Dad

For some reason, I thought that writing about my dad would be easy, that I would get some divine inspiration and the perfect words would flow freely from my pen, but nothing about anything that has happened over the past few months has been easy, so why would writing about him be any different?

If you didn't know my dad, Kevin Dress, I feel truly sorry for you. Some of us can be consoled by the fact that we did know him, albeit too briefly.

He was a generous man, with his time, his advice, his laughter. He had an incredible work ethic, but also knew the importance of balance, putting away his work in the evening and taking advantage of the simple things that brought him great joy: Frank Sinatra, a martini or a Manhattan, the Wall Street Journal, cooking, conversation and family. Those are just some of the things that made him so uniquely him.

But, there were some characteristics that emerged during the last two months of his life.

My dad was not a very patient man, to which anyone who had ever sat with him in a car during any bit of traffic can attest, but he became a lot more patient during the last couple of months, probably because he wasn't driving anymore. When my mom and I wanted to drag him to yet another appointment of the holistic variety, he complied. And when we wanted to stuff him full of every fruit and vegetable and every supplement under the sun, or ply him with enough carrot juice to drown a horse, he agreed to it. I think he was just upset that his appetite wouldn't allow him to do more. He was patient while he was waiting for the treatment or cure that he was constantly reassured of but which never came.

Because of those words that he heard all the time, “treatable” and “curable”, he was hopeful. He always expected good news, even though two years full of bad news should have taught him differently. Even at the end, he never talked about, “After I'm gone...” I don't think this was wishful thinking or denial on his part, so much as a releasing of the control that he had. Over the last two months of his life, he had to let so much of his power go, and as a result, my mom, my brother, and I had to take over a lot of things that we weren't used to doing. It gave us the chance to become stronger and more accepting of the changes that would eventually occur.

Sometimes there are moments in people's lives when they take you by surprise; like, if someone started to tell you a story and asked you to guess how it would end, what really happened is the exact opposite of what you thought. One time, when my family was staying at my grandparents' condo down in Florida, my brother and I tried to walk out to this island not very far from the beach. When the tide was low, we always thought it would be possible, so one day, we gave it a try. We were about halfway there and realized we had made a mistake. I expected my dad to be upset with us when he came to rescue us, carrying each of us under his arms as if we were sacks of potatoes. Instead, he just went on about how strong the undertow was, and wasn't that pull crazy. Another time, when I was learning to drive, he let me get on the interstate for the first time. Being one who likes to be in control, I was sure that he would be yelling at me the entire time about what I was doing wrong; that wasn't the case. He was busy opening the mail, and I had to practically beg him to pay attention to me.

He was the same with dying. Even while he was in his hospital bed, we still felt like things would be fine because he was there with us, that he was still carrying us. Little did we realize that he was letting go bit by bit all along, so that we would be able to do it by ourselves. And we can. And we will. But, he's not here, and that makes everything a little bit worse.

Being back in Thailand has been both a blessing and a hardship. I have my work here, so I'm busy and can think about other things, but I'm also surrounded by people who didn't know my dad, and I realize how lucky we truly are, his family and friends, to have known such a great man that he only needed 55 years, as Ernest Hemingway put it, “to live all the way up.”

I love you, Dad.  

What I like about you...

I love kids. And not just the good kids. To tell you the truth, I find the good kids kind of boring. They're not really challenging, and they'll do anything you want just because you've established yourself as a figure of authority, even if all you've done is shown yourself to be taller and stronger. The difficult kids are so much more rewarding to me because when I get through to them and create some interest for the subject, I know it's because it's something that they actually want to do and not because I'm threatening them with a stick.

