Sunday
8:45 off to church (had to get up early to make a cake as it was Jamie's birthday) I'm not on kids church this week but need to make sure that Danet and Chendra are OK and have everything they need. Colin is on older youth. Had a good time of worship and spending time with our Khmer friends. Kids had fun learning drums with Phally! Had a nice lazy afternoon with the family. To and collect some photos from the photo shop. Colin went out at 7 to watch the Grand Prix. I put the kids to bed in record time and for the first time since we have been here do some scrapping!
Monday
Up early and at work for the 7am staff meeting! Started the school day with whole school assembly where Lucias class were taking it. She was very cute! Had a full day of teaching. Monday it is double lunch duty 12:00-12:20 on the dinner queue...making sure the high school kids let the little ones go first. Very slow and hot today. Second duty have to deal with a High School incident which involves interviewing several kids, liaising with the High School Principal and signing the detention book. There was a power cut so lost all light and air con and fans in my classroom! Outside it was over 40 degrees.
After school went to Phoebes swimming class end of term party with Ewan and Lucia till about 5pm. It was so lovely cooling off in the pool....wish we could do this more often! Home to have yummy Sweet and Sour cooked by my lovely house helper Sambaht. After the kids were in bed did some school work and then after talking with Colin and looking on the news about the situation in Bangkok, realised we needed to discuss our summer holiday plans.
There is civil unrest in Bangkok with demonstrations and a little violence. We are planning to travel overland via buses and trains to the north of Thailand to Chaingmai and then down to the North West of Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to visit my parents who live there. did some Internet checks and found that there was some special offers on Airasia which would mean we can go into the Bangkok via the airport not in the actual city. Also the way we had planned to travel meant we could only get 15 day visas and we need at least 24 days. the 30 day visa will cost us $30 each or if we fly it is free. Means Colin will have to go in early. Don't sleep well bc I'm thinking of what we can do and it is hot!
Tuesday:
6:30 Colin goes in to work to see what he can do about flights. I get all the children up and ready for school. Normally on Tuesday I go in later as I have till 10:00 for planning time. Today I brief Sambaht in my best Khmer and Khmer/English dictionary about what I need from the market and what to cook today. I wish I could speak more Khmer (note to self need to do two Khmer lessons a week next year)
Tuktuk arrives to take me and the children to school. Sron is our tuk tuk driver. I think he has about six kids and we could drive the car to school but by using Sron we can provide him with a weekly wage to help support him. Finish my planning and do some report writing. I only have 2 classes to teach today as all my planning time falls today nice but means the rest of my week is busy. Realise that although Airasia has special offers they still work out too much with the
At lunch meet with three friends Dianne, Angela and Morag to pray. It is a really nice time as we get to sit in an air con room and catch up with each others weeks.
After lunch work on the class page for the yearbook. After school have a sectional staff meeting to discuss the new curriculum for next year. As the meeting ends hear thunder and look out to see dark clouds....better go quickly...oh no Colin has taken the helmet home! Quickly charge round school to try to find a spare helmet. Find a skanky blue one but it will do. Get on my moto just as the rain starts to spot! Rain coat or not?? Will leave it off this time and chance it! The wind is really strong so as I am driving it is gusting sand and bits of leaves and small branches across the road. Everyone seems in a hurry! The rain seems to be holding off only a few fat drops. Race down my road and get to the house before the rain!
After dinner and the kids are in bed we listen to a podcast from the Beacon.
Wednesday
After school go to a staff development meeting....need to rush home and relieve Colin so he can come to a parents evening at 4pm about the new Curriculum the school is going to be doing! It is called Interact and it is awesome! Children's friends go home and we have dinner....Ewan's friends mum has brought a massive plate of sushi (she cooks amazing sushi) After dinner I thought it would be nice to give some sushi to Steve and Midge Smith our church leader, so of I go to deliver the sushi. On my way past I see all my neighbours sitting outside and think actually it would be a great way of getting to know my neighbours. So when I got back we loaded up some more sushi and went round with the children and introduced ourselves to the neighbours. We have talked before but they don't speak English and we don't speak much Khmer. Lucia was a little super star and charmed everyone. Kids are great ice breakers. We sat with them for a while and then went back and got the kids in bed.
I worked until about 10 o'clock on planning for the next year.
Thursday
So tired again (maybe I need to go to bed earlier!!!) couldn't get up and just made it to the staff meeting. My Khmer classroom assistant Tevy was taking devotions and we all read a psalm together and sang. She was encouraging us to spent time with God each day reading God word, worshipping God and praying. Great way to start the working day.
Had a busy day with my class practising assembly., maths and writing stories! Got a message a lunch time saying I needed to provide the back page for the weekly newsletter by lunch time. Oooops Forgot!! Mad rush in the next hour to pull something together.....my on going deadlines this week are reports due next week; class assembly on Monday; staff devotions on Monday; Interact planning prep for Friday; class page for school year book due Friday and now the back page due today!!! ARRRRGH! had to cancel my language lesson this week and do the yearbook page and some reports. Go home and have delicious spaghetti bolognasie cooked by Sambaht...why have we never asked her to do this before???? Did some more planning after dinner til about 10 again!
Friday
Got to school on time but sooo tired! Had a mad morning as during my first lesson one of the children spotted a cockroach (not unusual) so several of the boy s in my class are experts at catching them....the secret is not to squish them as they release eggs so you remove and destroy else where. In the hunt we had to move one of the drawer units and this revealed a massive ants nest which had lodged there after the flooding....this needed lots of spraying so had to remove all the children out of the classroom and it also revealed more cockroaches. Another 8 and lots of babies!! Well it meant I had to sort all my drawers!!! After the classroom had defumed we went back in.
Friday before lunch asked Tevy my wonderful classroom assistant to cover my class for one lesson so I was able to have an extra planning session with the other Primary staff. She is amazing and I have been working with her all year to train her to do more teaching/group work with the children. She has become so much more confident and has a natural ability with children. So spent the rest of the afternoon getting really excited about the new curriculum and planning how we are going to implement it.
Home and for the second time since we have been here we got a babysitter and went out.....Colin with the guys and me with the girls......actually it was supposed to be Colin's night out but as two of our kids had a sleepover I managed to share a babysitter with someone else and go out too!! We all met up after the meals to go and listen to a live band...unfortunately that night the "live band" was a video from the UK! So we went somewhere else. It was nice to just get out for a change.
Saturday
Really looking forward to a lie in......mmmmm not amused with the student next door who thought it would be nice to sit and strum his guitar for over an hour starting at 5:45!!!!!!! Then at 7:30 it was the synthesiser arrrggg! All day Saturday it seemed like there was on music practise or bored student trying to play something. Not very restful. Fortunately at 5 we met up with two other families for a meal and had a synthesiser free meal :)
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