Started writing this ages ago, and never got round to finishing it....

Been super busy over the last week or so, preparing for next week's Christmas activities! I was even supposed to go to school on Sunday, to practise the nativity play, but the teacher never turned up to pick me up... that's Thailand for you!

We've had a singing contest, speech contest, spelling bee (you have never seen kids get so involved in a spelling test - high fives going on and everything!), crossword (scrabble) game competition... I've been judge for quite a few of these, so missed some lunch times too! We still have the dance competition to go... Then we have the top 3 performing in the final on Friday, where we have a big Christmas show! So I've also been sorting the scripts for the presenters, and for the nativity play - all go!!

In lesson times, I've been practising Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas with the students, so they're ready for the singalong at our big show on the 28th! Some of them have been really good, so hopefully will be good on the day!

Have also made some paper snowflakes to decorate the room - particularly did this with my LD class, who are the students with learning difficulties (or, as I was told, "cannot remember"!). They were so excited about it, and love wearing my santa hats and reindeer antlers. There are some classes, where it is "not cool" to wear them, but my favourite classes (of course!) got involved, and were loving the hats!

Weekends have been pretty chilled - last weekend, I stayed in Prakonchai, while the others went away. I mostly sat around watching tv etc... went to the market a bit, and tried some new foods!

This weekend just gone, we were all here... Friday night, we had been invited to a wedding party. Basically, the guy (who we know from drinking at Mr Khom's shop!) was getting married on the Saturday in Buriram, but for close friends who couldn't go, he had a little party the evening before (let's call it the stag do!). Had lots of food: fried pork, weird pork and vegetable soup thing, lots of shells (I opted out of those).... then, we met the groom's sister, Jack, who speaks really good English. She's studying for a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Anyway, she gave us some of the wedding sweets to try - a goo-ey coconut sweet wrapped in banana leaves, which was delicious, and another rice, banana and bean thing, also wrapped in banana leaves, and also sweet and tasty! Then they had me trying a new fruit - they tell me it is called Ruby fruit, but I have never heard of it before. Anyway, it was really tasty!

We stayed at the party quite a while, and then one of the other guests, Mr Mee, offered to take us to a bar where there is karaoke! Was loads of fun, though it also happened to be a bar where there are lots of Thai girls vying for the men's attention.... (I'll leave it at that!). Mee is also good at English, and he is the owner of a gold shop, so apparently very rich!

Forgot to mention that Kru At came with us too - he's the man who introduces us to all these locals! He is a 65 year old semi-retired English teacher, who likes to take us to places for food and drink... anyway, he came to the bar with us, which was hilarious. He was drunk and dancing away!

Saturday morning, after a bit of a lie in (though was woken by a marching band on the street, who were there for well over an hour - totally not necessary at 8am!), we had breakfast and then went down to the swimming pool for a bit, to soak up some sun. In Thailand, people swim fully clothed, so when there are other people about, we have to be very discrete, and swim with shorts and tshirts on!

Ok, so I wrote that on Christmas Eve, and it's now 3rd Jan, so I am far behind!!

Christmas Eve, I got home from school and the others were outside Mr Khom's shop, over the road, decorating the tree with lights and baubles, and putting up balloons and banners. Quite sweet that they wanted us to decorate and have a party, considering they don't celebrate Christmas! Anyway, we went to the market, and bought lots of random food - we were all wearing Santa hats, and got a few looks, but mostly no more than we would anyway! Everyone is so friendly here! Then we went back to the shop, and had a little feast with a load of the locals, which was nice. Me, James and Alex sang some Christmas songs for them, which they were loving. A long rendition of the '12 days of Christmas' had them a little bit baffled!!

Christmas day was a weird one! I woke up in the morning, and had a couple of cards and things to open, which was strange because it didn't feel Christmassy as nobody else was there to enjoy it with me! Then went to school, and a few people were wishing me a Merry Christmas etc, but it was quite a normal day! I made sure everything I did was Christmassy, more singing, and some Christmas wordsearches etc... Luckily, I have my fave class on a Tuesday, so we got a bit of 'Santa Claus is coming to town' on, and I made all the kids decorate the blackboards and took photos with them (as you may have seen in my photos!).

After school on Christmas day, Sylvia, Sam and Alex had been invited to one of their teacher's houses for dinner, so I went along with them. It was lovely! They had put up lots of lights in the trees in their garden, and put out a little Christmas tree too. So sweet of them to make so much effort for us. They invited some friends over, and made us the BEST food! There was roast chicken (I think we each ate about half a chicken!), salad, curry, fruit, Thai sweets, drinks, and we had music playing, and lots of photos being taken. They were loads of fun too! Kru Cat (whose house it was) has a daughter who studies Psychology too, so she called her so I could speak to her on the phone - she was so good at English, and always nice to speak to someone my own age in this country, who has similar interests - might meet her when she comes home to Prakonchai!

Anyway, the rest of the week at school, we had practices for the Christmas show. Thursday, I was meant to have lessons, but the students seemed to be wandering all over the school, and so I asked if I should be teaching, and the Head of English just told me "it's ok, just take them to the gym and decorate the Christmas tree"! Haha. That happens a lot here; I have no idea what's going on, and they just change their mind every 5 minutes about what is happening, so I really have to go with the flow!

