Buddha once said,

"Leave everything as it is and rest your weary mind, there is nirvanic peace in things left just as they are."

I love this woman, she is such a great teacher to the students and me. We learned so much from each other.

Every Tuesdays there is one hour dedicated to practicing Buddhism

Every Thursdays, everybody in Thailand wears boy/girl scouts uniform. On this day there was a special ceremony, we went to a hearing school and I watched them march with other hearing scouts.

Phuket, we arrived before the sun came out and got the chance to watch the sunrise.

Visiting a Buddhism temple in Phuket. Shana, Tom. Em (Theparrat school teacher who went with us to show us around in Phuket. She lived here before), Renca, and I. Tom, my boyfriend, came to visit me, it was great to see him again and hear all of the news from America.

Deep down in the jungle. I wore wrong shoes and got bitten by ants. Ants in jungles are different than the cute ones in America!

Every Wednesdays we gave deaf culture lectures. The recent one the topic was deaf taboos (that is SO deaf!), such as spilling water while signing, and having hearing people speaking LOUDLY after telling them that I'm deaf, and things like that. It was funny, gave everybody good laughs.

This one, we acted out like the students during their buddhism practice. They tend to open their eyes to check if other students are done with meditating, and teachers would catch them and tell them to "CLOSE YOUR EYES!" :)

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When I first came to Thailand, the clock was kind to me. Minutes, hours, and days pass by at a snail's pace. Now, seven weeks are long gone and in a hurry, I can’t believe I only have three short weeks left of teaching.

I have grown accustomed to the lifestyle here. Everybody at this school feels like a family to me. It will be hard for me to leave this school, I already get all choked up by thinking about it. But like I said earlier, nothing in life lasts forever. Attachments only lead to sufferings, according to the Buddha. I’ve grown attached to my students and I’ve seen them grow so much in a short time. They taught me a lot about patience and having a calm heart in midst of chaotic times. It will be hard to leave them, no matter how much headaches they gave me in the past seven weeks!

We went to the famous Phuket Island last weekend. Phuket is basically ruined by the ‘farangs’ (white English speaking tourists). I could see big difference between Phuket and Bang Saphan. Bang Saphan, where I am staying at, is a small town and people here are deeply rooted in their culture. Quite the opposite, in Phuket, like Bangkok, everything is overpriced, people baring their skins, and go-go bars and drunken farangs are everywhere. During my stay here, I learned about the negative sentiment toward farangs in Thailand. Most farangs come to look for cheap sex from Thai women and most farangs does not understand and disrespect Thailand culture. For example, it is not appropriate for any persons in Thailand to wear tank tops or short shorts. Local Thais always wear short sleeves and shorts/skirt that goes to their knees. At beaches, Thai women wear one piece bathing suit, with shorts.

My perspective of Phuket was not a positive one. I saw and understood what my Thai friends meant by farangs ruining and disrespecting their culture. Everything is Westernized and oversexed. Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself there. We went hiking in the jungles twice and that was my favorite part of the trip. We went swimming in the beach, but the riptide was high and dangerous so we had to stay close to the shore.

Next weekend, the teacher I’m working with invited us to go with her to visit her sick grandmother in Krabi, which is also in the south Thailand. Then the weekend after that we’ll go to Koh Samui, Koh Phanghan, and Koh Tao for scuba diving. Gosh, time is fleeting.

I learned that I am teaching pre-school, not third graders. I figured they were third graders because of their ages but I am mistaken. There are three grades in pre-school, then P1 (Elementary 1^st grade) to P6 (Elementary 6^th grade). P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6 then kids move up to M1 (High school) to M6 (High school senior) M!, M2, M3, M4, M5. M6. There is no middle school here, so middle school is sometimes in the between P5 to M2? Anyway, I am teaching pre-school but most kids in my class are 8 years old. I asked my teacher why so late in age? She said that at hearing schools, hearing students come to pre-school at the age of 3, then move up to elementary at the age of 6. This made sense to me, why is this not happening at the deaf school? She explained that everybody here lives at dorms, all of the parents are too poor to come and pick their children up everyday. Deaf students at age 3 to 6 are too young to be living at dorms so they have to wait till they reach to the age of 6 to 7 before coming to school. So this means when they were 0 to 6 years old, they stayed home without any language or communication access. Most of their parents are gone working everyday so they are left alone at the house with their older brothers and sisters or grandparents. This broke my heart, but that is the life for deaf children here.

Today is July 4^th, everybody in America is celebrating this holiday while here in Thailand it is just another day. There is no day of independence in Thailand because it never has been colonized before, interesting!

I read about this six-syllable mantra meditation, "Om Mani Pedme Hung," the mantra of great compassion. It literally translates as "The jewel is in the lotus." It means all of the jewels (wisdom and compassion) that we seek are naturally within us all. Many people who practice Buddhism chant this phrase, om mani pedme hung.

I've been chanting this mantra in my head in times of stress and joy. I find this very meditative and it softens my mind, energy, and spirit.

