Vacation, School and Good News!

Thanks to a Buddhist holiday our school will be closed Monday and Tuesday next week. Neils and I have decided to take advantage of this rare four day holiday by taking a trip to Malaysia. Now, Malaysia is a place where most foreign teachers in Nakhon Si Thammarat end up at some point for a Visa run. Generally speaking, Visa runs have a tendency to be unpleasant ventures. I think is because you generally have no choice and often times not a lot of time. Therefore, we know a few people here who don't have the fondest associations with Malaysia. However, I kind of think that this opinion is less about Malaysia itself than is about the hassle of a Visa run. Thanks to a suggestion from our friend Martin, Neils and I sprang for the more expensive Non-Immigrant B visa before we left. Subsequently we have not had to make a visa run, so we've decided to go check out Malaysia on our accord. We will be hitting up the island of Langkwai. To get there, we will bum a ride from a co-worker to Trang, Thailand Friday after work. Saturday we will get up, catch a bus to Satun and then take a ferry to Langkawi. While there we hope to collect some UVs on a lovely beach, relax and perhaps see a move IN ENGLISH!!

Now preparing for this trip is a little more involved then just packing a bag and hopping in the car. See, in order to the visa you have in Thailand, you must purchase a re-entry visa before leaving the country. If you leave without doing this you effectively end your visa, which would be extremely problematic for you and your employer. The visa process is very complicated and drawn out, so it would not be fun to come back to discover that you have to start all over. My director made it a point to make sure I knew about this requirement a few ago. She is not really interested in re-doing the paper work or re-paying the fees just because we wanted to go on a little vaca. So yesterday, Neils and I took the afternoon off of work to kill two birds with one stone. Every 90 days you have to check in with immigration, so they know that you are still in the country and still living and working where were when you received the visa. It was time for our 90 check in and since we were there we also got our re-entry visa. The 90 check in is a piece of cake. You just fill out a form and give it to the immigration officer. The re-entry visa is a bit more complicated. It requires copies of a few of your passport pages and passport size photo. We had neither of these things. Getting the copies was easy, but we weren't entirely sure where to get the photos. We ran to a few different places, and were eventually able to get the photos in time. We did have to wait 15 minutes between taking the photo and it being printed, but don't worry we made that 15 minutes count by having some ice cream at Swensen's!  Once we had all the necessary documentation in hand, we headed back to immigration, paid 1,000 baht each and waited for the officer to fill and stamp our paper work. Vacation on!

Besides planning international trips, there really isn't much new and exciting in our lives. We continue to spread the English language to the children of Satit.

Neils is currently preparing for mid terms, which is a pretty immense amount of work. He has to write a test of each subject in addition to all his regular planning that must be done. I'll tell you one thing, I know I took for granted how hard all my teachers worked when I was growing up. You really have no idea how time consuming planning lessons is. Neils is doing more work than usual at home, in hopes that he will not have to do any while we are on vacation. It doesn't help that school activities are usurping Friday afternoons (Neils' main planning time) last week and this week.

It's not all bad news though. Neils is trying a new rewards program, which was met with some excitement on its first day. He's hoping it helps keep kids in line. He still wavers on what he wants to do about his job. One day he says, "I've made it through 1/4 of the year, I might as well stay." Then the next day he'll hear about a job opening at another school and say, "I think I'll send in my resume." Ha! Hopefully the right choice makes itself clear and he is able to find happiness in his work in the remainder of the year.

I still continue to love my job. We started a new program called My First English Adventure today. It features Disney characters and covers some pretty basic conversation/vocabulary points. Today, we reviewed saying hello and goodbye. We did this by singing songs and playing a new game. I brought in a picture of Mickey Mouse and hung it on the wall. At first, we sang the song to the picture on the wall. Then I had the kids close their eyes and moved the picture around the room. When the music started they had to find the picture, wave and sing to it. Admittedly, I was pretty skeptical about this. I mean, it just sounds so basic. But the kiddos LOVED IT. Of course they added their own little spin to it. When it was time to close their eyes, they all laid down on the floor (where they were sitting before) with their eyes pointed to the ground. Then when it was time to open their eyes and find Mickey everyone was all smiles and laughs. Mickey always got big waves and everyone sang along. I'm pretty sure we could have played that game all day. At the end of the class as we were walking from the English room to the main classroom some of the kids were still singing the song. It is very rewarding to see something you teach find its way outside of the classroom, and it's always super fun to see the kids in your class having such a great time.

We volunteered at the orphanage last week. I keep meaning to bring my camera but I always forget. We really enjoy our time there. The kids are great, although last week they weren't so much interested in learning. Oh well...can't really blame them. I mean it is Sunday after all.

And in other news, there is going to be a new pink bundle of joy in our family. Neils' sister Emily is pregnant and we just found out today that she is expecting a little girl! We are really loving all the baby love that is happening in our family lately and are super excited to meet the new baby as well as Miss Dylan! Woot to being an untie and uncle!

Check back here to hear about of our *hopefully* fabulous vacation!

Hope you are well!