Jet in Denmark

Today I went to Denmark to visit Jet at school. I stopped in the office to say, "Hello" to the principal and discuss Jet's experiences at school. She told me that they'd given Jet a few "buddies" to follow around, so that he would get a chance to meet as many students as possible. She also told me that Jet was a bit shy and quiet in class, however when we walked into Jet's study hall, I found him sitting with other students and having a friendly chat with them. I talked with some of the other students in the study hall and they told me they were very impressed with Jet's basketball skills. Jet had taught several students how to say, "Hello (Sawat dee)". One boy had even asked Jet how to say, "I love you (khun rok ter)" in Thai so he could say it to a girl :-). Jet seemed to be very happy in his class and he talked and joked with the other students very naturally. They all seemed friendly and welcoming too. Jet certainly has many friends in Denmark!

After class I spoke with the principal a bit more about ways to improve Jet's home-stay experiences, especially after school. He's got a bike so he can ride back home on his own, so he doesn't need to be picked up or catch a bus. Therefore, I suggested that he try out for sports after school. The track season is just starting, so Jet could join the team and practice with them after school. As long as his host family knows where he is, that should be fine, and so we asked one of the boys in his class to take him over to track practice. However, Jet wasn't too keen on the idea of exercising, hahah! He told me he was too lazy to run! The other kids on the team seemed eager for Jet to join them. Many kids called for Jet to come run with them, but he seemed a bit too shy to go over to them. Hopefully the coaches can encourage him to participate. I spoke with the coaches, and was surprised to learn that even the high school coach knew Jet. I suggested to him that if Jet did not want to participate in track, he could perhaps help out the team by being an equipment manager. In fact, he was very eager to help the coach set up hurdles for the team, so I think that might be a good thing for him to do. That way he can still hang out with the other kids after school and get some fresh air.

After watching track practice for a while, Jet walked back up to school with a few of his friends. He had get his bike because he'd made an appointment to play basketball over at another boy's house and he was a little late to go over there. He told me that he now has a few phone numbers of friends he can call when he's bored and wants someone to play with. Denmark is a very small town, so it's easy for him to take his bike and ride over to their houses when he wants to play ball. From reading his blog, I know that he's been eating a lot of heavy American food, so it'll be good for him to get some exercise! Hahah!

 

After visiting with Jet, I drove up to Green Bay to look at my old university: St. Norbert College. It has changed A LOT!! Almost every house I lived in has been torn down and turned into a parking lot (I wonder if they are trying to tell me something! Hahah!). There are many new buildings and the campus looks beautiful. It took some photos and videos of the campus because St. Norbert had asked me to do some recruiting for their ESL Institute. They don't have any new Thai students, and they really want some Thai kids to enter the ESL program or the university itself. The do have some photos on their website, but most of the questions I get are about housing arrangements and food, so I took some photos of the dorms and canteens. I also drove around the neighborhood with a video camera, so people could see what the area around the college is like. That should help to ease the minds of parents who might be worried about safety and student lifestyles.

New Holstein

So yesterday I went to New Holstein again to check on May, Jan, Gird and Sky. This time I actually got their before school was over, so I managed to take a few pictures of them in class.

Gird and Sky are in the middle school, which is almost brand new. They just built it two years ago and it is very modern. All the 8th grade classes are on one floor and they share a common area so the kids can have some free time together to study or do projects.

I talked with their principal for a bit, and he told me the girls are doing very well. He said that they have blended in so well that it's almost as if they aren't any different than all the other students. Later in the day, when I talked with Mrs. Konen about May and Jan, she said almost the same thing. She had been expecting kids with a radically different lifestyle and culture, but she found that May and Jan were remarkably similar to American kids. The biggest difference being that Thai kids are a lot more polite than American kids, hahah! However, that's a comment I've been getting from many teachers and host families. They all can't get over how much these kids have in common with American kids. Which I think is great.