In Thailand, I love my kids, even if I can't understand a lot of what they're saying to me. They have a lot of those qualities that kids all over the world have. They're curious, ask a million questions, follow me around, and try to help me with my work. There are a few great ways in which they differ from American kids, though. In no particular order:

Qualities I love about Thai children

• They respect their elders. As this is a society where age is still held in high esteem, for the most part, Thai kids speak politely to those older than them. They do a pretty good job of listening and following instructions and will basically run the weirdest errands for teachers, including going in some teachers' houses to get stuff for them. I think this may be a bit much, but such is the case here.
• They are so inclusive. We have a number of students here that have some learning disabilities, but unlike in America, they are kept in the mainstream classrooms for the most part. While I think that this means that they're not always getting the help they need, I also think it gives other students the opportunity to befriend and help them. There is a student here that never speaks a word and yet he still has friends. In America, I think disabled students may get more assistance but are often alienated from their peers.
• They're helpful. I always have students volunteering to help me carry my things and bringing me things.
• They have a high tolerance for boredom. So many things are achingly boring here, including a lot of things that are supposed to be “fun.” I went to an English camp for fourth through sixth-graders, and the kids would just sit patiently waiting for activities to start. We also played a number of so-called “games” that I would've considered an instrument of torture in other settings, but the kids just rolled with it. Their patience sometimes far outdoes my own.
• They can be trusted to be left on their own. Sometimes teachers don't show up to their classes, and yet the kids can always be found sitting at their desks. In America, I don't think most teachers can even leave to go to the bathroom during the day.

Qualities that I can't stand

• Painful shyness. Painful for everyone in fact. When I first started teaching English here, and even now when I go somewhere that people have never seen a foreigner before, I have to deal with this, practically begging the students to talk. Beginning in the early years, students are reprimanded if they can't read something correctly, don't write beautifully enough, can't remember certain facts. And this reprimanding is usually accompanied by a swift hit of the stick. Even as I sit here right now, I can hear a teacher spanking his students. If that happened to me every time I spoke incorrectly, I'd shut the hell up too.
• Inability to do things without the most explicit instructions. I'm pretty sure this relates to the first one. For fear of doing anything wrong, students really don't like starting to do a worksheet or an activity before the teacher has explained it and then checked over everyone's work to really make sure they're doing it right. Which leads me to...
• Lack of creativity. I think Thailand will have a difficult time really making an impact in the world we live in today because they don't have the spirit of innovation. Deviation from the norm is often seen as a bad quality, so why would anyone take a leap by doing something that's never been done before? Cheating is rampant here, and students often lack the confidence to be able to do things on their own.

America has a terrible habit of blaming teachers for poor student performance. Here, all of the onus is placed on the students, which I think is equally unfair. So many times my co-teacher has called all of the students lazy and stupid. I'm not saying that the student should bear no responsibility for how well they do in school. At some point, they need to decide that getting an education is important. However, I don't think elementary school is the appropriate time to say, “You need to study because you're going to need to get a job to support your family when you're older.” Bitch, please. That would be akin to suggesting a first grader start putting his money in a 401k because “you're going to have to retire one of these days.”

I also don't want to see Thai kids turn into American kids. There are a lot of admirable traits that they have that I wish more American kids had, but it would be nice to see teachers step away from the stick and come up with some different ways to foster learning, preferably one that doesn't include invoking fear. 

Great Expectations and Equally Great Disappointments

I've been feeling a little less than enthusiastic lately. I guess it's what happens when you've been somewhere for a while. It would probably be a little different if this whole Peace Corps thing didn't have an end date, but it does, and what may have seemed shiny and new 17 months ago has started to show its age and lose a bit of its luster. The coffee sucks, the Internet is worse, bugs continue to eat me up on a regular basis and I don't know that anything I've done has helped my students learn English. The somdtam still tastes pretty good though.

From what I've heard, the year mark is a rough one for most people. We're not the new kids on the block anymore; in fact, we've been around the block, and it's filled with terrifying dogs and people that yell, “Foreigner!” at you, even after they know your name. When I first got to Lansak a little over a year ago, I was so excited about how much I was going to be able to develop the English program at my schools and all the projects I was going to do in the community, teaching about HIV/AIDS and the environment, really helping these people, you know. I might as well have put “cure cancer” down on my to-do list.

One year later, and my expectations have changed a bit. Honestly, I feel like I could walk away from this satisfied, if I know that my students at least know that the letter ‘a’ has two sounds. That would be an accomplishment.

