Mosquito Food.

I attract mosquitoes. Even despite layers of bug spray, my legs are covered in bites and scars from past mosquito bites. As far as I've seen, none of the Thai people (or any of my students) have issues with mosquitoes. WHY ME?!

I told my M3/1 class that I have a group of American students who would be willing to exchange letters with them. Their reaction? Looks of absolute and pure horror. I asked them if they would want to write letters to them, and at least 10 voices rose up and said, "NO!" I was surprised, until one of the girls in the front (really bright and attentive in class) said, "Teacha--will you teach how to write letter?" And then I realized that they were reacting because they didn't have the confidence to write a letter to actual Americans who already know English. I reassured her that I will be teaching them how to write a proper letter to their penpal, and asked students who were interested to please come up to the desk to sign up with me. At the end of the class, I looked down at my roster, and noticed that out of 49 students, only 3 refused to sign up. (I know exactly which 3 too...) I'm excited. I'm hoping that my other classes will have the opportunity to write letters to American penpals -- even my M3/9 class, if they are interested and behave themselves. But first I'll have to find 400 American students who would be willing to do this penpal program. One step at a time...

I talked to N today, and I told him that next semester (as I'm staying 10 months instead of 5 like L and N) I wanted to stay with M3 (though they'd be M4 by then) so that I could work with them some more. I need to remember to ask Phi-Dang about that tomorrow. I want to stick with them as long as I can so that they don't get screwed over somehow. Also, it saves me the month's time trying to relearn names and levels of understanding! How efficient am I? :3

We don't have school tomorrow because half of the teachers are away for a conference, and the students were told not to come to school. I was fine with it, except one thing...the teachers who are not going to the conference still have to show up for school. But we wouldn't be teaching. Or anything. What am I supposed to do for 8 hours in my office when I could be gallivanting around Tak?! I suppose I could write 40 more lesson plans for the semester lesson plans that they failed to mention earlier. sigh.

Perhaps I shall play hooky and leave to travel to a nearby waterfall. We'll see how I feel in the morning :)