Another hot one here in Thailand. We are about at the peak of the hot season. This weekend will be Thailand’s biggest festival of the year, Songkran. It marks the Thai New Year and can last anywhere from three to five or more days. The way I figure it the Thai government declares each year how long the festival will last (actual days that are national holidays), and then local areas kind of make their own schedule anyways. The premise of Songkran is a huge water fight. Everyone actually says “len naam” which means “play water.” For three or more days the entire country is running around dousing each other with water, and no one is exempt from the fun. The elderly, young children and buses full of people are all fair game. I asked around and I think that at night when everyone is sleeping you are relatively safe, but I might just have to try and change that trend. This festival will be a nice way to celebrate the summer here.
Right now, the teachers from school are taking a break, and I am spending my days getting to know my community and studying Thai. I am still living with a host family but am hoping to be living in my own house sometime shortly after the festival. The town I am in is small and does not have the biggest selection of rental houses. School begins on the 14th of May, and I am very excited to be in the classroom again. Some of my most heartening experiences so far in Thailand have come from interacting with the kids. It will be nice to be able to see students almost everyday. Within my Peace Corps project, I have two primary goals. The first is to work with two different Thai teachers from two different schools about how to create a learning environment that is more student-centered. From what I have observed so far of English classrooms in Thailand is that there is a lot of attention placed on rote memorization, or repeating something until it’s in your head. There is also quite a bit of time given to the students to copy English words from the blackboard. So, a student centered learning approach can include making lesson plans that encourage the students to think critically, think independently, problem solve, create and ask questions on their own and also to get them comfortable speaking and listening to English. In the classroom, I will be co-teaching every time I teach. The idea is not for me to come and teach English on my own, but rather that we share ideas about teaching and carry those out in our lesson plans. Hopefully, after two years here, our co-teachers and the volunteers have shared different ideas about better, more effective ways to teach. The second goal of our project is to help with activities in our community. These activities can anything that the community requests or I suggest and someone wants to do. These activities may include HIV/AIDS/life skills workshops, teacher training seminars, English camps for students or helping with business endeavors (although for anyone who knows me, I dropped out 
of college after trying to switch to a business major J). We can also simply act as catalysts for helping someone start a project they have been thinking about. There are cases where the ideas are in place, but there may be a lack of knowledge on where and how to acquire the resources to carry out a project. So, in a nutshell, those are my two goals for my two years here. There are also other Peace Corps objectives that are somewhat unspoken. These include the sharing of culture between both the host country and the volunteer. Then, when the volunteer returns to America, he or she will often share knowledge of experiences from that country. Anyone want to be a Peace Corps volunteer yet?
Right now, the teachers from school are taking a break, and I am spending my days getting to know my community and studying Thai. I am still living with a host family but am hoping to be living in my own house sometime shortly after the festival. The town I am in is small and does not have the biggest selection of rental houses. School begins on the 14th of May, and I am very excited to be in the classroom again. Some of my most heartening experiences so far in Thailand have come from interacting with the kids. It will be nice to be able to see students almost everyday. Within my Peace Corps project, I have two primary goals. The first is to work with two different Thai teachers from two different schools about how to create a learning environment that is more student-centered. From what I have observed so far of English classrooms in Thailand is that there is a lot of attention placed on rote memorization, or repeating something until it’s in your head. There is also quite a bit of time given to the students to copy English words from the blackboard. So, a student centered learning approach can include making lesson plans that encourage the students to think critically, think independently, problem solve, create and ask questions on their own and also to get them comfortable speaking and listening to English. In the classroom, I will be co-teaching every time I teach. The idea is not for me to come and teach English on my own, but rather that we share ideas about teaching and carry those out in our lesson plans. Hopefully, after two years here, our co-teachers and the volunteers have shared different ideas about better, more effective ways to teach. The second goal of our project is to help with activities in our community. These activities can anything that the community requests or I suggest and someone wants to do. These activities may include HIV/AIDS/life skills workshops, teacher training seminars, English camps for students or helping with business endeavors (although for anyone who knows me, I dropped out 
of college after trying to switch to a business major J). We can also simply act as catalysts for helping someone start a project they have been thinking about. There are cases where the ideas are in place, but there may be a lack of knowledge on where and how to acquire the resources to carry out a project. So, in a nutshell, those are my two goals for my two years here. There are also other Peace Corps objectives that are somewhat unspoken. These include the sharing of culture between both the host country and the volunteer. Then, when the volunteer returns to America, he or she will often share knowledge of experiences from that country. Anyone want to be a Peace Corps volunteer yet? Here is a picture from the Songkran festival in my town,
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