I started this project out with two schools: Anuban Lansak and Banbongsamsip. Anuban Lansak is huge. For grades 1-6, there are over 700 students. Plus, there are two years of kindergarten. For each grade, there are only three teachers, meaning some classrooms have over 40 students. It’s a more urban school, which means that most students attend every day, compared with Banbongsamsip, where the parents of most students are farmers, so sometimes they’re called to help in the fields. The classes are smaller, less than 20 students per class, which was nice. I say ‘was’ because we had to part ways unfortunately.

There were a number of issues at that school. More times than not, classes were canceled because the lawn needs mowing or kids need to practice dance or the teachers weren’t there. I would sit in the office of the principal (who was never there, so why would he need it?) for hours on end. The school is also 20 km away from my house, which wouldn’t be that bad, if you didn’t add the computer I bring, no shade from 100 degree sun at 7:30 in the morning and rabid dogs all while biking uphill. Both ways. Through the snow. I had a teacher from the school that I would meet, and she would drive me up in her truck, but that too could be unreliable. Sometimes she wouldn’t go, and we’d have to find someone else to come and get me. It just got to be too much. I would’ve dealt with all of that had I felt like I was accomplishing anything there, but I just felt completely unproductive and in the way.

Now, I teach at Anuban Lansak four days a week. I started this school year so fired up. I thought that I was going to be able to do twice the amount of what I would’ve done had I still been coming here only two days per week. My original co-teacher was doing well, and because I’m here for double the time, I’ve started working with the teachers in grades 1-3, so they can teach English next year in their classrooms when I’m not there. Yeah. In my dreams.

I again had let my expectations get the better of me. I guess during that month and a half break I developed amnesia about what really goes down here. I figured that everyone would be dying for me to come into their classrooms and show them what communicative and student-centered teaching really is. Because, you know, everyone just loves being told that they’ve been doing something wrong for the past thirty years.

The first week of school was a definite struggle. I feel really uncomfortable going into other people’s classrooms and running the show while putting them in a supportive role. Most of these people are older than me, and in a society that gives such respect to the elders, I felt awkward “bossing” them around. There were a few teachers that just checked out of the lesson completely, leaving the room to go grade papers or eat, and I gave my co-teacher the unfortunate task of telling them that they can’t do that because I’m not a teacher per say, but a trainer/collaborator, and I’m here to give the teachers the knowledge and ability to carry on this English thing by themselves next year. Again, in my dreams.

But, there have been some successes. All of the third grade teachers stay in the room with me and are really active in helping me deliver the lesson. There is one teacher in particular who I know is going to be a great teacher and who I know will definitely continue to teach next year.

I used to not even count these small accomplishments. For me, if the whole program wasn’t working out, then it was just a failure, plain and simple. Being here has changed my perspective on all of that dramatically. I told my mom last week that there were a lot of instances where I want to pull my hair out, but all that will do is leave me bald, and it won’t actually help change anything, besides increasing my love of hats. This time last year, it was all about me: what can I do here to make things better. This year, it’s been and hopefully, will continue to be about everyone else, finding people that see a weakness and want to change it. That’s the thing about trying to change the world, I guess; you can’t do it alone. 

Half-marathon

Going to a city in the northeast part of Thailand called Isaan next week to run a half marathon. It's my first in about a year and a half. I feel like I'm ready except for the fact that I've been sick lately, just like I was for the last half I ran, but I think I'll be ok by next Sunday. I'm pretty excited. It's a good way to see other parts of the country. I plan on doing a full marathon this July. Interesting facts: Isaan is known for their green papaya salad, one of my favorite dishes here, as well as grilled chicken. I'll report back. Also, because, news flash: Thailand's hot, they have to start these races at 5:30 in the morning.  

Broken resolutions and breast shimmies

Before starting this post, I would like to say that, yes, I realize that I've already broken my resolution by not posting anything for the past two Fridays. However, in my defense, (why I need to defend myself on my own blog, I don't know, but here it is...) I had written down my blogs in a journal I keep already, but my painfully slow Internet has kept me from posting it until now. So, just pretend you're reading this two weeks ago.

