More Wakeboarding (a.k.a. "Cable Skiing")

With Tré’s past experiences snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing, he is quickly becoming quite good at wakeboarding. He learned to jump off the “kicker” today – see the VIDEO! I have a few 10th grade students that are amazing at wakeboarding – flips, jumps, etc. Tré is aspiring to get as good as they are, and to have the muscle definition that they have! One of the boys took off his lifevest the other day, and Tré noted the “6-pack” that he had! :)

International Underwater Clean Up

We took part in an International Underwater Clean Up event a few weekends ago. Several scuba diving companies in the area participated by taking volunteers out to popular dive sites to collect garbage while diving. We spent two days (one night) on a live aboard boat out at Racha Yai island off the eastern coast of Phuket. We did six dives in which we collected lots of garbage underwater. The garbage mostly consisted of fishing line, rope, cans, bottles, plastic bags, batteries, and random pieces of plastic and metal. While diving around the coral reef, we carried net bags and knives with us to collect and store garbage. In addition to those six dives, we did a night dive for fun. The underwater “night life” was very cool. We watched a large moray eel hunt, stun, and eat a fish. Plus, we saw stingrays, pufferfish, cuttlefish, and much more. The trip was a great experience. We both really enjoyed sleeping on the boat, cleaning up the reef, meeting interesting people, hanging out on the boat for two days, etc. We both had the same thought, “I could do this more often!” (We just bought our own scuba equipment this week, so we’re getting closer to making that a reality!)

Attention Climbers!

We went and checked out one of the famous rock climbing areas a few weekends ago – Railay. It was a very cool area! If is on a bit of a peninsula that is landlocked by beautiful, vertical cliffs. You drive to a nearby city (Krabi or Ao Nang) and take a longtail boat around the point to Railay. Railay is a small village with no vehicles – everything is easily within walking distance. It has a very mellow atmosphere – with a few Thai-version “reggae” bars to complement the relaxed vibe. The village is on a narrow strip of land; there are beaches on the eastern and western sides of the strip of land. The western side has typical tropical beaches, whereas, the eastern side has a shallow bay and mangrove forests. We saw our first wild monkeys here! There are extensive cave systems to explore with beautiful calcite formations – stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, popcorn, flowstone – and bats! There are a variety of accommodations ranging from an expensive, high-end resort for $1000 USD/night to bamboo bungalows for $8 USD/night. The climbing offers opportunities for bouldering as well as challenging multi-pitch routes. You can rent all the necessary climbing equipment and go on your own, or you can pay for lessons and/or guided service. This is definitely an area that we are looking forward to exploring more.

The last photo was taken at an entrance to a cave in Railay. Locals believe that the spirit of Phranang (princess goddess) resides in this cave. Before going out to sea, fishermen ask Phranang for good luck. When their wishes are fulfilled, they give offerings to Phranang at this shrine. Common gifts are flowers and incense, but usually the spirits of goddesses are offered special gifts, hence, all the carved wooden phallic symbols at the shrine. Judging from the large pile of wooden penises, we can presume the fishermen have been doing quite well! (Note: This has nothing to do with neither Buddhism nor Islam.)

General Updates

Tré was elected as his class representative for the Student Government. He’s loving being involved with it. Currently, they have started up and are managing a student snack shop.

Our car ownership was a short-lived endeavor! Unfortunately, there were issues with the car. While still in the states, we had agreed (in “good faith”) to purchase the car from a teaching couple that moved to China. They knowingly did not tell us about the issues. It was disappointing and frustrating on many levels. Anyway, we have decided not to purchase the car, so we’ll be relying on our motorbike, busses, carpooling, etc. A little bit more like life in Bellingham, which will feel more “normal.”

We had our first guest! Tré’s Fairhaven barber (Andrew) connected us with a friend/neighbor of his that was traveling through Thailand. Alice stayed with us for almost a week. We had fun exploring (to Railay) and hanging out with another “Bellinghamster.”

A beautiful (“sew-eye”) evening at Nai Harn Beach!

(Tré and his friends are in the water.)

Cable Skiing

On our island, there are not lakes big enough for waterskiing/wakeboarding behind a boat, so they have “cable skiing” here. I had never heard of it! Apparently, it's popular in other parts of the world as well. There’s a motorized cable that goes around in a loop around a small pond/lagoon. The rope is being pulled along above you rather than from a boat in front of you. They have jumps and rails that you can use to do tricks. We tried wakeboarding a few weeks ago. Tré absolutely loved it (as did I). Tré was better at it than I was due to more snowboarding experience! Although, we both did our share of face plants, and swallowing of pond water... yuck. I have some older students that are really good at it, so Tré is aspiring to learn to do flips, 360’s, etc. from them. These same students have been writing stories in class about the bones they've broken in the process of learning these tricks... I suppose that I'll be taking it easy so I don't break bone #3. Keep your fingers crossed for Tré.

Back to School!

We are at Quality Schools International – Phuket (QSI). It is an international school where instruction of all content areas is in English. It is different from an ESL program – I am not here to teach “English.” There are about 140 students in the whole school (preschool through 12th grade), and about 30 teachers and staff. I have 7-15 students per class. I see three different groups of kids during the day for classes. Students call teachers by their first names, so I am called, “Miss Ashley.” All instruction in the content areas is in English, but all students have a Thai language and culture class everyday. As an interesting break from teaching science, I am teaching 8th, 9th, and 10th grade literature and writing.

Tré is in the 12-year-old class with 8 other boys – no girls in his class! Due to international influences, classes are referred to by age group rather than “grades” up to the 13-year-old group, then they are referred to as Secondary I (a.k.a. 9th grade) up to Secondary IV. Fortunately for both of our sanity, I do not have Tré for an actual class. However, I do have his class for “homeroom” which gives me a chance to get to know his classmates, check in with him each morning and afternoon, and keep an eye on how his homework is going.

Being a school on a small tropical island in Thailand, it has its quirks. Sometimes the school is not able to draw enough power from the local grid, so there are occasional outages. This means no air conditioning. No computers. No fans. No copy machines. No lights. My teaching strategies have been modified – not using an overhead projector, etc. I plan on mostly using the whiteboard – something I didn’t utilize that much in the US.

The students are an amazing mix of students from over 20 or 30 countries – Germany, England, Italy, Slovenia, Korea, China, Thailand, US, Holland, Sweden, Canada, etc.! I believe Tré is actually the only student fully from the US. The first few days, I was in a slight state of “disequilibrium.” Many students don’t sound like you’d expect them to – for example a girl that looks Thai, but sounds German. Many of our students have parents (and/or step-parents) from different countries. Kids look like they’re from one country and sound like they’re from another. It threw me off at first, but was a good reminder not to make assumptions. For the majority of the students, English is not their first language. Most of them have lived in other countries and have traveled quite a bit. There are some beautiful mixes – Thai and Italian, etc. Also, most of the students love football (a.k.a. soccer) – yeah!

Pictures: Tré's 12-year-old class, 13 y.o. class, Secondary II, Secondary I, 5 pics of school buildings (taken early in the morning before many students had arrived), my classroom (not too exciting yet)