Dec. 10 update

We have another holiday today, and I'm not even sure why, but we're enjoying it nonetheless. Tony is off fishing with our one (& wonderful!) English-speaking friend, Howard, from near Manchester. Howard also joined us for my birthday, when we rode our motorcycles up to Khon Kaen to check out the silk festival, stay at a hotel & have some meals out. It was a good time. Since then, we have been cooking great meals together, with the grub we picked up at the big grocery store in the city, combined with our local market produce. Tony's spring rolls are still TASTY!.. Today I walked to the orchid wat (temple) outside of town, just to explore a bit. It was very soothing to be there, almost alone. There's a big outside Buddha that I think I'll visit once a week, because of the good feeling there. All the wats we've been to outside of Chiang Mai have been LOCKED, which is so sad to me. I like to meditate in them, but I suppose the beauty of meditation is that you can do it pretty much anywhere. I walked back along the road & decided to detour through the rice fields, on a windy path in & out of tree areas & swamps, and then took my time through the village streets. It was a delightful day for photography and making connections with the locals. I like to call them NEIGHBORS, actually! I am a bit enchanted by this village, and it helps to just walk around to take it all in. I like that life is not all about teaching, although that aspect is going well, too. Yesterday I poured out the love & silliness while encouraging my students to try to speak English and we ended up having a good day of it. I wish I saw each group more than once a week, as it is near impossible to get names down, much less really GET somewhere with the language. They sure do appreciate the little Thai I use in class; course, much of that is just comic relief for them. I even attempt to write in Thai on the board, saying "so-ai, mai?" (beautiful,no?), which gets a mix of giggles & claps. This weekend we have a big event called English Camp, which happens once a semester-- 80 juniors & the foreign language staff attempting English-speaking games at a National Park. I'm sure we'll blog about this!... Can't believe it's Christmas season, as it is still 75-80 degrees & no sign of Santa in the forecast here! But I sure hope y'all are in the spirit of giving & enjoying the company of those you love. I send mine, to add to that. Cheers! Becca