I think I'm finally getting over my homesickness. Going back to work was a big help since it got me back into a routine and a return to normalcy.

Teaching with my co-teacher at my big school, P'Bom, went pretty smoothly. I was really dreading it actually. We taught the students about trees: branch, trunk, fruit, leaf, root. The students knew the words by the end of the class. The problem with studying subjects like that is that they have very little use in real practice. They hardly ever come up in conversation. I only know three of the five of those words in Thai, but I consider myself conversational.

The principal at that school has asked me to teach grades 1-3, and I've been doing so for the past couple of months. In those classes, I have no book to follow, and I create the lessons at my own discretion. The freedom has allowed me to focus on teaching words that students will really use, either in the classroom or in an interaction with an English speaker. The results have been great. As to be expected, there is less retention in the younger grades, but 3^rd grade has been awesome. Beyond awesome, in fact. They make me really enjoy teaching.

I'm good friends with one of the 3^rd grade teachers, May, who's also my Thai tutor, and she says the students can't read Thai or do math, but they can speak English. Along with making me a little sad about the state of the teaching being done in those other subjects, it's good affirmation for me that I am able to effectively teach 90 students simultaneously, something that I honestly thought was impossible only a few weeks ago.

It's crazy to think that they're all able to pay such close attention to me and actually enjoy it but such is the case. Mostly, I think it's because I teach in a way that is so completely different from the way that they are used to learning. The education system in Thailand is one that is very heavily focused on rote memorization versus critical thinking. Many Asian countries follow this same method. It leads to learners that can effectively regurgitate facts that are already known but doesn't lead to a lot of innovation or new ideas. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers put it best when he said that Thai schools don't focus so much on teaching the subjects like math or English but on teaching students how to be Thai. There is a great deal of emphasis on showing respect to elders, taking care of others, learning the Buddhist precepts, etc., but at the expense of the other subjects. So, when students get to university (if they go), there's a lot of catching up to do, which automatically puts them behind the rest of the world.

In any case, I have the luxury of not having to worry about anything other than teaching my subject, which may be why we get more done in that class than in other subjects. Another bonus of me teaching the younger classes is May wanted to pick back up on us doing more of a language exchange, where she teaches me Thai half the time we're together, and I teach her English the other half, so that she can learn more phrases to use in the classroom. She's also downloaded some English videos from YouTube to turn on when she needs to grade papers. To be honest, this is all I really wanted: to find a teacher who might be able to continue doing what I'm doing after I'm gone. I'm only here one more year, so in the grand scheme of things, I'm probably of little to no use to the students studying now, but if I can help a teacher, the potential for future students' learning increases quite a bit.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of that week was Sports Week for all the area schools. All of them except my big school, Anuban Lansak. The principal there never wants to take part in big extracurricular activities like these. I don't know if he really thinks academics are that important. I think he does it to serve his pride, as if to send the message to other schools: “Our school is better than yours because we don't waste time with trivial things like sports.” Teachers at my school don't like him, and neither do other principals in the area. He's too proud and confident, two traits that Thais don't find very appealing.

However, my other smaller school went, so I got to experience cheering in Thailand. The students sat on bleachers with a few students playing the drums off to the side. The students in the bleachers had some coordinated cheers with wooden sticks, pom poms and different colored fans that looked really visually cool. In front of the bleachers, there were about 15 students dancing. I don't know if it's just because I'm an outsider, but “dancing” in Thailand seems to be little more than simulating sex. I know this happens in the States. I mean, just turn on any music video, and the big surprise would be if there weren't barely-covered breast shimmies and crotch-grinding. However, I'm not used to seeing 10-15-year-olds doing it. Or, have things just changed that much since I was that age? That, coupled with the insane amount of makeup these girls were wearing, made me incredibly uncomfortable.

Sports Day was pretty fun, other than that. The students played a lot of the same sports I talked about here.  

