The past few weeks

 February 18-20

The weekend after the tournament I had a three day weekend for a Buddhist holiday- Makha Bucha Day. Makha Bucha- or Maghapuja as it's sometimes spelled- day is one of the six major Buddhist holidays.  This day commemorates the gathering of over 1,00 monks after Siddhartha Gautama attained Enlightenment.  These monks met without any planning and is therefore considered a miracle.  They wished to visit their teacher after they heard the news of his Enlightenment.  There are two other 'Bucha' or 'puja' days: Visakha Bucha Day May 17^th  (this year), and Asarnha Bucha day July 15^th (this year) which begins the Buddhist Lent. The Buddhist Lent period ends October 12^th. These are actually lunar holidays- they are fixed within the Thai lunar calendar and so will fall on different days every year.


Visakha Bucha/Visakhapuja day celebrates the Buddha's birth, Enlightenment and passing, and Asarnha Bucha/Asalhapuja day celebrates the Buddha's first teaching after Enlightenment.   These are very important Buddhist holidays and the temples are very busy with people coming to give offerings and honor the Buddha at their local temples.

I've done a little research on the subject to understand more fully the Buddhist traditions, and I think this site is pretty good.  I'll definitely be researching more, so I'll post more links as I find them.


http://www.thaiwaysmagazine.com/thai_article/2303_buddhist_days/buddhist_days.html


Also, after reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, I see that much of the story line follows these holidays.  It's a great book, and one that should be read more than once. 


Sadly I didn't participate in any of the celebrations for this holiday at my local temple, or at least see it in action.  I plan to get more involved for the next to Bucha/puja celebrations because I live very close to the temple in my area (my school is named after it- Watpapradoo, meaning generally, 'school of the temple') and I'm sure they will celebrate in high style.

I went to the nearby island of Koh Samet with some girl friends and we had a ball. Some of the girls I knew already because we met at our seminar in Bangkok for teaching- they also work with AYC. They brought along some friends they’d made from living in Bangkok so it was another weekend filled with meeting and befriending new people. We crammed a bunch of girls in one guesthouse room, and wow- I had not had that much concentrated girl time in a very long time. Lots of laughter and memorable moments all weekend long. The weather was great, and the island was very busy. There was a concert festival- Thai pop concert entitled “Cool Tea Samet in Love #2”. So there were lots of hip young kids running around the island. There was also a wedding on the beach, which was lovely.

February 22

Tuesday was my birthday and it was a nice day at school. Nothing really extraordinary happened, but getting good luck wishes and happy birthday wishes from students and teachers was really nice. Some of my naughty boys (but I love them dearly) in my M1/2 class sang happy birthday to me and that was really precious. I guess it was just special in the fact that I was in Thailand for my birthday. In the evening I went out for pizza with the other foreign teachers. I got a package the day before from my mom which was sweet- clothes, some gifts (books of course) peanut butter, and candy! Mom you’re the best.



I love skittles so much.  Thanks mom!



Birthday dinner with teacher friends- L to R- Wat Chai, Teresa, Tang, Gel, Huang, Mateo, Nonoy

Gals.

February 26

Last weekend I attended an educational seminar in Pattaya, just an hour or so down the road. The seminar was at a nice hotel and it was an all day affair. The morning portion was a workshop given by and an Englishman about how to reach Thai students through the materials we use as teachers. He demonstrated some different teaching techniques like making webs, using pictures to learn new vocabulary, and using good videos in the classroom. It was a very well run workshop and we- me and the two other foreign teachers and one Thai teacher from our school really enjoyed it. After lunch a Thai doctor of education gave a power point presentation on the difficulties of learning English for Thai students. It was primarily geared at the Thai teachers so I had a tough time staying motivated and awake after a big Thai lunch!

I returned to Rayong feeling tired and lifted at the same time. It was a long day and I was up early, and the weather in Thailand has a way of making me feel more tired than it did at home. I felt special to be able to attend the seminar, only a few of us foreign teachers were asked to attend. I also felt lifted because as a teacher, it was interesting to attend a professional development workshop of sorts in another country. It kind of refueled the teaching fire. It’s nice to have those kinds of outside forces to keep you fresh and thinking creatively about your work.