Thailand

The Grand Palace and a Ride on an Elephant

View from my hotel window

I just returned from Bangkok, Thailand, about three weeks ago.  Thailand was an amazing, bustling city full of street vendors, tuk tuks, and lots of Chinese tourists. I was there because I had been chosen to be a speaker at an international educator's conference known as NESA: Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools.  We stayed in this beautiful hotel located on the Chao Phraya River called the Royal Orchid Sheraton, well named because there were bouquets of orchids everywhere.  You can buy orchids by the bushel in Bangkok at the flower markets not far from the hotel.  I arrived at night by taxi and was greeted by the doorman who made sure my bags were taken to the lobby, then I checked in.  My hotel room was spacious; overlooking the river and the city itself.  I looked down and saw the river cruise boats moving slowly down the river and the lights of city lit up and so welcoming.  I could hardly wait for tomorrow!  I arrived about four days before the conference so I could get acquainted with this bustling city.  In four days I barely scratched the surface, but I gave it my best shot!

This lovely woman played music in the lobby every afternoon

Fresh orchid bouquets everywhere

The Grand Palace

These little guys are "monks in training" on a pilgrimage to the Royal Palce which houses the Emerald 

Buddha

No visit to Bangkok is complete unless it includes a visit to the city's most famous landmark, the Grand Palace.  The Grand Palace is a huge complex of buildings with a combined area of about 218,400 square meters (2,351,000 sq. ft.). Construction began in 1782 and completed a hundred years later in 1882.  It was very crowded with Chinese tourists the day I went.  It wasn't easy to get a good photograph without asking about twelve people to get out of the way.  I was a typical wide-eyed tourist.  Nothing I had ever seen before could prepare me for the grandeur and opulence of the Grand Palace.

Gold everywhere you look

Borrowed this pic from ytravel.com.  There were so many tourists it was hard to get a good shot of him.  I think this big guy is one of their national symbols.  You see him everywhere.  I don't think I would want to mess with him!

 Detail of the gold tiles you see everywhere you look

One of the many former office buildings in the complex.  Those are actually giant bonsai trees in the foreground.

Amazing craftsmanship 

Striking a rather cheesy pose!

Me and my buddy!

Bangkok River Cruise

I could see the river cruises from my window, so I decided I would sign up.  The buffet was wonderful and the entertainment was interesting.  You haven't lived until you have heard "Friends in Low Places" sung with a Thai accent.  They had some lovely Thai dancers which I enjoyed a little more!

I love watching these traditional dancers.

One of the many lovely sights to see as we cruised down the river.

Like most cruises, this one had a very nice buffet.  I was busy filling up my plate, when I heard the guy who was doing his very strange American country western twange with a Thai accent announce that if you're standing, you need to duck because we were going under a bridge.  I thought he was joking and if I ducked, I would look really silly because I'd be the only one foolish enough to actually duck.  

Well, I looked up and HE WASN'T KIDDING!!  Looming before me was the concrete underbelly of this enormous bridge.  I never bent my knees so fast in my life!  I'm lucky my head is still attached to my shoulders!  That was a little too much excitement for one day.

These Chinese tourists really know how to get down and boogie!  That was my hotel in the background.

Riding an Elephant

Yes, this is a very touristy thing to do in Thailand, but I had to do it for all my friends back home.  Glad he wasn't very big!

I started out on that chair contraption you can see behind me, then before I knew what was happening, the young man who was sitting where you see me in this picture hopped off and told this grandma behind him (that would be me!) to slide on down and straddle the elephant's neck like he had been doing.  Really???  Not wanting to appear any more fuddydudddy than I already was sitting on this elephant, I slid down very carefully.  It wasn't too bad...it was actually pretty fun.  The tricky part was getting back on that darn chair without sliding off and getting stepped on!  

Taken while floating down the river Kwai in a bamboo raft.  So very peaceful.

I survived riding the elephant, now it was time to float down the River Kwai to catch the train for the ride home.  On our way back, we stopped to see the Bridge on the River Kwai made famous in World War II.

Built by Allied POWs in WW II and Asian labourers from other countries.  It took 60,000 men about 8 months to build it.  Over 13,000 men died building this bridge.  It was destroyed two years later.

The water lilly is the national flower of Thailand.

Enough for one day!  I will post again in a couple of weeks.

Three Years Overseas

An international speaker?  Who would have thought?