I returned to Thailand from the States about three days ago, and so far, it's been...weird. Just like I knew it would. Before I left, I had to give myself a pep talk because I knew that once I came back I'd be in a funk. Just the nature of the beast, I suppose, after having a great time with my family and friends, eating good food, watching American TV and being able to drive a car. So, instead of getting out of my room and interacting with people like I probably should, I've holed myself up here and have been watching Jersey Shore. Not exactly a great solution, but I just can't get myself to snap out of it quite yet. And really, I should just be patient with myself. It's hard to go from one extreme to another and back again without some hiccup. I know I'll be fine; I just have to give it a little time.

Coming back in 2012, though, is kind of cool because, as I was telling my friend, Christine, we have this entire year ahead of us, which, I guess, is true for everyone, but maybe it's just a little more dramatic for both of us because we both returned to the US for the holidays and came back to Thailand at the beginning of a fresh new year.

And, because it's a brand new year, it's time to roll out the New Year's Resolutions: lose 10 pounds, get more organized, start my dream career. No. I'm taking baby steps this year because we all know that grandiose goals never work out for me.

1. Write something, ANYTHING, on my blog once a week. I have to live my somewhat boring life out here, so you should all have to suffer through my writing about it. Also, this way, I don't have to give an entire back story every time I want to tell you “This one time in Thailand...” story.
2. Work my through my LSAT book by the end of the year. It's a hefty book, but I figure that if I take a little bit of time out of each Friday, I can finish it by the end of this year.
3. Do a better job of taking care of my sanity since no one else will. Another volunteer brought something up a few months ago that I thought was interesting. He said that when he came to Thailand, he thought he would have so much more free time to relax and be kind of lazy, but in reality, he's turned out to be even busier than ever. I have felt the same way here. Because, really, it's not as if my hard-working personality changed when I came here; it's just that I have a different set of things to keep myself busy. I never say no to anyone here. I want to seem like the good little volunteer that has her community's best interests at heart. But, in doing so, I often am not very kind to myself. Last year, I didn't leave my site one time in three months. I think I just kept agreeing to do things to make people happy, but in the end, I felt like I started to resent people for not letting me leave. Really, it was me that I have to blame for that. This time around, I'm leaving site at least once a month. I mean, I haven't even been to the beach yet for crying out loud.

I'm tempted to write “Call at least one of my friends one time a week,” but we all know how that one will turn out. I just ask all of you to not forget your friend out here. Send me an email detailing every boring detail of your day every once and a while, including what food you've eaten. (I especially want details on the food. I should be able to taste your turkey sandwich through your words.)

Read my blog and keep me accountable! Have an awesome 2012!

Halloween, and only three weeks early

Friday was Halloween at Anuban Lansak, my big school. As part of Goal Two of the Peace Corps, to educate the world about America, I decided to organize a party showing the students what Halloween really means: doing the “Chicken Dance” and the “Macarena”, running around with a pumpkin on your shoulder and getting candy. In other words, not really teaching them about Halloween at all, but, whatever, they got some candy out of the deal, so everybody wins.

The party was actually a lot more successful than I anticipated it would be. The whole week prior I had been working on making materials and buying materials. I had ghosts and witches on the brain for seven straight days. By the time Friday came, I was just ready to be done with the whole thing. I had invited three of the nearest volunteers to come and help me out, but two of them had to cancel. One has had extensive flooding in his province, and his co-teacher was concerned about him traveling. The other had a severe eye infection and was in Bangkok because, and I quote, the doctor “didn't want him to go blind at site.” I suppose the threat of blindness gives him an acceptable out, although I feel like that could have added a whole new dimension of surprise to this party. I had really needed them all for the scary story that I would be telling, but I'll get to that soon.

Before last week, my co-teacher and I wrote a plan in both English and Thai to get approved by the principal. He said it was great and told other teachers that if they ever wanted to make a special event, they could follow our plan. The day would go for three hours from 1-4 in the afternoon. The students had tests on Monday and Tuesday and then the school was closed on Wednesday and Thursday and reopened on Friday, specifically for this party, which put major pressure on me.