I stopped by Gird and Sky's Spanish class to take a few pictures and some video. They were sitting with Abbey Brill and seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were a little surprised to see me there, but they quickly went back to listening to their teacher. I even saw Gird taking some notes. What a good student! :-)

After that, I went over to the elementary school to check in on May and Jan. They were in a Language Arts class and when I walked in they shouted out, "Teacher George!" So I guess they were happy to see me, haha! Their teacher had given the class some free reading time, but May and Jan were in the back playing games on the computer. I talked with their teacher for a bit and she said that their best subject was Math! She actually said that they were near the top of the class in Math. Can you believe it? I'm sure their parents will be as shocked as I was to hear that, hahah!

After school I met with Mrs. Konen because she teaches second grade at New Holstein as well. We talked for quite a while about May and Jan and her experiences with them. We both joked about how sad the girls looked in their first photos from the ice rink at the beginning of their home-stay experience. Mrs. Konen said, "When I picked them up, they were crying, but now when I drop them off next week, I'll be the one crying."

The girls looked very happy and they seemed to be doing very well at school. Although they did tell me that they missed their friends at Hilbert (they spent a week there before Easter). I told May that I sent snow to her for her birthday, but she didn't believe me, hahah! Jan was silly as always, so she doing just fine. It's quite a big change from the last time I saw them. When I put them in Mrs. Konen's van before the meet-and-greet picnic on the March 27th, they were crying. Now they were laughing, joking and being as silly as ever.

Plaaaaaaaaaaay Ball!

So the big day finally arrived! I know the kids were looking forward to seeing their friends again more than seeing a baseball game, but we managed to sneak some American culture in there between all the gossiping in Thai :-). We all gathered in the Faith Lutheran Church parking lot to pack the bus up. I was late, of course, but we got the bus rolling before 10:00am so we had plenty of time to get down to Milwaukee. On the way down, I chatted with Mrs. Rycroft about Jump. Apparently he's doing very well up in Shawano and they may even let him participate in a few Track & Field meets. The Rycrofts are really enjoying having Jump as a guest, which is great news. In fact, all the host families seem to be enjoying the experience almost as much as the Thai kids. Several people came up to me and said that if I ever bring kids over again, they'd be happy to host them again. So I'm very proud that the kids have behaved themselves well and left a good impression of what Thai kids are like at their best.

However, it may be difficult to place other Thai students with these host families, because these kids have already "called dibs" on them. Hahah! I think that's wonderful. It means that in just a few short weeks, the Thai kids and their host families have developed close bonds that will hopefully last long after the trip ends. Which is the whole point, of course! I'm very happy to hear stories from the host families about how well the kids have adapted and become a part of their families. In fact, I may have a hard time convincing them to give the kids back, hahah! Just kidding!

Once the bus arrived in Milwaukee, we headed over to the stadium parking lot for our "tailgate" party. The word, "tailgate" comes from the gate on the backend of a pickup truck (the part that folds down when you open it), but it also has two other meanings. If someone is following you very, very closely while you are driving, we would call that "tailgating". In America, it's illegal and you could get a ticket from the police if they saw you tailgating someone, but in Bangkok, that's just the way everyone drives! The other meaning of the word has to do with the way people would go to sporting events early so they could sit in the back of their truck and party (drink beer and grill burgers). This kind of party became known as "Tailgating", and it's grown to be very elaborate. Now people have special trucks and buses they use for tailgate parties, and they bring large groups of people, big grills, games, and lots and lots of beer.

Our tailgate party wasn't so grand, but it was a lot of fun! We put two grills out behind the bus, and set up a few tables for condiments and chips. We had a few coolers of soda (for me and the kids) and beer (for the adults, hahah!). We didn't have any games, but the kids were quite happy to just talk with their friends. Since we arrived at the parking lot around 11:30pm and the game didn't start until 2:10pm, we had plenty of time to eat, gossip, and eat some more. The new baseball stadium is VERY impressive. The whole roof can actually open and close, so on a sunny day, the roof is open, but as soon as it starts to rain, they can close the roof, which is amazing because it's a HUGE roof! Wow!

