adventures of growing in the sunshine and soaking up the way of life
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Song See.. Happy Birthday to MEEEE!
Song see.. 24. I am now officially 24 years old. It sounds so old to me now, and to think I came to Thailand fresh out of college at 22 and I'll be leaving at 24. Okay okay, now is not the time to get all sentimental and reflective.
I woke up on February 2nd just like I did any other Thursday morning, but this special morning I had a whole ton of Facebook notifications! I can always tell which one of my friends remember my birthday before they receive the facebook notification as well as who can remember that Thailand is 15 hours ahead of the US. After skyping with two of my best friends, opening a birthday package from my roomie (Thanks Alicia!), and opening a gift from Emily (Lonely Planet Australia! Now that I have my bible, I'm for my next adventure! Thank you, Emily!), off to school I went!
My kids often surprise me and blow me away with how smart they are and sometimes I can't believe that they are actually learning and remembering what I teach them! A few of my kiddos had remembered that it was my birthday after I had mentioned it only once earlier in the week. I was greeted in the morning with screams and squeals of "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEECHA CHELSEA!!!" Little Lydia presented me with a brownie and Aiko handed me a bag with a handmade birthday note from her 6 year old self and a toy kaleidoscope from Japan. Lucky for me Thursdays are my super easy days teaching-wise and this Thursday I only had to teach one hour and our theme for these two weeks is "Broadcasting and Communication" so today I was teaching about internet. While I was teaching the theme vocabulary "computer", "radio", "writing", "letter", T. Nim urgently interrupted and said that T. Nooch, the head Kindergarten teacher, needed to speak to me and she didn't know what about. It seemed urgent and T. Nim told me to leave mid teaching and go immediately. I went to T. Nooch's class and asked her what she needed and I realized what was up.. I went back to my classroom with all the lights off and spotted a candle on top of a cakeroll from 7/11 just as my kids started yell-singing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEECHA CHEEELSEAAA!" They were so excited and they sure surprised me! After singing happy birthday, the kids took turns giving Teacher Chelsea good wishes (in English!) for this new year of age. "I wish Teacher Chelsea not sick!" "I wish Teacher Chelsea very happy!" "I wish teacher Chelsea love students and love KG 3!" "I wish Teacher Chelsea lots of money!" Yes, yes, yes! Excellent English! After surprising Teacher Chelsea, I went back to teaching internet which basically means I did a ton of google and youtube searches of whatever the kids wanted to look up which was mostly cartoons and planets. We also had the opportunity for Teacher Chelsea to show KG3 how teacher talks to my family in America. We played with skype and had a video chat with my bestfriend Lauren as well as my mama! My kids LOVED chatting with my mom, they basically went bonkers and were SO excited to meet the famous Milo Boo! I've shown so many pictures of Milo.. Milo at Christmas in his jacket, Milo in his Charger jersey, Milo in the swimming pool, at the beach. My kids LOVE Milo and its only a coincidence that Milo is a chocolate brand here. "Good morning Teacher Chelsea Mommy! MILO!!! Today Teacher Chelsea birthday!" Skype was all they talked about the rest of the day, they absolutely LOVED meeting my family in America! At snack time, the kids expected birthday cake as normally birthday means birthday cake, but Teacher Chelsea is on a budget so I brought in popcorn instead. They LOVE when I pop popcorn so they were so happy that it was Teacher Chelsea's birthday. My kiddos made my birthday extra special and they sure put a smile on my face!
And the celebrations were NOT over! Early the next morning, Emily and I went down to Bangkok for the weekend. I had plans to meet up with not one, not two, but THREE friends from California and two of them being fellow Gauchos!! It was so awesome to see friends from home and it really made me SO happy that they were all able to meet me in Bangkok for the weekend. I also had some other English teacher friends meet us on Khao San that evening (backpacker capital of Asia) where we caught up over drinks and dinner. No need to get too into detail on this weekend as it was mostly a drinking/party trip, but there was a some shopping involved as well as a new special souvenir for myself (will explain in a future post). Of course I went to the bagel bakery all three days in town and got a Subway sandwich for the bus ride back to Khon Kaen. Overall GREAT WEEKEND! I'm SO lucky I have AMAZING friends and thank you to EVERYONE that helped me to celebrate :)
Happy belated birthday! I didn't realize you and Jackson are both groundhog babies! Will keep your info. Close! :)
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