The Weekend I Got Drunk at School AND Had My DJ Debut

I've come to accept that I am never informed of anything. There was no exception this past Friday when my school hosted a sports event for the teachers from 3 other neighboring schools. I had been asked to play volleyball on Monday, and quickly declined because I am terrible. After thinking about it for a couple of hours, I realized it would actually be fun to participate and spend time with other teachers, especially since I am staying another semester.
After Monday, I didn't hear anything about the event until Friday, when I was asked if I was in fact playing. I replied that I would love to, but I hadn't attended any practices and didn't have sports clothes. I was informed that there were no practices and that I could go home after my classes ended at 1:40 and get changed for the events, which began at 3:30. On to my next question: Is it okay that I don't own any workout attire except for what Americans would consider "typical" sports shorts. I was encouraged that this was in fact okay.

a demonstration of our poorly-funded school: the freshly-
chalked soccer field

After classes ended, I went home, changed, and arrived back at school in a baggy red shirt that was given as a uniform and my shorts. As soon as I walked on to school grounds, everyone's eyes went straight to my legs. I've seen Thais show off some serious gams outside of school, but inside of school, where I usually look like a fat, colorful, pilgrim, people were quite surprised. As embarrassing as my short shorts were, my volleyball skills were somehow even worse. I hadn't played in years because I was notorious for being the worst player on any team. Luckily, my whole team was horrible and my wonderful co-teachers could not stop laughing any time they missed the ball. We also had a very enthusiastic cheering section that was comprised of mostly my students who happened to either be girls or lady boys. They all enthusiastically waved their pom poms and screamed whenever the ball went over the net. It was wonderful.

Getting down with the guy who makes
photocopies

After all of our school's teams lost in soccer, volleyball, ping pong, and baci ball, the school had a party for everyone involved. Most of my other friends were at the party because they teach at neighboring schools that partook, or just decided to drop by since our boss was in attendance as well (we got our jobs through a placement company, so even though we all work at different schools, we have the same boss). Now a school party may not sound like that much fun, but a THAI school party, now that's a different story. Each table was equipped with a bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey, 10 chairs, and an endless supply of thai dishes constantly being brought out. In addition to the table supplies there were pitches of beer and karaoke.
The night started out with a few students singing karaoke, which quickly moved into the directors singing, awards being given, and my friend Erin and I (the only two female farang teachers) being pimped out to dance with the directors of the schools. I even danced with the guy who makes our photocopies for a while. After a few dances, a teacher came up to us and "asked" Matthias, Alex, and I to sing a song. We quickly realized that this was not a request, but a requirement  and for some reason decided that YMCA would be the perfect song to keep the party popping. We danced, we laughed, and we even had a little dance pit in front of us. it was a  great way to end the night.

The note we received Monday night

The next night was a BIG night for me. It was my DJ debut as DJ BadCat. I got the gig on Monday night, when my friend and I thought that we were going into just a normal day of tutoring at the bar next to our guest house. We were given two large beers (something we had been wanting the entire time we had been tutoring him) and a note that made almost no sense. We gathered that it meant his lease was up (which was later confirmed) and he was moving his bar off the island (also later confirmed). We ended up staying at the bar for almost 6 hours and doing everything we had been joking of doing: showing him GOOD American music and drinking free beer. At one point in the night our student turned to me and said, "you. DJ. This weekend." I gladly accepted and was even more enthused because we had several friends who were already planning on coming up for the weekend.
The week was full of stress as I not only had to worry about my set list, but how to make one on a DJ program my friend had showed me. Okay, it wasn't really that stressful and I did it like the pros and prerecorded my set list and just pressed play so I could hang out with my friends. It was a very fun night, though very sad because our friend, student, AND bar are all now gone. We will certainly be making our way off-island to see the new bar and hang out with all of our Thai friends that we can't talk with.

DJ K and DJ BadCat--serious concentration

Our 2 month tutoring gig has been really fun and I'm glad that it ended the way it did. Initially, all of Pas' (our student) friends thought it was weird we would always show up and attempt to teach their friend English. They would often poke fun at him and not really acknowledge us. Now, they seem happy to see us and impressed that their friend is able to speak a bit. I wish we had more time to teach him because he made a ton of progress, but he still had so much more to go. It's really rewarding teaching someone that actually wants to learn and seeing their improvement, which I don't really get to see in my classes at school. I was especially proud when I passed him cleaning up his bar yesterday and realized that one of my students was helping him. I didn't recognize the student, who said "hello teacher." I asked him which class he was in. In the typical Thai fashion, he immediately panicked. Pas came to the rescue and TRANSLATED for him, and then translated back to me. It was a very proud moment and a great way to say goodbye to tutoring at Pen Tor Bar forever.

our Thai friends. The one in all black is the
bar owner and our ex-tutoring student

If you didn't catch it earlier, I have decided to stay at my school and in Thailand for another semester. It's a long time to be away from home, but I can't believe how quickly the first semester has gone by and I am not ready to leave!