Kiffie's birthday.
And I'm finished teaching in a week or two. The poor school where I work is a bit too poor, and they can't pay my boss, so I only have four hours a week to teach and my boss knows I want to leave so he has asked me to stay for a week or two, but then I'm free.
Graham and I plan to head up through China and fly out of Beijing. We'll be flying from Bangkok to either Kunming or Guiyang. Anything to miss the Jinghong to Kunming bus. Then a quick visit to Zunyi, a trainride to Beijing, and a flight home. So, I could theoretically be home in three or four weeks. I'll keep you posted.
As I said, the semester draws to a close here. Graham will leave when his replacement gets here and gets trained. I'm going when the semester ends. Then I'm going home to apply to grad school and he's going to England to seek his fortune and he'll join me when I can tell him where I will be so he can apply to music grad programs, b/c one can never have too many graduate degrees in music. Or that's what Cosmo says, anyway.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I get home. If anyone knows of a high-paying, low-work position, let me know. Girl-about-town is better as an avocation.
This weekend, we're going to Krabi to hang out with some friends of Graham's. There's good snorkeling there, Italian food, and draught Guinness.
Things have been going well. School is fine, though there are too many small children. We've been to Ko Phangan a couple of times recently, though we've managed to avoid the Full Moon Parties. I learned to play Backgammon.
Almost finished teaching for the week. Then it's over to Kopi to hear Kris and Simon sing and play guitar. Then I have to wake up early to go to Burma, but I should be back in time for dinner. My visa runs out in three days and they're cracking down on people who overstay. I could go to Malaysia, but I don't really like northern Malaysia and it involves traveling through the part of southern Thailand that is actually dangerous. You can get the three month visa in Malaysia, but it takes at least two days and I would miss work and money. Plus, now I will be able to say honestly at cocktail parties, "Well, that's not how I found the regime when I was in Burma." There is a $5 visa fee at the border to Burma and that's good for 24 hours or so, but if you want to stay any longer, you have to pay $200. Crazy. Not exactly trying for the tourists.
My birthday is next Saturday and Graham and I are going to Ko Tao for western food and sharks. Sunday is apparently some auspicious Buddha day, but Monday and Tuesday might be the national holidays, so we could have a long weekend. Provided Graham's school takes off, which is unlikely.
Then it's another couple of months and we're out of here. We've both given notice and I will finish work in October, Graham probably sooner. After that, either we will make our way home or we will go to Laos and maybe work on a dig at the Plain of Jars. Not sure about that one as communication with those folks is a bit slow.
If we head home, Graham will have to somehow convince the US government that they should let him stay in the country for a while before he goes back to school for yet another degree. Does anyone know anyone in the State Department? Any immigration lawyers out there? Not that he necessarily wants to immigrate, but he would like to hang out for a while and not be destitute. Future. Not fun. Let's move on.
Wednesday and Thursday are the fun teaching days. Monday and Tuesday are little kids. Lots of little kids. I have 40 seven-year-olds and the same of six-year-olds for an hour each. The seven-year-olds are extra evil. Does that even need hyphens? The 6-y.o.'s are cute. There's one kid in the class, Temee, who sits in the front row. I use his desk as a base when handing out the kids name crowns at the beginning of class (so I know who to yell at), b/c he doesn't go through my stuff. Then at random times during class, he'll give me a big smile and two thumbs up, as if to say, "It's okay, Jenny, you're doing a great job!" He's so cute. Grade Two has the evil twins. They're evil. I write down as my goal on my lesson plan, "Don't kill anyone." It would be much better if the class were smaller, b/c there aren't any *bad* kids, just some rather mischevious ones. They're still enthusiastic about English.
The kindergarteners are stupid as usual. Actually, grades three and four aren't so hot themselves. We were playing Bingo -- okay, the guy next to me is looking at gay porn -- so anyway, Bingo. I drew the square on the board and said ten times that it should be four-by-four and they came up with all kinds of things. Then they wrote in the numbers, good, and crossed them out themselves as they saw fit before I even attempted to begin play.
Grade 5 is good. We've been playing math/English games, which are turning cut-throat. Grade 6 is great. With that class, we can actually do pair work and the kids can come up with complete and slightly complex sentences sometimes.
The newest member of the staff at The Language arrived the day before yesterday. Her name's Sarah and she's Canadian. We all met for dinner at the docks last night. She seems really cool and laid back. While I'm happy to leave, because I miss sandwiches, they're a fabulous group of coworkers and I'll be sad to lose them. Alma, who arrived a few weeks ago is our new roommate. She's Irish and also laid back and cool. And she randomly makes dinner sometimes. I get home and it's, "Dinner will be ready in 10 minutes. Grab a beer and choose a movie." I said to Dave that we really lucked out with her.
I bought a violin with my last paycheck. Not the whole thing, as violins are pretty dirt-cheap here. Rather, not the whole paycheck; I did buy an entire violin. Remember that $3 bow I bought in China? That was crazy. Anyway, I bought the violin, b/c Graham wrote a sonata for me and I wanted to play it. He also wrote a concerto for two violins. They're both available on his Sibelius website. He's a great composer and is getting good at writing for the violin. Let me know what you think of his stuff. And whether or not you like it, vote for it, so he can get on the favorites list and people can buy his stuff and I can afford shoes.
We were watching the Lord of the Rings the other night and Golum came on screen and I came out with this dead-on impersonation of him (who knew?). Graham has banned it, as he said it was like his girlfriend was replaced with some scary, semi-human murderer. I'm thinking of waking him up like that in the middle of the night.