I had bought 40 tickets for the game ($21 each, ouch!), but since May and Jan didn't come, we had four extra tickets. That wasn't a problem, however, because when the bus first pulled up, a guy (ticket scalper) came up and asked if we had any extra tickets to sell (so he could go and resell them to someone else who needed tickets). I sold him our extra tickets, but after he left, I realized I'd accidentally given him FIVE tickets! Oh no!! So I had to run around looking for him in a panic, but after 30 minutes of searching around the bus parking lot, I couldn't find him :-(. So I asked one of the other ticket scalpers if they had seen him, and they told me he may have gone over to the front of the stadium to sell the tickets! Uh-oh! So I quickly ran across the parking lot and around to the other side of the stadium to see if I could catch him before he sold the tickets. Man, I am out of shape! :-P Whew! Once I got around to the front, I saw him and chased after him, he saw me running and came to meet me, which was good, because if I had to run any further I would have had a heart-attack! I told him I gave him an extra ticket, and he one back to me. He didn't even ask for any money back, so that was cool of him. I found out that he'd actually just sold four of the tickets, and had one left over, so I was very lucky to get it back! Whew!!

I got back to our bus and grabbed something to eat and drink. When I get back to Thailand, I'm going to have to start exercising again! I'm too old and fat to be running around like that! Haha! Around 1:30pm, we started to pack up the tailgate party. I handed out all the tickets and everyone walked over to the ballpark on their own. We met up again at our seats and I took a few pictures of the kids. Watching them before the game, I noticed how they asked their host families questions about baseball and the ballpark. It's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, they were scared to come out of the kitchen at the parsonage house. Now they were sitting with their host families and chatting very naturally with them. I didn't see any shyness at all. What a big change!

We had GREAT seats for the game, unfortunately the Brewers were busy stinking up the ballpark with awful play :-P. They were hosting the St. Louis Cardinals, so our team was blue and the opposing team was red. Given Thailand's current situation, it's fortunate that our team had a politically neutral color! Luckily the kids can wear their blue Brewers shirts back in Thailand. Hahah! Once the game started, the kids tried to pay attention, but baseball is a needlessly complicated game and it was difficult for them to follow the action. I don't think they cared much, though, they were content to chat with their friends and explore the stadium's food court. However, like all ballparks in America, the prices were outrageously expensive, so the kids didn't buy much food (that's why most people like to tailgate beforehand, because the food inside the park costs too much). I bought a tray of nachos for $5.50 (ouch!) and shared it with Tong.

Right before the game started, they closed the roof of the ballpark, because they were worried it was going to start raining. I'll upload the video of that soon, it's pretty cool. The Brewers got crushed by the Cardinals and the final score of the game was 7-1, ugh! Baseball, like soccer (football) is supposed to be a low-scoring game, so if the Cardinals score seven runs, that means the Brewers have some serious problems with their pitching. Fortunately, there were lots of other things to see and do. They had a few songs to sing during the seventh-inning stretch, some fireworks at the start of the game, and a "sausage race" between guys dressed up like different kinds of sausage (the Polish sausage won the race).

There was a big board in the ballpark that they used to keep track of the score and show announcements. At one point, they put up an announcement that said, "The Milwaukee Brewers welcome: ...the Pudgimelon Learning Center", but I didn't get a photo of it :-P. Did anyone else get a picture of that? If so, please email it to me!

After the game, we walked back to the bus and got a few snacks out while we waited for the parking lot to clear out so we could move the bus. We drove back to Valders, but on the way we stopped for a bathroom break at a Hardees in Sheboygan. The kids didn't eat much, but I got a strawberry shake. I also ate some rice-krispie treats that Gird and Sky had made, Yummy! Hmmm... perhaps there is a reason I'm getting so fat :-P. Once we got back to Valders, we chatted in the church parking lot and then the kids went home with their host families. It was our last big trip together as a group and I could tell the kids were a little sad to say goodbye to their friends once again. However, they all looked happy and comfortable with their host families. I'm sure they will remember this day for a long time!

Valders

Well, I went down to New Holstein today to take some pictures of May, Jan, Gird and Sky in class, but I got down there too late and everyone had already gone home :-P. Oh well, I go down there next week. Instead I went over to Valders and took some pictures of the Middle School and High School. This is where James (Jirayu) is going to school.