Although the party didn't start until 1 p.m., the kids showed up at 8, like a regular school day, presumably to work on their masks that we had given them earlier in the week, but mostly to play and make a mess. I spent most of the morning preparing for the afternoon and dodging children. Erin, the one volunteer who could come, showed up at 11 with two teachers from her school in tow. We ate lunch together and then shortly after 12, we started.

It was quite a sight: about 230 4^th- through 6^th- graders staring up at me from behind their homemade masks, with rapt attention. Honestly, I have never seen this group so quiet. It was awesome and really made me happy that I had decided to undertake this project because sometimes I forget that these children do not have the same childhood that I did, where Halloween was a holiday that came around every year, and that it was a given that every year I would don a costume and troop around the neighborhood to collect candy. To them, this wasn't just an ordinary event; it was something that most of them had never experienced before, even if it wasn't “pure” Halloween but just a Thai interpretation of it. For once, I was the one being asked why such strange things like black cats and bats are part of this day instead of me doing the asking. To be able to share even this small part of American culture with them was exciting and made me a little proud.

**Side note: homemade costumes can be awesome! Some of these kids took trash and made the coolest costumes out of them. For example, these two adorable girls in fourth grade asked me if it was okay that their costumes were the same because they were going as a ghost “couple,” with matching black trash bags and little red bow-ties.

After I stood in front of the students, said “Happy Halloween” to them and explained in the most simple English what Halloween is, I turned it over to the assistant principal who explained in Thai, again, what the holiday was about, with the help of a printout from Wikipedia. I'm hoping it was at least fairly accurate. I don't really want the kids to think that I hail from a country with cannibals and witch-burnings (which I do, but they don't need to know that). In any case, the kids listened like they've never heard anything more interesting.

Then, I narrated our scary story, with the help of Erin and the students and teacher I enlisted to help. The story itself was probably too complicated (even though it was the simplest story I could fine), but with some help from sound effects courtesy of iTunes and Erin's overwrought acting, the kids loved it.

After, we divided the students into groups with the name of a Halloween creature as their mascot. They had 10 minutes to create a cheer, in English. It was a bit of a fail, but it was the only chance I had to slip in some English, so I figured we'd at least give it a try. In the end, the “Mummies”, a group made up of the best English students from the sixth grade and all girls, won.

As the students were now divided into teams, we had them compete in some games with Halloween themes, like “Pin the tail on the black cat,” which lent itself to some hilarious moments, with kids wandering all over the place. For each event, I gave the first-, second-, and third-place teams “pumpkin points.” The team with the most won some additional candy at the end.

With the threat of rain, we had to cut some events and our “Fashion Show”, where the students were supposed to go up on stage and show off their costumes, was reduced to Erin walking through the crowd and handing out prizes. A little anti-climactic to say the least.

To end the day, we all did “The Chicken Dance” and the “Macarena” as a real tribute to Halloween. Although not technically related to Halloween, I suppose it was a good introduction to American wedding culture and the One-Hit Wonders we've embraced over the years.

The one event that we had to cut was the scary food story, where we would have the kids touch some peeled grapes and tell them it's eyeballs and the like. On one hand, I was disappointed because I went to a lot of trouble to make the food and the big pictures of the body parts that they were supposed to be, but on the other hand, I felt a sense of relief because I didn't know if the whole thing was counter-intuitive to the Thais perception of how food should be treated. Just the day before, I had had to change one of the games because it involved putting a pumpkin on the ground and pushing it with a broom. My co-teacher told me that Thai people don't do this because it's disrespectful to treat food in such a way, which I completely understand. In the end, we changed that event to the kids carrying the pumpkin between their neck and shoulder and passing it to their teammates without using their hands, so I didn't know if telling kids to put their hands all over something that we weren't going to eat after would fly.

I can tell you one thing, though: if we do this again next year, I'm doing it. Just the thought of making those kids squirm when touching spaghetti “intestines” is too much of a temptation.