Teachers 'R' Us

Well we have been teaching for eight months and you haven't seen any pictures, well I'm about to change that. Below are are pictures from our classes. Jessica is teaching a second grade class and I am teaching a first grade class.

Here I am in my amazing pastel blue uniform.

In each of our classes we have an assistant Thai teacher who knows a bit of English to help translate for the kids.

First graders answering questions such as "How are you?", "What food do you eat?", and "Where do you live?".

Working on their books after the "lecture".

Jessica throwing the ball to kids to get them to answer questions.

Another shot of Jessica's kids.

Jessica's fabulous drawings.

Showing the whole classroom.

The kids do get excited when you bring a camera into the classroom.

Actual Tidbits

When we started this blog I envisioned something completely different than what it has become for me. It has become a visual account of our travels, a place for long posts with lots of pictures. No tidbits in sights, none of the short, almost daily posts I was envisioning. A lot of that has moved over to my new photography blog, but of course, anything that doesn't come with a picture I don't post about.

So, in an attempt to rectify all of that, and get started on the right foot again, here is a tidbit.

Tidbit Numero Uno: Durian. Disgusting, disgusting fruit, many people actually enjoy eating what smells (and to me, tastes) like dirty diapers. Gross gross gross, but fine when you pass it on the street because you can just keep walking. Well. Last Wednesday when I showed up to teach a Mattayom 6 class (equivalent of seniors in high school, for those who are interested), there was a putrid smell. What could it be? Ah yes, some enterprising student had brought durian into the classroom, and it now reeked. Probably quite a clever move on the student's part; we started class 15 minutes late because we had to wait for the smell to clear from the room, even with all the doors and windows open.

A couple durian links for you: an overall guide, right here, and the wikipedia article here. In Thailand, durian is not allowed in hospitals, some hotels, and on some public transit. The above picture is of a plastic surgeon's window.

Okay, that's it for today, see you soon!

PS. Check out this fight over a fallen durian here.

Dinner for Evan

Well my father has requested that we try and put up a few blog posts about our daily lives rather than just our travels. This sounded like a great idea and here is the first of a few new posts to come.

So here is a dinner dish that I have just started making for myself. The quantity below is good enough for me for a week or more. The dish is called pad-ka prow moo sup, which basically means ground pork with chilies, garlic and basil leaves. It is really tasty, spicy, and simple to make. Unfortunatly the pictures didn't come out that well as my camera wasn't focusing properly, nonetheless you will get the idea.

Here are the chilies and garlic almost ready to go.

Two pounds of ground beef for 900 grams worth, and a couple of packages of Holy Basil Seasoning, which goes perfect with this dish.

Mix the seasoning packages, chilies, garlic and pork into the wok and cook away. In less than ten minutes everything is done and ready. The pork here is 30%+ fat so having to drain the wok after everything is done makes the dish a tad less appealing.

Here is the finished dish over rice, which is how it is usually served. This dish also worked for me as with the left overs I can add it very easily to anything else we make.