View from the top of Brennan's Hill looking down on Valders:

The elementary school:

The middle school:

The high school:

Tomorrow we'll be going down to Milwaukee for the Brewers baseball game. Go Brewers!!

SNOW!!!

I woke up this morning to discover that it had snowed during the night!! So that means that right now there are several million very annoyed people in Wisconsin and 11 very happy kids!! Hahah! Most of the snow is melting as soon as it hits the ground because the ground has warmed up in the last few weeks, but enough snow is sticking to give everything a nice cover of white powder. It's pretty slushy too, which makes for good snowball ;-).

This is what spring is like in Wisconsin though. Last week it was 25'C, and today it's -3'C. The weather here is very unpredictable, so I'm glad I told the kids to pack a variety of clothes because you never know what the weather is going to be like here. The temperature has yo-yo'd up and down since we've been here. From lows of -10'C to highs of -25'C, so the kids are getting a taste of the whole spectrum of Wisconsin weather. What great luck!

While I checked my email this morning, I got a Facebook message from James (Jetnipit). He told me that Mrs. Kupsky didn't want them to go outside because she didn't like snow. I told him that he should offer to shovel the driveway for her so he could go outside, and he told me that she agreed! Haha! Let's see how much he enjoys snow after he shovels a bit of it ;-). Haha!

By the way, can you think of a better birthday present for May? This must be so cool for her. Snow on her birthday, what a unique gift! Happy Birthday, May!!

Tong and James (Jirayu) at School

This week has been pretty slow for me. Mostly I've just been puttering around my parents' house, but yesterday I was a bit sick, so I spent most of the day in bed with a huge headache. Tuesday was a bit rainy and cold so I think my immune system finally quit on me. One thing I've been doing is going up into my parents' attic and searching through all the boxes I put up there before I moved to Thailand. It's been seven years since I opened those boxes, and so the contents brought back a lot of memories. I found photos from my years in Boston and even some old pictures from my university days. I also found actual LETTERS! Can you believe it? Was it only 15 years ago that people actually sent each other physical pieces of paper with stamps on them? It seems unbelieveably archaic, but yes they did. So I've been reading though old letters from family and friends all week. It's been a trip down memory lane for me.

My parents watch WAY too much TV, but it's been a good way for me to catch up on American culture. My Dad's got some satellite TV system with 5 billion channels on it, but there never seems to be anything good on, :-P. Funny how that works. However I do like watching the DIY (do-it-yourself) Channel and the SyFy (science fiction) Channel. My Dad really likes to watch the TV show "Vegas" and he also likes to watch the high-stakes poker channel. I like watching that TV show too (it's funny), but the poker channel is depressing. Watching those guys throw around thousands (or hundreds of thousands!) of dollars in a card game just makes me think about all the cool things I could do at my Centers with a fraction of that money :-P.

On Tuesday I went into Manitowoc to see how Tong is doing at school. It was his first day and I wanted to make sure he was getting settled in alright. His been a bit homesick lately, and so I'm hoping that now that school has started he won't have so much time to think about it and maybe he'll feel a bit better. My Dad drove me into town and I went to the office first to introduce myself to Mr. Wakeman, the principal at Franklin Elementary (which is just across the street from Bethany Lutheran where Sea, James and Gam go to school). Mr. Wakeman was very friendly and kind. We talked for a bit and then went out onto the playground because the kids had recess. Since it had just rained, the playground lot was covered with earthworms (they come out of the ground when it rains and for some reason they'd crawled all over the pavement). So Mr. Wakeman was busy handling complaints from kids complaining about other kids putting worms on them. Hahah! Kids :-). At first I couldn't find Tong because he was wearing a different jacket (I think Mrs. Pope gave him a raincoat to wear). He was with a group of boys checking out all the worms on the ground.

