Dear friends, family, and students,
Happy Holiday! I hope you all have a great vacation!
I am sorry that I have not written in quite some time. To say that I have been busy would be a lie so, I'll just tell the truth. I forgot my password and couldn't get on to update my blog. Please keep in touch. I am hearing that my students are upset with me for not writing. I believe that I have answered all e-mails sent to me. Please send your e-mails to carolhinsdale@yahoo.com and you will get a reply. The weather here is perfect. I am still wearing shorts and sandals. Everything is green and flowering and the swimming pool is still warm. It is like the perfect summer day in Vermont. OK, OK, I will stop rubbing it in. Heard you had a big storm last week and that school was closed. Snow days are my favorite days. I will be working in a different position here at Montfort and I am thrilled about it. It should be much better than teaching in a classroom of 55 students that I meet with once a week. I spend a lot of time sitting around doing nothing. I have really missed all of my students at home and hope you are all doing well.Toby is here with me and we will go out tonight for dinner with my Thai teacher to celebrate my birthday. Toby is having the time of his life over here. I bought a fake tree and a few decorations for my room to make it feel like Christmas but, without the snow it really doesn't feel like Christmas. I am off on holiday to an island beach in the Gulf of Thailand the day after Christmas and will post some pictures when I get back. Elliott, I have not forgetten the asian toliet for you. I will post that picture as well. Take care! Now that I figured out my password, I plan to update more often.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thailand in October
Toby teaching in the computer lab
Sawasdee Mc
Beach at Pattaya
View from my Condo
Students on a field trip to the Orchid Farm
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Teaching with Mam
Our third quarter of the year began this week after the students had a two week holiday. My son is here with me and is working in the computer lab. He is living on campus and enjoying Chiang Mai. Toby even made it to the beach over the holiday. I was not so lucky. The weather here seems to be changing from the rainy season to dry beautiful weather. We were listening to a couple of the teacher talking about the weather. The teachers have been here for awhile and were talking about how cold it gets up here in the north of Thailand. It can be as cold as sixty degrees. That's a far cry from our Vermont winters. I have to say that I did miss fall in Vermont. Toby and I went up into the mountains to the holy temple. It was very beautiful to look down at the city and be on the mountain with the monks in their orange robes strolling around the temple and praying. Swimming in the pool is still a daily event for me. The water is still warm and the weather is still quite hot. Toby and I went to a birthday party over the weekend. It was a wonderful experience. A van was sent into the city to pick up ten of the foreign teachers and friends. We were then transported to the country and arrived at a large party with tables and chairs set out on the terrace. Neighbors, friends, and teachers attended a delicious buffet of Thai food and a special dish for the farang.After the dinner we were treated to music from the school village marching band. They were all dressed in northern Thai costumes. The children marched down the street playing music and once at the house turned to the crowd and played for us. The band ended with the birthday song. The evening was ended with the lighting of paper lanterns into the night sky. Blobs of light floated up into the sky until the fire burned out and the light disappeared. The ride back home was filled with songs and laughter from people representing five different countries. Mostly we sang old American songs. What a night! I hope school is going well for everyone. Feel free to keep in touch with me at Carolhinsdale@yahoo.com
View from on top of a mountain temple
Friday, September 12, 2008
Welcome Back to School
Hope your first few weeks of school have gone smoothly. I can't tell you how great it feels to know that everyone is back in school as I have been teaching since the middle of July and am soon to be on break. It is still monsoon season here and the rains have been like no other than I have experienced before. It is a lot of fun to sit and watch out over the river during a storm. Soon the weather will turn beautiful and I will be able to swim each day.
I moved since I last wrote and am now living off campus in a twenty-five story building on the 12th floor in a studio apartment overlooking the Ping River, the mountains, and the city. I have a nice balcony and a great swimming pool.
Teaching bilingual science to the boys can be a challenge when I am teaching without my Thai teacher. Fifty-four students in a class is hard to handle. Luckily it is only on rare occasions that I am left alone with them. They don't mess around with a Thai teacher in the room. My favorite times are working in the computer lab classes a week and teaching conversational English to other teacher is also fun.
One of my favorite adventures so far was our trip to the border school. It is one of the queen's special projects for the hill tribe living on the border of Burma. (Myanmar) This is where my son Toby will be a volunteer and spend a few months up there. We traveled for about two hours by van and turned onto a dirt road for another half hour up into the mountains. The school is in a valley surrounded by mountains and vibrant green forests. About thirty students attend the school and are of all ages from about five to eighteen. The children were all dressed up and ready to greet us when we arrived. Our Montfort boys brought each student a large bag of rice. The people of the village are very poor. The people of the village have been taught to grow cash crops like corn in the place of what they used to grow in the past. It was a great trip and I would like to volunteer a week up there myself.
