Artistic Students, The Canteen, and Hot Yoga

During the first days of class, the assignment for all three of my classes was to write a little something about themselves, including an actual photo or one they drew. As is typical with awesome students, I was pleasantly surprised by several of the results. One of my 10th grade Spanish I students, came up with this fantastic drawing (and her Spanish is quite excellent, as well :) I told her she should think about becoming a cartoonist! It's amazing!

I hung pictures I took of the students (and sent to all of you via www.KodakGallery.com, as well as the Spanish II and ESL classes' personal write-ups on the bulletin board right outside of my classroom door.

Also pictured, is the "restaurant" located just outside of the gates at TCIS. They make excellent Pad Thai and coffee shakes (the ones that Leah and I had on the bus in the bags with straws). We often get one after school for the ride home. Due to the change in the catering service this year, business is low at this friendly, neighborhood eatery. The canteen at school has such cheap and healthy food, few teachers go to this restaurant during their lunch.

These photos were taken yesterday while Leah and I were waiting for our coffee shakes. I couldn't resist getting a picture of this cute, little Thai child.

On Tuesday, Leah and I went to a "Hot Yoga" class down the road, about a 15 minute walk from our apartment. Apparently, we have it in the States, too, but I've never done it. Leah said in Columbus, they crank the heat up to 110 degrees and you basically do regular yoga, but you sweat your behind off. Here, they just didn't use air-con and with all of our bodies in there, we probably got the temp up to 100 degrees! Actually, Leah said she did feel some heat coming out of the vents, but I was surprised that they'd even have heat installed in the buildings here in Thailand. I'm still convinced it was just our body heat raising the temperature, but I'll do some further research :)

The instructor was from the States, not Canada as she didn't pronounce "out" like "ewt", and it was a really good yoga session. We plan to go once a week. Another girl from school, Kellie, was there, she's the one who told us about it. We were laughing because at one point some "light rap" (sounds like an oxymoron!) came on and I told Kellie that it was "Hot Gangsta Yoga"! It was the first time I've heard such music while yoga-ing.

It was also funny because at the beginning, the instructor said something about the "o". I didn't know what she was talking about, but suddenly everybody started to exhale and say, "Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh". It was a bit odd and seemed cult-ish, but by the second go around, I was used to it (although, not partaking).