Pouring Blessings

There was a pool party at a beautiful and cheap hotel room on Saturday. I had fun playing the a similar game to 3 flies up with a bunch of big guys who I strategically beat by letting them all jump up and wrestle to catch the ball and waiting for it to pop out of the madness somewhere.

I also finally met some people I easily feel really comfortable around and connected to this weekend. I got to play soccer with some of the guys from TVC and had a round robin with about 30 Thai players that showed up a few hours later. After soccer, I tood a lovely dip in British Chris and Christian’s pool, had dinner with them and the rest of our soccer team, and watched Legally Blonde 2 and Hitch with British Chris.

Last night there was an awesome Halloween party in Khao Lak. I witnessed some great last minute costumes, not including mine, which consisted of dressing normally and telling people I was a supermodel. My favorite costume was a chicken cooking in the microwave. This guy, James, wore a latex glove on his head and wrapped himself in aluminum looking stuff from a survival kit. He also had a whistle around his neck, which he blew every so often to let people know “the chicken is done”. There was much better music to dance to than the last party at the Eurasia bar, although they began repeating songs way too many times at the end.

We used someone’s toga outfit as a limbo stick and jump rope, and I had a great time dancing with people in a joyful spirit.

Today was first day back to school after the break. The 5th and 6th grade classes went well, but I got so frustrated with 4th. I felt like a bad person getting upset, but they just would not pay attention. This evening was better…

I taught the yoga class for the first time tonight. It was a great experience, very different being the teacher and talking the whole time. There was a lot going through my mind and I wasn’t able to pay attention to everything. I was so busy thinking of how to explain the postures, reminding the class to breath and demonstrating some of the postures that I didn’t keep track of time for each pose and I mixed words up a few times. Still, most everyone seemed to really enjoy it, or so they said. I’d like some more constructive feedback, so I’ll ask Peter and the others at another time.

After yoga, I went to dinner Stewart, a 18 year old world traveler who was born in South Africa, and has lived in the UK and then New Zealand. We joined a big group at a table, and for the first time I felt sincerely comfortable in the situation and easily joined in conversation. I am so grateful for this recent turn of events.

After dinner, we went to the beach and joined in the bonfire and fire twirling, minus the fire for me. I’d really like to learn how to do it, but I think I need some help because without any guidance I kept hitting myself with the ends of the chain and returned home with black marks all over. We went to Fisherman’s too and played fooseball. Swedish Chris was my superstar partner, who won all of the games for us.