Harry Potter and Buttered Privates

I am currently in my office even though it's Sunday afternoon. At KKU when there is a holiday like two weeks ago classes have to be rescheduled. I did my best to reschedule as few as possible but the classes I missed twice needed a make-up, so today was the day. In my last class, Speaking 101, my students who are studying in the faculty of Medicine turned in a homework assignment. The assignment was to list names of food that correspond to different countries. Silly, I know, I did not think of it. I knew the students would use the Internet for help because how else are they going to know the English names for Korean foods and French foods, etc. I told them that was fine as long as they did not copy. I got a couple "jumbo combos, "Hardrock nachos," "Fantasy 12. Oz Burgers" and other obvious misunderstandings coming from copying from English menus. The kicker was when I got to the Chinese food section and found "butter many privates" and "France many privates" on many students' papers. Haaaaahaaaaa. I have no idea how this happened but I laughed till I cried and it made Sunday class totally worth it.

Yesterday, Meredith, Neuki, Ing, Pi Lenk and I went to see Harry Potter (in English) in Udon Thani, which is about an hour or two away depending on who drives. Ing drives like my mom and Pi Lenk drives like my dad and if you have ever been in a car with either you will know what I am talking about. Although it might sound crazy to drive that far for a movie, my coworkers said the crazier part was seeing a movie with the swine flu running rampant in these parts. Took my chances, I suppose.

I ate breakfast with Neuki who told me after I had ingested 75% of my fried rice and fried egg that we would be eating again when we arrived to Udon. We went to a great Vietnamese food place then to the mall for Harry. The theater was really nice and the tickets cost us 140 baht, which is 4.5 USD. There are seats for 120, but we decided to splurge for the extra arm room. They offer candy and popcorn like the USA, but you can get many flavors of popcorn and the prices are only slightly inflated compared to the food and drinks outside the theater. The movie was good and it was a nice escape for three hours. After the movie, we took hilarious photos in one of those booths (probably a breeding ground for H1N1) and then headed home.

Other than that, it was a fairly normal week. I have been busy catching up on grades which are due in a week and preparing my students for their midterms. I will have more visitors during midterm week when Jessie and Alicia will pop into Thailand before heading to China. We will go on some fun beach excursion and you will hear about it afterwards. How lucky am I?

My Thai is progressing very slowly but it's ok. I have 30 new vocab words to memorize for my next session with Gee, my tutor, and each one liberates me a little more.

"Wanee sanook maak" which means today was a very fun day and you can say it when you are saying goodbye.

Rak maak,
Ting Tong

P.S. I said Ellen last time because some Thai people pronounce Erin like Ellen so I introduce myself like that to some people now. BUT everyone has a nickname in Thailand and I want to be "Ting Tong" which means crazy, but not necessarily in a bad way. Maybe like Ding Dong. Ching Chong means pee pee, so I have to be careful.

P.P.S. Some of you will be happy to know that Neuki has begun to call me Bear. It makes me feel at home. Most often, she precedes "Bear" by "Gummy." Although its a little endearing, I think it could also be in reference to the kilos I have been packing on. I REALLY like the food!