After break, I followed the kids back into the classroom and took a few pictures of Tong while he was in class. He didn't seem to happy about me taking his picture, but it looked like he was doing OK in the class. The teacher was showing him what to do, and he could understand her instructions, so I think he'll be fine. The school also assigned him two "buddies" to help him out, so he's got some friends his age to talk to already. The interesting thing about Franklin Elementary School is that it already has about 25% non-native speakers attending school there. There are large groups of Hispanic (Mexican) and Hmong (Thai/Laos) people living in Manitowoc and so Franklin has a lot of those students. This means that they are used to dealing with English-as-a-Second-Language students. Mr. Wakeman has also worked with exchange students before, and so he told me he was very happy to have Tong at his school because it will be a valuable learning experience for his students as well. So it looks like Tong is in good hands at that school.

When I returned to Valders, I walked over to Valders Middle School to check on James (Jirayu). It was his second day at the school, and he's also been feeling a bit homesick, so I wanted to make sure he was OK too. First I stopped in the office and talked with Mr. Krey, the middle school principal. He was also very enthusiastic to have James at Valders and told me James seems to be doing pretty well. Since James is staying with Eli Nelson, whose in 6th grade, he's actually attending classes at a lower grade level than he would be in Thailand, but so far it seems to be working out fine. It's been over a decade since I set foot in Valders school and a lot has changed. They just spent a huge amount of money remodeling and expanding the school and so the original middle school is no longer there (and the high school has a big new extension on it). Mr. Krey had to walk me downstairs to the band room or I would have gotten lost :-P.

On the way down to the classroom, I talked with Mr. Krey about the changes that had been made to the school. The 6th grade classroom were now where the cafeteria used to be. Eli had band practice while I was there, so we had to walk over to the music area, which is where the art rooms used to be. I told Mr. Krey, "Well, at least they can't move the gym. That's got to be in the same place". But just as I said that we walked past the old gym area, and it's now a library. Haha! So everything has been moved around! When we got to the band room, James was sitting with Eli while Eli played the sousaphone. The kids were practicing some marching band music and they were excited to have a stranger in the room taking their pictures and videotaping them. I tried not to disrupt the class too much, so I only stayed for a little while, but James seemed to be doing fine.

After that I wandered around the school for a bit see what else has changed. By chance I wandered past Mr. Evans room. Holy cow! He's still there! He was MY social studies teacher when I went to school! So I had to stop in and say, "Hi". He still had one of my paintings I did for him up on his wall, awwww! We chatted for a bit, but he was in the middle of a lesson, so I told him I would stop by later and talk to his class about what it's like to live overseas. I also stopped by the high school office to talk to the high school principal. Even though I don't have any students attending Valders High School, I wanted to introduce myself and talk a bit about plans for the next trip in October! I didn't take any pictures of the outside of the school. I'm going to wait for a sunny day to get some nicer photos.

On the way back home, it started to rain. The temperature was around 40-45'F (4-7'C), so it was just about freezing. However, the kids were still out on the playground, and I noticed that they still had football (soccer) practice going on, so the kids were running around in the cold, wet rain. I can't imagine that happening at a school in Thailand! Hahah! That's one of the biggest differences between Thailand and Wisconsin. In Thailand, people spend a most of their day inside, especially when there's bad weather, but in Wisconsin, people go outdoors regardless of the weather. If they have something to do (like football practice), they'll be outside no matter how miserable it is out there. So maybe now some of my students won't think I'm so crazy for walking around in Nonthaburi too.

Valders Journal Article

Here's the article from the Valders Journal about my students and their trip. I bought one copy of the newspaper for each of the Thai families, so I'll give it to you when I get back from America. It's a good article, but I'm not entirely happy with it. He misquoted me a few times and got a few details wrong, but it's a small-town newspaper so I guess that's OK. For example, according to the newspaper, I named the kids, not their parents, Hahah!! However, the kids should be very happy with the article. They got their picture in a newspaper! They are famous now! Yay!!

Easter Day

Happy Easter everyone! This morning we had to wake up early and get ready for church. I was a little slow getting out of bed (haha), so Jet and I didn't walk over to the church until 6:45am (the service started at 7:00am). By the time we got there, service had already started, so we sat down in the back. It's traditional at my church to have the high school students conduct the sunrise service. Usually the students do a skit about Easter, and so this year they pretended to have a news conference with a Roman guard. It was pretty good, actually.

