.  Tara is our photographer

This was interesting.  A fashion show in the Middle East at City Center Mall.  The girls look like manikins, but they were definetly real girls walking the runway.