That lunch time, we went out for a meal with the foreign language department - one of the teachers is on study leave in Bangkok, but he's back for a bit, so I met him, and he speaks really good English and has English friends, so it's really refreshing to be able to speak to someone and not have to slow down and miss out words! He goes back to Bangkok soon though I think. Anyway, we had a nice lunch - the first time all of the English teachers were in one place (though the level of English is sometimes still quite limited!).

Friday we had our big show! I wore my new red shirt, as we were all dressing in Christmassy colours, and had some Santa deeley-boppers on! In the morning, we were waiting around for the monks to turn up, so I helped the people in the Nativity play get ready... They had their respect Buddhism ceremony, with the monks, and then we all stood outside, with all the school desks lined up. The monks walk down through the middle, and we all have to give them food and drinks. Apparently Thai people believe that the more they give, the more they will receive in life. So people go to the temple a lot to give the monks food, because they cannot buy their own. All a new experience for me though, and think one monk in particular looked at me funny, like, "why is this white girl here?!" Haha.

Anyway, we opened the show with the songs we had been practising, and then had the nativity play. Some of the boys had made a really good stable for the scenery, out of bamboo sticks, but when it was moved onto stage, it started to collapse a bit, so that was a bit of a disaster, but it went pretty well overall! One of the kings was absent, but we had a boy from Scotland visiting (he is the family of 2 of the students at school) so he stepped in! We had fun comparing schools at home to the one in Thailand!

The rest of the day was mostly watching (and judging) the singing and dancing contests. Some of them were really good! But the dancing was a little provocative considering they were right in front of the director of the school!! There were lots of awards being given out too.

We had lunch (and an ice cream - at Christmas!) in the gym, with all the students and teachers. Some of the teachers were up on the stage doing karaoke - they can't get enough of it over here! The students were trying to get me to dance with them, and as most of you will know, I don't take much encouraging, so me and one of the students from M2 were busting some moves on the dancefloor!!

Then in the afternoon, we had more singing and dancing (this time, for new year), and then the teachers had brought in presents for the students, and they did a raffle to decide who got them.

After school, we had a staff New Year party - we had some food, some drinks, and some karaoke. I got a bunch of flowers for being one of the new teachers, which was nice, and then we had a raffle of our own, and I got given an 'Electric Jar Pot' - I think it's for boiling water, but got a bit confused with what they were saying! Still, it was one of the good presents, as I could've ended up with an umbrella! Before I went home, the director requested that I do one more song at karaoke (haha!)!

That night, we got an overnight bus to Koh Chang - as it was the long bank holiday weekend, there was a lot of traffic on the roads (but more on the way back). I slept most of the way. We got a ferry across to the island, and then eventually checked into our little shacks late morning.

The accommodation was very basic, with just a bed and a mosquito net in a little wooden hut, with a fan, and lots of holes in the floor etc. We had shared toilets (just a hover one, but then, that's all I have at school, so am used to it now!) and showers (cold, and outside in the open air), but they were fine! You just had to find somewhere to hang your clothes etc, but there were shells on the walls for that!

Anyway, the weekend was lovely - super hot, and can wear shorts and tshirts as much as we want because it's touristy (can't get away with that at home, because we are respectable members of the community!). I spent most of my time on the beach, swimming in the sea, drinking lemon shakes (among other things!), reading my book, having a massage, eating barbecued food on the beach, wandering the shops.... We went on a boat trip one day, to go snorkelling, but the free alcohol from the night before prevented me from enjoying it too much!! I did get off to see the lovely island of Koh Wai though, and we saw some monkeys too!

The evening of New Year's Eve was more relaxed than the previous one (they serve drinks in buckets, and the barman gave them to us for free for being the first on the dancefloor!) - I wasn't drinking, but still had a lovely evening on the beach. There were lots of fireworks all night, music, dancing and fire shows. It was surreal to be there at midnight! But nice anyway!

New Year's day, we had to get the ferry back to the mainland, to catch our minibus home. I was grateful for the lack of hangover! There were lots of people trying to get on ferries, so it took a while, but we made it back to the minibus by 1. Unfortunately, we had to wait around for the other passengers so we didn't leave until 3! I used this as an opportunity to catch up with some of the other teachers from TTT who I hadn't seen much over the weekend, and also chat to the drivers. Their English is about as good as my Thai (actually, that's probably selling them a bit short!) but we manage to make some conversation!

Got back to Prakonchai at about 10pm, so was ready for bed by this point.

School this week is a bit different - yesterday, only half the students turned up, because they had all had parties over the weekend. Can you imagine the students not being at school at home, because they are hungover?! Probably yes.... Anyway, so one of my classes only had 5 students! I played a bit of Simon Says, and sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes!

I went for lunch with some of the teachers, but it took such a long time because the traffic is mental at the moment. So many people heading back from their weekend away. Luckily, I had no lessons in the afternoon, so they took me home, rather than back to school :)

Today, I have a busy day of teaching. The lower school have all gone on scout camp, so we have a change in timetable today - I am teaching M4 all day... double lessons are really not my thing! 4/3 testing my patience! However, 4/1 made some very pretty maps for me, which we are using to practise asking for directions! One more double lesson today, and then I get tomorrow off, because I have no lessons, yay!

I am feeling achey, so the teacher told me to get another Thai massage tomorrow (good idea) and think I might visit the school that my friends work at too. Quiet weekend for me, now it's back to normal!

Hope you all had a fab Christmas and New Year, and look forward to seeing you all later in 2013 (or 2556 if you're Thai!)!

Lots of love to all xxxx