After the service, we went downstairs to have breakfast in the church. We met Tong, Sky, Gird and James (Jirayu) in the hallway and all the kids seemed very happy to see each other. Tong gave me an Easter egg that he made. It was really cool! The kids sat at one table and I sat with the host parents at another table. I talked with the host parents about their experiences so far. It hasn't been 100% positive, but that's OK. A lot can be learned from encountering and solving problems and that's part of what this whole experience is about. Luckily, most of the problems have been relatively minor and the experience as a whole has been very positive for both the hosts and my students. After breakfast, all the kids got a bag of candy. Wow, they are going to be eating a lot of sugar this week!

When we got back to the house, Jet played another game of Monopoly while my sister got lunch ready. Then we had an Easter egg hunt out in the yard for Jet, Tim and Ben. My sister put candy inside plastic eggs and then she and I hid the eggs outside. My sister used plastic eggs that were colored with green camoflague. That made the eggs very difficult to find! She's so mean! Hahah!

Jet's host family came to pick him up around noon, so my mom gave him a sandwich and we sent him home with them. After that my family sat down for lunch together. My sister made a really good rice, chicken and ham dish. While we were eating, a friend of mine in Thailand sent me a voice note on my Blackberry. She and some friends sang a song for me. Awwww! I miss them! So I recorded my nieces and nephews as they sang a song back to my friend in Thailand. They sang "Pants on the Floor" from American Idol, if you don't know about that song, look it up on Youtube, hahah!

So now we're just sitting around the house. My Mom is sending emails, my Dad is playing games on his computer, my brother-in-law and nieces are watching TV and everyone else is just sleeping or hanging out. Ahhh, a nice lazy day. :-)

Diane's visit on Easter Weekend

Well, I'm mostly caught up on my blogging for now. I've got to post a few more videos over the next week or two, but I didn't do very much this week, so there isn't much to blog about.

The kids have been with their host families for almost a week now, and for the most part, things have been going very well. There are a few minor cases of homesickness and communication difficulty, but the kids and their host families have been handling those problems, so I haven't had much to do. Yay!

My parents watch A LOT of TV, so I've been catching up on my American culture, hahah! I've also been sleeping and eating a lot too. It's nice to have a little down time after so many weeks of hectic activity. I'm starting to get a little bit of cabin-fever though, and so I've been going out for walks during the day to get some fresh air. Fortunately, the weather has been really nice this week. Temperatures have been getting up to 24'C (75'F) during the day!! Wow, it feels almost like Thailand here, hahah! Except here we still have chilly winds, but as long as I wear a windbreaker jacket, it's very comfortable.

I've been reading the blogs of the students and it's great to see their photos and read their stories. They really seem to be enjoying themselves. Most of the host families have activities planned for Easter weekend, so the whole group will not be getting together this weekend. Instead they will do individual activities with their host families. However, Jet is visit my family this weekend so he can attend Easter sunrise service at Faith Lutheran with me, Gird, Sky, Tong, and James (Jirayu). Since the services start at 7:00am, his host family did not want to drive down from Denmark so early in the morning, so Jet is staying overnight in my parents' house.

It's a bit crowded here tonight, because my sister Diane and her family are also visiting for Easter. Since Diane and her husband have SIX kids, that means the house is very full! My Mom and Dad are sleeping upstairs in one room, Pat and Diane have another room, and their daughters (Liz and Christine) have the other room. Then all the boys (Alex, Matt, Tim and Ben) are sleeping on air mattresses downstairs with me and Jet. Jet gets to sleep on the couch so he's very lucky, hahah!

I gave my nieces and nephews some presents from Thailand (fisherman pants!). Diane got a silk scarf and Pat got a silk tie. I also gave Ben one of those little wooden frogs that cheep when a stick is dragged over its back.

Ben and Jet played a game of Monopoly, while Diane acted as the banker. At first the game was pretty close, but then Ben got some hotels on his property and Jet got some unlucky rolls. Pretty soon Ben had over $4000.00 and Jet had $4.00, hahah!! Jet doesn't want me to post photos of him getting crushed by a seven year-old boy, but I have to be honest in my blog reports, so too bad Jet! Hahah!