"Om mani pedme hung"

Leala

A lot of things happened this week so it'll be hard to update everything at once. I uploaded some pictures but they are not in order so I'll upload more pictures later.

The maximum stay in Thailand for foreigners are limited to 30 days. If we want to stay longer, we have to go outside of the country and then come back to extend our stay for other 30 days. I arrived May 13th so June 12th is my deadline. On Tuesday, we, along with a teacher and a bus driver, went to Burma border line which is about an hour away. On the way, we stopped by at a beautiful temple on the top of a hill overlooking the sea. Monkeys were EVERYWHERE and I had a lot of laughs watching them. There were empty rooms by the temple, apparently monks live there. We went in and found laundry soaps, water bottles, and monk robes hanging to dry, I felt as if I invaded their privacy but it seem like anybody is welcome to stay there for free. Then we went to the security point and learned that the only way we can go into Burma is 4 hours away by a boat ride. I have pictures of the monkeys but have not uploaded them. I'll do that when I have time.

So on Wednesday, we, along with 3 other teachers, drove 4 hours south and took an hour boat ride to the country of Burma. We went to a buddhism temple there, and Thailand teachers were appalled by the filth and poverty there. Renca, Shana, and I were not bothered by it because at first when we came to Thailand, we were shocked at how dirty Thailand was. Now, we have gotten used to it. It was funny to watch them react about Burma the same way as we reacted about Thailand. We came back to Thailand and now we can stay here for other 30 days (til July 10) then we'll have to come back again. It was good to "travel" a bit and see more of Thailand.

Thursday was, what I would call it "teacher's apprectation day." There was a ceremony all morning including giving all teachers flowers, singing and praying, students giving performances, and more. It was truly nice. The new teachers, including us, got recognized and got flowers from the supt. of the school. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but all teachers live on campus. So, I live with one of the teachers named Poh. I thanked her for letting me stay with her for 10 weeks and I gave her a flower.

i learned how to make "lei" with flowers

each grade level had contest. i don't know what this is called but it is so detailed and beautiful.

i am working with the teacher on my left.

beginning of ceremony, teachers speaking or singing a prayer? i'm not sure.

the students "bowed" to the buddha statue three times then "bowed" to the teachers two times then gave us flowers.

the king gave money to selected students who were very poor. the girl with autism is back and is heavily medicated so she is always lying and in daze. she is lying down in the front.

all new teachers received flowers from the supt.

thanking poh for letting me live with her. poh is holding the flower

In the evening, there was a farewell party for a teacher. They hired people to cook us fancy wedding-style foods. A lot of alcohol were served. Every teacher sang along with the karoke. Students gave dance performances that made everybody in the room get up and dance along with them. Everybody had a good time and the party lasted til 11 pm.  Definitely different than America's farewell parties (probably serve a cake and lasts for an hour?). I have pictures to show but do not have time to upload yet.

Today my teacher is gone for some business reasons and I have no idea why. So the kids are watching movies with other teacher all day. I was disappointed because I believe I can handle teaching the class all day now. I'm very familar with the daily routines. So I requested to teach today from 1 to 3 pm, hopefully I will. I did not teach all week, I miss teaching the students!

I'm leaving to Bangkok tonight for a deaf reunion tomorrow. I'll be staying at Jay Bunnag's place. I got a lot of questions to ask him so I'm excited about this trip. I'll be back on Sunday.

So long, everybody

Last week I went to a hearing school along with some other deaf students and teachers. I had no idea why we were going there. I was seated in the front along with other teachers from various hearing schools in Bang Saphan. The room was packed with hearing students, as you can see in the picture. A man who apparently is famous in this area, gave three hour lecture on cleaniness. Sitting next to us was a woman from Germany who taught English at this school and we wrote back and forth. She invited us to join her for a party on Friday night.

This was definitely an interesting experience because in America, nobody would pull them out of school to give them three hour lecture on cleaniness. Definitely part of the Thai culture, the teacher from Germany told us that Thais loved big meetings like this.

A girl from the deaf school came to front of the audience and answered man's questions about cleaniness, the woman in yellow shirt is a math teacher but she is interpreting for this event.

Deaf territority ;)

On Friday night, Ilke (teacher from Germany) came and picked us up at the school. We sat in the back of the truck and enjoyed the night ride. We went to a local house in middle of the jungle and chatted with local Thai people outside on their balcony. They served us beers and fresh clams with cilantro/lime. We wrote back and forth and used gestures. I asked Ilke how did she knew those people, she said she lived next doors :)

We talked til past midnight then we were starved so we went to a local restaurant and ate and finally got home at two in the morning.

Ilke :)

On Saturday Renca, Shana, and I took a boat ride to an island nearby called Koh Tali. We snorkeled for about two hours and saw a lot of beautiful tropical fishes. I forgot that the sun would hit my back the entire time I snorkeled so my back is as red as a lobster. Nonetheless, I truly enjoyed myself and would like to go back to scuba dive sometimes soon.