Midterms and America

We got ID badges this week. Now we are free to move around the school grounds without worrying about getting stopped by security. Before this week we were pretty much stuck on the campus. Mathayom (where I work with my coworkers) and Prathom (where everyone else works) are right next to each other. In between there is a little bakery and a shop where you can get breakfast or a snack throughout the day.

Wednesdays are really nice because me and my other two American coworkers don't have afternoon classes, and we pretty much have the office to ourselves to grade or do whatever we need to do without our British boss distracting us.

Before I came to Thailand everyone warned me about Geoffrey. I came expecting the worst, but so far he's been really cool to work with. He's an old British guy who's been teaching in Bangkok since 1990. He's a lot of fun to work with, but really distracting sometimes. He's always singing, and he's basically a little kid.

For example, the other day they had fruit set out for us in the Mathayom break room right outside the English office. I make Geoffrey coffee every morning, and sometimes he'll bring me back a snack or something. On Monday he asked if I wanted a banana, and I said yes. He brought me a banana and I ate it. For the rest of the day, every time he walked by my desk he put a banana on it and walked away. Then he started hiding bananas under papers and things on my desk. On Monday he gave me six bananas in total.

On Tuesday when I arrived at work I found another banana hidden under some papers on my desk. They didn't have any fruit that day, and it was a different kind of banana than the day before. Geoffrey actually brought it from home; he's really committed to this joke. He thinks it's the funniest thing ever.

So we're working on putting together the midterm tests this week. We wanted to finish them up, so Rachel, Ryan, and I decided to stay late today to get some extra work done. It turned out pretty well, we didn't have to stay too late, and one of the Thai teachers, Mo, gave us a lift to the Skytrain.

After we finished our M1 and M3 tests, we thought we might prank Geoffrey for Independence Day (tomorrow). Every time he sees anything from the UK he just points at it and says "British". His favorite saying is "British is best." He tells me that every time I drink a cup of Lipton tea.

The three of us printed out a few American flags along with a copy of the Declaration of Independence and a picture of George Washington flying on an eagle, and arranged them on his desk.

July 4 update:

Geoffrey actually really likes the America collage, and hung it up on the wall. He also found out that Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird and has been laughing about that all day. (By the way, the British national bird is the robin.)

Tonight we are going out for barbecue after work. Happy Independence Day!