Sport Day

I recently learned a new Thai expression which translates rather poorly as "losers are monks, winners are evil." This is good because today was Sport Day. I don't remember why, but I didn't write about Sport Day last year. That's surprising, because its one of the bigger events of the second term, and the last thing we do before leaving on our New Year holiday.

The students are divided into four teams: green, orange, purple, and pink. Last year I was on Green Team, but this year I was moved to Orange Team. Besides the normal field day-type events (e.g. running, potato sack race, tug-of-war, etc.) the teams compete in a really elaborate cheering competition. Each team chooses a theme. This year Green was "Under the Sea", Orange was "Harry Potter", Purple was "Rome", and Pink was... what I believe to be "Construction". Their theme was a bit hard to tell.

Geoffrey practicing his hula

Geoffrey and I were on the same team. The other Ajarn Farang were all on the other teams. Even though I was Orange Team, many of my best students were on Purple Team, and asked for a photo. They did quite well in the cheering competition, and from the beginning, I could tell that it would be close between Purple and Orange.

Purple Team cheer squad (Rome)

Like last year, I somehow got signed up for the dreaded "Iron Man" competition. James was signed up to represent Pink Team, but he somehow got out of it. The Iron Man is the worst sporting event ever devised. Last year I ran it and came in third place (out of four teams, so I wasn't the worst). You are tied to a partner at the wrist and must run a lap around the field while competing in a series of challenges. This year we had to run, eat bananas, do pushups/situps, run, drink a bottle of water, spin in circles twenty times, run, eat snacks/drink a can of pepsi, run, put lipstick on one another (the worst part), and sprint to the finish. I was paired with the German teacher. I honestly think that we would have had a chance, but she couldn't get up after we spun around. I'll admit, I felt terrible, but I wanted to win so badly! We really could have done it... In the end, we took home bronze medals again. Well, at least I'm consistent. She got the lipstick up my nose, because we were really rushing at the end. It took a long time to clean up, but its better than last year. Last year there was nail polish too...

Orange Team cheer squad (Harry Potter)

Our cheering squad did very well. I have no idea how long they've been working on their cheers and setting up their bleachers to represent their themes. Of course, this was much more important to everyone than midterm exams, so it's no surprise that this is where the students' efforts have gone recently. While there is a core cheerleading squad for each team, the cheer competition involves all the students in the bleachers performing their cheers while the cheer squad dances/acts out a story/performs the complicated routines on-field. It seems that the students care more about cheering than about the actual sporting events.

Sport Day was fun, not just for the students, but for the teachers too, since we get to compete as well. We got to leave early today, and we get the rest of the week off for the New Year holiday. When we return, we'll have to work on the dreaded Academic Fair, but I don't want to think about that just yet.

by the end of the morning, I had once again become "Teacher Tomato"