Funny happenings

I have had several funny experiences with students this week that really need to be shared. Several times I have been in class teaching and literally just can't stop laughing at the things the kids say and do. For some reason this has happened several times this week.

The funniest experience was with a boy named Mon(moan) in P6. This kid is notorious for being incredibly strange but a real sweetheart. His claim to fame among the American teachers is his need to pet our arm hair while he works. He will be very off task, but as soon as he can pet our arms he will do his work. Like I said, very strange. Well yesterday he took it to a whole new level when he would not let go of my arm! He sat in his chair kissing my entire arm while saying "I love you" for nearly the entire class period. So I spent the entire class laughing and trying to escape his strong grasp and not really teaching. After class I quickly ran to the bathroom to wash my arm with soap.

As I mentioned in the last post, some of the first grade boys are seriously impossible to get settled down but they are really dang cute. There is one boy who started the semester thinking his nickname was Ferd, but as classes passed his name became First. I am still not sure what exactly happened there, but he now knows his name is First. He still gets a little confused sometimes though and will end up writing Fird. Anyway, today we were doing a math worksheet which he knew all the answers to, but he kept writing the wrong numbers just to see my reaction. He honestly thought it was the funniest thing in the entire world. I think he was hamming it up because he saw I just couldn't stop laughing either.

I also just had a second grader ask me if I had a baby and she was shocked when I said no. It sparked a classroom discussion in Thai and I would really have loved to know what they were saying. This happened moments before there was an announcement over the loud speaker that the Princess was coming to Bangplee and school would be ending earlier so the vans could avoid the traffic jams. Of course I didn't know what was being said so the homeroom teacher translated, "Teacher, Princess, Bangplee." The kids were beyond excited, but at this point I didn't know school was being let out early. I just kept on teaching and after ten minutes the teacher came back and said it was time to go home. These situations just make you love Thailand :)