Hi!
We have had a lot happening to keep us very busy. I feel like I have been drowning in all the work. Mostly it started during third quarter exams (March 20) and has lasted since then.
Right after third quarter exams, ended on Friday. We had a class party. I invited all of my students over to our house for their class party. They were excited about getting to come over to Ma'am house. All my 26 students came into our one bedroom. Luckily it is divded into a living room and bedroom, but all of my students crammed into our one room. I tried to get them to go out to the entry way to the room, but they all wanted to be in my room. The girls and I made some cupcakes. We ordered pizza for lunch with some soft drinks. The students played with all of Mike's wood toys and got on to our computer to play all of our computer games. After about 2 hours of playing here. Mike and I took them all to Seacon Square to go bowling. We had a blast bowling with them. They commented to me that Adventist really can have fun. It was nice to know that they noticed. The girls didn't want to play they just wanted to watch the boys. But when I started playing and encouraging the girls they started playing. I tried to teach them how to bowl. The girls weren't that bad after some practice. The girls and I played two games while Mike and the boys played three games. The guys were really good and Mike was just trying to keep up with them. All in all it was a very nice day.
The next Thursday we went out on 8th grade Field Trip. We went to the world's largest Tiger farm. I made sure Mike was invited to go with my class since he just loves Tigers. When we got there it hadn't opened yet so we took the students to a nearby beach. Most of the students rented bicycles and rode up and down the paved area by the beach having a great time. We all ate there at the beach. Luckily I took some sandwiches, because all the food along the beach was meat. Then we went back to the park. It really seemed like a small place. I have been to much larger zoos and things. They did have all sorts of animals like camels, monkeys, pigs, elephants, aligators, etc. We watched an aligator show that was not that great. The aligators really didn't perform they just sat there. Then they had a pig race that was kind of good. After that one of my girls rode an elephant. We had fun. At the end of the day we watched a tiger show that wasn't so bad. We rode on an air con bus home and had fun with the students singing songs.
I really had a lot of extra things to do, but I now HAD to grade all of their exams and work. I just barely got my grades done in time for parent/teacher conferences on April 5. Parent/teacher conferences went ok. I got my student's history drawings on the wall and projects displayed in the classroom. There was some really neat building projects like Mount Rushmore, The White House, and a Southern Village. My students are excellent at drawing also. I have some of the best pictures I have seen of the presidents. The best drawings were of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy. The other drawings were all good as well. The students and the parents enjoyed seeing all the projects on my walls. I had to get two more bulletin boards put up just to put all the drawing projects on them. With the projects I had my students write a paper about their project. So if it was on Abraham Lincoln they had to do research about his life and write a 3 page paper. That is what really killed me and got me behind. It took forever grading all those projects. But it was definitely worth it!!!! My students really got into it and they did awesome jobs on the projects and the papers. I also had them present their knowledge to the class and all the class had a quiz over the information on the projects. Most complained, but they all did really well and they got more excited over American History.
Then the night of April 5 was busy because we had junior/senior banquet. That was interesting. We have mostly SDA faculty with mostly Buddist students. We tried to have more of a Christian standard banquet, but the students wanted an exciting banquet. I think the juniors and the junior class officers did a good job at presenting the program. The banquet was at the Grand Sheriton Hotel's banquet room. It was decorated nicely with flowers. The juniors had ordered an ice sculpture of a eagle was stationed at the entrance of the room. Mike and I decided to dress Thai for the banquet. We were the most talked about and voted the best dressed faculty at the banquet. It was really neat, all the students turned and clapped when we entered. All the students wanted pictures with us. They said it was neat to have American teachers really getting into traditional Thai outfits. They started with having some soft drinks at the table and then some introduction and music. The theme of the banquet was "Yesterday" and they played the Carpender's song "Yesterday" and they had the background music while we were eating mostly Carpender songs and other songs from that era. The food was really good. They had plenty of dishes for "meatatarians" and vegetarians. The vegetable dish there was so very very delicious. I hadn't tasted such really good vegetable dish in a long time. Mike and I both kept eating the vegetables. There was also spagetti and lots of fruits. Then they had a nice Thai dessert table. Thai desserts are not really that sweet. Mike even ate more vegetables instead of desserts! After eating they started a variety show that was awesome. They had a talk show with Mr. And Mrs. Anderson (the director of the school) about how much they knew each other and their dating and romance. They also had baby pictures of the seniors. They planned to have faculty ones as well, but the hotel put the screen up after the seniors pictures. They were just changing slide trays, but the hotel thought they were done. The MC's for the evening did a good job at just going on, instead of complaining. Two Mike's high school math students, Ryo & Matt, had their live band and some the girls sang with the band. They also at two different times had girls sing a solo. Both of them are in my biology class and they did an awesome job!! At the end they had the banquets prince and princess from the junior class. Then from the senior class they had the king and queen. To get to be prince or princess it was on vote. The king and queen had to do something special. The three runners up were selected by popular vote. Then the king and queen had to win their crowns in a small contest. The juniors had them pick a topic out of a hat and say as much about it right then without saying "um" or "ah." The one that talked for the longest was the king and queen. It was really hard and most couldn't do it. The best was the king. He was given the topic "the liver." He went on talking about drinking and how it effects the liver and reminded them specifically about it, because he knew most were going to bar after the banquet to drink and dance. It was really funny and he did such a good job. The banquet ended with the juniors thanking the seniors for coming. The senior class president made a speech. Then the juniors thanked their class sponsors. At the end they did a special thank you to Mike. Mike helped them raise money for the banquet on Valentine's Day. Mike made a lot of balloon animals and sold them for the juniors. He also helped teach the juniors how to make them for a couple weeks before Valentine's Day. He didn't expect anything and it was a total and complete surprise. They gave him a really nice gift. The gift was a Thai bowl that both of us wanted to get from Thailand before we left. It is one thing that will really remind us of Thailand and now since we got it from them we will really treasure it. It was a great banquet and we really enjoyed being there with the students. We really have awesome students.