I am learning how to cross the street without getting hit and this is no easy task. I usually walk to school each morning which takes me around fifteen minutes. Most times people will stop and offer me a ride when they see the uniform or the Montfort shirt. This can be embarrassing if they stop on a motorcycle and you are wearing a skirt. The women here ride sidesaddle in skirts and dresses on these small bikes and they hold on to nothing. They must have exceptional balance. I had to tell the man I preferred to walk because I knew that if I tried to
ride that way, we would have ended up in an accident and that would not have been pretty.
I moved since I last wrote and am now living off campus in a twenty-five story building on the 12th floor in a studio apartment overlooking the Ping River, the mountains, and the city. I have a nice balcony and a great swimming pool.
Teaching bilingual science to the boys can be a challenge when I am teaching without my Thai teacher. Fifty-four students in a class is hard to handle. Luckily it is only on rare occasions that I am left alone with them. They don't mess around with a Thai teacher in the room. My favorite times are working in the computer lab classes a week and teaching conversational English to other teacher is also fun.
One of my favorite adventures so far was our trip to the border school. It is one of the queen's special projects for the hill tribe living on the border of Burma. (Myanmar) This is where my son Toby will be a volunteer and spend a few months up there. We traveled for about two hours by van and turned onto a dirt road for another half hour up into the mountains. The school is in a valley surrounded by mountains and vibrant green forests. About thirty students attend the school and are of all ages from about five to eighteen. The children were all dressed up and ready to greet us when we arrived. Our Montfort boys brought each student a large bag of rice. The people of the village are very poor. The people of the village have been taught to grow cash crops like corn in the place of what they used to grow in the past. It was a great trip and I would like to volunteer a week up there myself.
I am learning how to cross the street without getting hit and this is no easy task. I usually walk to school each morning which takes me around fifteen minutes. Most times people will stop and offer me a ride when they see the uniform or the Montfort shirt. This can be embarrassing if they stop on a motorcycle and you are wearing a skirt. The women here ride sidesaddle in skirts and dresses on these small bikes and they hold on to nothing. They must have exceptional balance. I had to tell the man I preferred to walk because I knew that if I tried to
ride that way, we would have ended up in an accident and that would not have been pretty.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Sorry for the delay
Hello everyone on the other side. Hope all is well and summer is going swimmingly. I had meant to send an update earlier and many problem got in the way. I needed some time to settle and and find my way around the area. I have also had to learn new subject matter and how to teach in a different way than I am familiar with. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it. Please feel free to write to me. I love to hear from people back home and would especially like to hear from my students, friends and colleagues, and family. You must all be getting ready for the start of the new school year.Back to school signs must be everywhere. (sorry about that, I couldn't help myself)
After a very long journey, I arrived here on July 17Th and was greeted by three Thai teachers. I was taken to my room on campus. I am living in a building designed to reside special visiting guests. It is small, but nice and has beautiful teak wood floors and yes, I have my own bathroom with a western toilet. The room also has a balcony overlooking a lush courtyard filled with beautiful plants and trees and is quite private tucked away in a corner of the campus next to the Ping River. The room I reside is located on the second floor and since I have been here, I have been the only person on the floor. Downstairs is a kitchen that I share the visiting teachers/students from China. Mostly I eat out as there is food to eat everywhere. Learning my way around the city without getting lost hasn't been as challenging as I thought it might be. Taking a tuk-tuk is an easy way to get around and so is on foot.
It is monsoon season here now. It rains everyday at one time or another and it rains hard! I love sitting outside at night on the balcony and watching it rain. It's hot here! The humidity is the worst part of it. The city itself is beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains and looks very much like Vermont from a distance. Lots of rolling mountains and lush green vegetation. The food has taken a little getting used too.
The school is huge and the students all wear uniforms. Their uniforms consist of long dark blue shorts, white shirts and socks. Today I was fitted for my uniforms. They are very nice, two shirts of different styles and two shirts also of different styles that can be mixed and matched. The class size here is about fifty students per class and I teach about eighteen classes per week. Each class is fifty minutes long. The school consists of all boys. That will change next year when they introduce a female population. The students spend a great deal of time on special activities and a class can be cancelled at a moments notice, and they often are. Today, as I am writing this, the students are all lined up in the outdoor auditorium singing and practicing songs for the special event of the Queen's Birthday. This is a special holiday here. Not to many places you can go in this world and see tee shirts, bumper stickers, and almost everything else with the phrase, "Long live the King". I think that is kind of cool.
I am learning a lot here. I have learned what it is like to work with people who are working for the good of the group and people who take care of the other person first and themselves second. They are a very kind and caring people and much can be learned from them. I love it when I walk across campus and a student bows and says hello in Thai. They call me Teacher Care-O
Elliott, I will try to send you that picture you wanted. Send me an e-mail. I would love to hear from anyone. E-mail me at carolhindale@yahoo.com
After a very long journey, I arrived here on July 17Th and was greeted by three Thai teachers. I was taken to my room on campus. I am living in a building designed to reside special visiting guests. It is small, but nice and has beautiful teak wood floors and yes, I have my own bathroom with a western toilet. The room also has a balcony overlooking a lush courtyard filled with beautiful plants and trees and is quite private tucked away in a corner of the campus next to the Ping River. The room I reside is located on the second floor and since I have been here, I have been the only person on the floor. Downstairs is a kitchen that I share the visiting teachers/students from China. Mostly I eat out as there is food to eat everywhere. Learning my way around the city without getting lost hasn't been as challenging as I thought it might be. Taking a tuk-tuk is an easy way to get around and so is on foot.