Rejection and Rebirth

Rejection is a powerful emotion.  One day you are a cog in a machine; equal to all the other cogs that make this machine work.  The next day you sit in your boss's office in stunned silence while he tells you that due to budget problems and internal surveys (but you must understand that you can make a survey say anything you want it to say if you are very clever and know your desired outcome) your services will no longer be required.  You sit through meeting after meeting while your fate is publicly discussed and described using a bucket analogy.  "The money for teacher salaries comes from this bucket and the money for coaches and sports comes from this bucket.  The building fund comes from this other bucket."  And on and on it goes.  You would have thought that half the staff must be let go in order for the school to survive.  But no, it was just me, an elementary principal (which was later turned into a part time position) and 1/2 of a custodial position.  You bravely face a school board and a room full of anxious parents whose last hope to save the music program lies in some profound statement you can make defending the program you gave your lifeblood to nourish and build in a community where the arts have little value. You do your research and practice your speech in front of a mirror.  You pray to God to open the ears of the listeners.  You give your speech.  The school board votes in favor of the budget plan.  One chapter closes in your life.  

I tell my students that this will be the best year we have ever experienced in our journey together.  The seniors and I will walk out of this school and thIs community with our heads held high.  I will challenge them and push them and people in this town will look back and remember that, yes, we did have an outstanding program and yes, we did make a difference.  We went to contest that year and did ourselves proud.  We sang songs in foreign languages in four part harmony at our concerts and these students sang from their hearts.  Each performance that year was a series of last performances.  So bittersweet.

Meanwhile, I was on my own personal journey.  I wanted to lock myself up in my bedroom and never come out.  I walked through the halls of my school  with a brave optimistic smile plastered on my face.  People would look at me with pity or not see me at all, which was worse.  I'm no stranger to rejection.  It hurts.  It really hurts.  But there was no time for self pity.  There were house payments  to make and property taxes to pay and the electric company doesn't really care about your personal problems.  They just want the check in the mail.  I was given notice in November.  My resume was ten years old.  I was fifty-eight and would have to compete with young people fresh from college which are a very desirable commodity because they are much cheaper to hire.  I had already been down that road too many times and I didn't know if I could do it again.  

But then a thought occurred to me.  There was a business card that had been gathering dust on my nightstand for I don't know how many years.  It was given to me by a friend who thought I may be interested.  Somehow it had never gotten lost or misplaced.  It just sat there among some other odds and ends waiting to be discovered.  It was a business card from an administrator from an international school in China of all places.  Apparently, life exists outside of my small prism of experiences.  Who would have thought?  Children all over the world need to be educated and a high value is placed on American education.  And even better, highly experienced teachers are a much sought after commodity in the international community.  So I enlisted the help of my son and daughter in law who were experienced in this  murky world of flashy resumes and cover letters and with their help I began my journey with the UNI Overseas Job Fair.  Apparently, it is world renown because it attracts job seekers and administrators from around the world to come to a very cold and snowy place in February.  Don't they know that the probability of a substantial blizzard is pretty high that time of year?  But in the international world, that is the ideal time to hire teachers for the next year, so that is when the job fairs are held.  So I went.  I was hired to teach elementary music at Universal School in Kuwait.  It didn't seam real.  Three schools in particular competed for my services.  Really?  Three schools?  I made my decision based on the fact that the accommodations for teachers at UAS were less than  a block away.  I had been commuting to schools most of my life.  This was a no brainier.  I accepted a position as elementary music teacher at UAS. 

UAS, the big blue building in Hawally!

This school was balm to a soul that was hurt and pressed down.  I was almost daily lifted up and praised for things that I have always done as a teacher and didn't really think twice about.  They wanted me to do five programs a year.  I counted up about fifteen programs I did a year as a K-12 music instructor in Iowa and that didn't include weekends at music contests and clinics I took my students to throughout the year.  To just teach elementary music at the end of my career was a blessing I could only dream about.

Who me?  Teach preschoolers?

Not only did this school help me get my mojo back, but they had enough confidence in me to send me to an international convention in Bangkok, Thailand as a speaker, no less.  Schools around the world have begun to realize how the arts and particularly music prepares the brain for higher thinking skills such as spatial reasoning, language acquisition and behavior competence.  So it looks like music education isn't just a luxury for schools lucky enough to be in affluent communities.  Music education helps raise test scores and supports every aspect of core subject areas.  A small town Iowa school board closed its ears to the value of music in their school, but educational communities around the world were beginning to see how music builds and supports all areas of education.  

The Royal Palace, Bangkok, Thailand.

When my life was at a cross roads and my future was so uncertain, the faith the Holy Spirit planted in me as a child was always there.  Deep in my soul, I knew that if God had given me musical talent and a passion to share that gift with generations of children, He would find for me a place where I could teach again.  He never left my side.  I teach in Kuwait, half way across the world.  I don't feel brave.  I'm not on some grand adventure.  I am a teacher.  That is who I am.  All children need music in their lives.  Jeremiah 29:11.

Enough said for one day!  I will share more of my amazing journey in my next blog.