The next week after the banquet was WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) team visit. They were on campus to probe and poke around to see if the school was good enough to be accredited. This is the first time the school has tried for accreditation. The students who have been graduating from our school really hasn't been able to just go to other schools. They usually have to take more tests or complete other classes before they are allowed to go on to colleges. I really didn't have any problem with them being there. Southern just went through getting teacher accreditation and I was student teaching at Spaulding elementary when they had the accreditation team come to there school, so I was more relaxed than other teachers. Some were so scared of doing something wrong so they wouldn't get accredited. I don't know if we did get it or not yet. WASC will vote on it sometime near the end of April or in May sometime maybe. We might know the results before the beginning of June when school is out.
The Friday afternoon after the visit (April 10) started our Thai new year holiday (Songkran). We got 3 days off from school. I looked at it like a short spring break. We left early Sunday morning with 10 of my homeroom students to Pattaya Beach. Two of my students owns condos there so we had a free place to stay. We had fun together going to the beach, banana boating, jet skiing, playing in the swimming pool, going out to eat, playing games in the room, and just getting everyone wet. Songkran holiday is a big country wide water fight time. The holiday is a water holiday. Everyone has water guns, water buckets, water hoes, ect. anything to get others wet. It started out long ago as a religious time. When you got sprayed you were suppose to be blessed, but now it is some religious but mostly fun getting anyone and everyone wet. You literally stay wet for the whole 5 day holiday. Besides just getting wet the students also wanted to go play paint ball. Mike had a blast playing with the students. I brought my electric two stove burner and my pots and pans. I made the students breakfast (American style). We had pancakes one day. Then we had eggs, toast, and hash browns the next day. They usually have some rice something three times a day. Breakfast is just another meal. It was neat to see my students eating it, also they liked me showing them what I eat. My girls got into making the pancakes and made most of them for the boys. They also had to fry the eggs and potatoes. They even started making french toast. It was fun cooking with them. One evening the restaurants were crowded so I made the students a spagetti dinner, with salad, garlic bread, and chocolate pudding for dessert. We all had a fun time eating and playing games in the room until 2 am for Thai New Year's Eve. Also while we were there it was the girl who condo we were staying at birthday. So the students went out and bought a cake and surprised her. The cake was good, but we all didn't really like the icing. The icing became the fun for a little time in the evening. One student got a handful of icing and smeared it on the birthday girls face. Then she got them back and they both got one of the guys. Then it was an icing war. Everyone got icing all over their face and had so much fun. Then we went down to the pool washed off in the showers and spraying everyone off and then we went swimming and playing volley ball in the pool until they kicked us out at midnight. We were all really tired when we got home the next evening from the trip, but we had so much fun with the students. I really enjoy my homeroom students in the classroom and I had more fun outside of the classroom setting.
After Sonkran, I got really sick and have been really sick for over 2 weeks. The doctors didn't know what it was, but now I am better. My body finally has beat being sick with out any medicines. I am glad to be feeling better. I have got to go for now. The next few e-mails will contain some pictures of some of the things we have been doing too. I hope you enjoy the pictures as well. Hopefully Mike will eventully snap the rest of the pictures that go along with this letter. We will send them later when we get them. God bless you.
Love, Jamie
Jamie DeLay
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Reported 1 May, 1997
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