So to begin, I apologize for waiting so long to update this! I have been very busy, but also a little lazy with keeping people informed, so for that I apologize. School has been going very well, we are busy learning a lot of new vocabulary which the kids are picking up very quickly. Many of them have been making huge progress in the past two weeks with there conversation time and also with writing their names. I am so happy that I think they will beat my goal, and will be writing their names way before Christmas. One of them, Beam, just learned to write the "B" in his name, which I praised him for, so now he writes it all over every workbook page we do! (Fortunately, he also likes to erase them :)
I also made it through my first ever parent teacher conferences a few weeks ago. Most of the parents know enough English to do them without an interpreter, but that meant I had to talk very simply, which at times felt useless because I couldn't convey exactly what I wanted to, but oh well. They are finished, and I enjoyed meeting all the parents and hearing stories about what their kids think of school!
In the past couple of weeks my kids have become very cuddly with me, it seems like I can't sit down anywhere without one of them in my lap instantly with a book or shoving a plastic carrot in my face saying "carrot" over and over until I acknowledge them. But it is fun, and I am enjoying the rapport that we have built with each other. Also, they are learning games like duck, duck, goose and ring-around-the-rosi, it took a while and a lot of them laughing at me while I made a fool of myself, but now they hate when I stop them!
Some things I have done outside of school since the last posting include:
1. Going to the orphanage each week to hold Grit, he is growing and seems to recognize me a little, which means it is getting harder and harder to leave him :(
2. Swimming a couple times a week with Jill.
3. We attempted to find a ship called the Dulos Ship that sells Christian books all around the world, but we weren't able to find it, so instead we went to eat some American food at the hard rock cafe. Although it felt a bit expensive to pay $10 for a meal, which came out to be more like 500 baht, it was totally worth it. We seriously skimmed our menus over and over for 30 minutes reasoning through what we wanted the most and couldn't find anywhere.
4. I went to a conference about Brain Based Learning, that turned out to be less about that and more about a program they were selling. But the trip was not wasted because it was down by the tallest building in Bangkok so we went up and got some great views of the city and some fun pictures in their museum.
5. Quite a while ago it was Brenna, one of my housemates birthdays so we went to a park and rented bikes, less then 75 cents for the whole day, and we brought food and played games and had a good time.
I think that is about all that is new. I am still planning and counting down til the time when my family gets here. I can't believe that will be the half-way marker for my time here. The time truly is flying. Now I am off to eat some ice cream, til next time! (And hopefully next time won't be so far away!)