It is monsoon season here now. It rains everyday at one time or another and it rains hard! I love sitting outside at night on the balcony and watching it rain. It's hot here! The humidity is the worst part of it. The city itself is beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains and looks very much like Vermont from a distance. Lots of rolling mountains and lush green vegetation. The food has taken a little getting used too.
The school is huge and the students all wear uniforms. Their uniforms consist of long dark blue shorts, white shirts and socks. Today I was fitted for my uniforms. They are very nice, two shirts of different styles and two shirts also of different styles that can be mixed and matched. The class size here is about fifty students per class and I teach about eighteen classes per week. Each class is fifty minutes long. The school consists of all boys. That will change next year when they introduce a female population. The students spend a great deal of time on special activities and a class can be cancelled at a moments notice, and they often are. Today, as I am writing this, the students are all lined up in the outdoor auditorium singing and practicing songs for the special event of the Queen's Birthday. This is a special holiday here. Not to many places you can go in this world and see tee shirts, bumper stickers, and almost everything else with the phrase, "Long live the King". I think that is kind of cool.
I am learning a lot here. I have learned what it is like to work with people who are working for the good of the group and people who take care of the other person first and themselves second. They are a very kind and caring people and much can be learned from them. I love it when I walk across campus and a student bows and says hello in Thai. They call me Teacher Care-O
Elliott, I will try to send you that picture you wanted. Send me an e-mail. I would love to hear from anyone. E-mail me at carolhindale@yahoo.com
Monday, June 2, 2008
My Year on the Other Side of the Planet
By Carol Hinsdale
I would like my students and friends to follow my journey east. I have been a teacher at Hinesburg Community School for twenty three years. Life flies by quickly and one day you wake up and say,” Wow! Where did the time go?” And that is why I have chosen this adventure. It is time for me to experience the world outside of my global neighborhood and most especially, my comfort zone and so it is that I have chosen to take a year and move to the other side of the planet to try something new and different. I look forward to being immersed in another culture and meeting people from all over the world and this is how my story begins.As a little girl growing up on a dairy farm in Charlotte, Vermont, we rarely had the opportunity to travel. The summer of 1967 we made our way to Expo 67' in Montreal. This is where I came into contact with my first taste of Thai culture. I placed my hand on the side of the most beautiful temple I had ever seen and vowed to visit this amazing country sometime in my life. I was almost lost in the crowd as my family wandered forward and I lingered behind to see more of what this exhibit had to offer. I already felt a strong connection with Thailand at a very young age.On July 17th my journey begins with a seventeen and a half hour flight from New York to Bangkok on Thai Airways. Montfort College in Chiang Mai is where I will call home for the next year. It is a school of 5,000 students and about fifty foreign teachers. I will be living in a house with several foreign teachers from all parts of the globe, traveling to many neighboring countries is how I plan to spend my free time. My intention is to post to this blog once a week and to keep in contact with students and friends back home. Follow along with me. Visit my new school at http://www.montfort.ac.th/english/index.php and visit my blog from the school home page under teams or go directly to my blog at :
http://carolhinsdale.blogspot.com/
By Carol Hinsdale
I would like my students and friends to follow my journey east. I have been a teacher at Hinesburg Community School for twenty three years. Life flies by quickly and one day you wake up and say,” Wow! Where did the time go?” And that is why I have chosen this adventure. It is time for me to experience the world outside of my global neighborhood and most especially, my comfort zone and so it is that I have chosen to take a year and move to the other side of the planet to try something new and different. I look forward to being immersed in another culture and meeting people from all over the world and this is how my story begins.As a little girl growing up on a dairy farm in Charlotte, Vermont, we rarely had the opportunity to travel. The summer of 1967 we made our way to Expo 67' in Montreal. This is where I came into contact with my first taste of Thai culture. I placed my hand on the side of the most beautiful temple I had ever seen and vowed to visit this amazing country sometime in my life. I was almost lost in the crowd as my family wandered forward and I lingered behind to see more of what this exhibit had to offer. I already felt a strong connection with Thailand at a very young age.On July 17th my journey begins with a seventeen and a half hour flight from New York to Bangkok on Thai Airways. Montfort College in Chiang Mai is where I will call home for the next year. It is a school of 5,000 students and about fifty foreign teachers. I will be living in a house with several foreign teachers from all parts of the globe, traveling to many neighboring countries is how I plan to spend my free time. My intention is to post to this blog once a week and to keep in contact with students and friends back home. Follow along with me. Visit my new school at http://www.montfort.ac.th/english/index.php and visit my blog from the school home page under teams or go directly to my blog at :
http://carolhinsdale.blogspot.com/
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