The new term has started and what a delightful bunch of kids I have this year! The holiday was awesome, but I was getting a bit bored and restless, so it's good to get back to work again.
A new classroom was built, just for my youngsters and I. We now occupy the old listening lab upstairs in the Prathom building, so it's convenient for all my students as well as myself and my Thai assistant Chu. The other classroom was nice, but it was a special classroom belonging to the school and doubled as a conference room for important events, so you couldn't really decorate all that much.
Now I have a whole classroom to fix up. In addition, plenty of nifty ideas for drawing and painting activities for the kids. Kind of like one big refrigerator door, if you know what I mean.
I've also begun teaching private classes in the evenings. My friend Wut and his sister Bua came up with the idea for an English discussion group and so far, it's evolved into an elaborate advanced English study class. The class is lucrative, as well as enjoyable, and we've even begun an online English discussion site.
On the home front, I've gone cooking crazy. Over the holidays, I went out and purchased a slow cooker, convection oven with rotisserie, microwave, and blender. I was getting pretty frustrated with my cooking limitations, so now I have no excuses. Nevertheless, cooking ingredients remain a bit of a problem.
During the holidays, I began to poke around Hat Yai, exploring new areas and asking questions about where to obtain certain cooking ingredients. My exploits paid off, leading me to a virtual cornucopia of okra, purple eggplant, avocados, imported cheeses, tortilla chips, lentils, cilantro, fresh basil, black-eyed peas, garbanzo beans, halibut, imported salmon, pitted black olives, and although I still can't find flour or corn tortillas, I've discovered a nifty little Indian restaurant that sells their Naan and Chapati (Indian flat breads) to me, in bulk.
Now when I have a recipe in hand, it becomes an adventure.
Legumes are located at the Rattakarn Road wet market, avocados and black olives at TOPS market in the basement of Central Department Store, tortilla chips at Carrefour and salsa at Tesco Lotus...then a quick motorcycle taxi ride to Namaste Orange Indian Restaurant for my Naan or Chapati.
I've got more exploring to do, as I've heard of a place where I can buy blue cheese! Buffalo wings here I come!
-Jeeem-
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