After the game, we watched a bit of basketball (go Butler! boo Duke!) on TV while Tim, Ben and Jet played games on a PSP. Tim really likes his fisherman pants because they make him look like a ninja! :-) It's been really great seeing my family again. All of my sister's kids have gotten so big!! Alex is already 22 years old, and Ben wasn't even born when I first went to Thailand! So it's nice to finally get to be "Uncle George" for a few days!

Next week I'm going to try to get to some more schools for classroom photos, so keep checking this blog. Thanks.

First Monday at School

On Monday I got a ride into Manitowoc from my Mom. She dropped me off at Bethany Lutheran to talk with the principal there and hopefully get some pictures or videos of the kids in their classroom. I hope to be able to visit all the kids in school, but it all depends on whether or not I can get a ride and if the school is OK with my visit.

Sea, James (Jetnipit) and Gam were all attending Bethany Lutheran. Unlike some of the other Gird, Sky, James (Jirayu) and Tong, they did not have a holiday this week. Jet, Jump, May and Jan were also in school, but I couldn't get rides to their schools this week, so I'll have to check in on them another time. When I got to Bethany, I talked with their principal and asked permission to take a few photos. Mr. Wade was happy to oblige and I was grateful for the hospitality.

I took a few pictures of Sea and James in their math class. I was very pleased to see how well they were doing. James was in the back of the class laughing and joking with his new friends, and Sea was up in the front of the class getting some help from one of the other students. They both seemed to fit in very well, and they looked comfortable and happy.
The other students were very friendly and kind to both Sea and James. I could tell that the boys were going to have a great time at Bethany Lutheran.

Next I checked on Gam while she was in her handwriting class. I'm not sure if they teach cursive writing at Daroonpat (Gam's school in Thailand), but Gam seemed to know what to do immediately and her teacher also took some time to explain things to her. She didn't have any problem understanding him or listening to his instructions, so I think she'll be fine. Later on, I took some pictures of her in Science class. She was sharing a book with another girl, and she was listening intently to her teacher. I could see that she was enjoying herself, so I wasn't worried about her.

I also had to chuckle to myself because Gam was still wearing the brown sweater that my Mom had given to her. Gam wore that sweater for almost a week straight during our orientation camp, and so I thought it was really cute to see her still wearing it at school. My Mom had given it to her to keep warm, and she must have liked it because she never took it off! It made my Mom very happy to know that Gam liked her gift so much!

Afterwards, I went over to Goodwill to buy some secondhand books. I bought a huge stack of books for only $50!! In Thailand, that same stack of books would have cost me almost $400! Books are so much cheaper here, but it's still difficult to find good books in the secondhand stores. Fortunately I got lucky and found some really nice ones, including a nearly new copy of "Where the Wild Things Are" for only $2.00! Wow!

I went home feeling very good about what I had seen at Bethany Lutheran. It looks like a very nice school with good teachers, and my students looked happy and comfortable there. Since then I've chatted with them a little bit on MSN and it's amazing how easily they've fitted themselves in to the school. Sea and James have both made some good friends, and Gam has surprisingly started to enjoy playing American football. I've also gotten reports from Jump's principal that he's doing well up in Shawano, and Jet has told me that his teacher put him on the school's Math Challenge team and he's also made it onto one of the school's basketball teams. So the kids have been very busy this week!

I'm also very pleased with the way the blogs have been updated by (most of) the students. When the kids first started their blogs, their posts were only a few lines long and they had very little to say about themselves. However, the blogs have gradually increased in length until now some of the kids are writing blogs that are quite long! It's really awesome to read about their experiences and all the fun things they are doing.

Wow. There are times when I can't believe what's happening over here. All the problems and difficulties organizing this trip were totally worth it. This is something these kids (both Thai and American) will remember for the rest of their lives and it's been a real honor to be part of it. I'm very proud of the way the kids have behaved themselves and I'm glad I could help make this experience possible for them. It's been great.