Day Four

The second and final day of our workshops went beautifully. We were all in sync, all kinks were worked out, and we all really enjoyed ourselves.

We were able to relax more and interact more with the students. I'm sure we all wish we could have had our 3rd workshop for the 1st and 2nd group of students.

We also had a lot more time to socialize with the students and we met some of the younger students as well. During our workshops, the younger ones' faces are almost always plastered to the windows so that they can see what's going on. I wish we could include them all but unfortunately we're limited with resources and people. We don't want to make our workshop groups so big that it doesn't have much of an impact on anyone. As it is, the 36 students we did have was a bit too much. It still went good though

During the afternoon, Alim and Adrienne hosted an art workshop inspired by the Indian movie "Taare Zameenpar". Anthony, Alim, Avi, Kelly, and I all watched it together in Rochester before coming to Thailand. That workshop was great - even the GRO delegates and Sethsanian school teachers got into the act of creating artwork. When we return to America - there will be a gallery showing all of the artwork and all profits will be donated to the school. All of us were impressed with the drawing skills of the Thai students.

Off the point but Thai Sign Language or TSL is interesting. I still can't get over their sign for Converse. I wore my Converse shoes yesterday and a student came up to me and showed me the sign for Converse in TSL and asked me for the ASL equivalent, I admitted that we didn't have a sign for it. He was aghast, "Well how do you say it then?" I laughed and said we fingerspelled it and his eyes widened, "long word, you fingerspell all the time?! Crazy!" I told him I'd bring the sign back to America as I loved it hah.

We met some local deaf college students for dinner at a Pizza Hut at the MBK mall. This mall is so big that I saw 3 McDonald's on our way to the 7th floor. Yes, 7 floors, all accessible by escalators, which is a bit scary once you get to the top few floors and look down!

It was great eating dinner with the college students. Two were actually deaf teachers that teach deaf history, linguisitics, and statistics to both deaf and hearing students at the university. There were some interpreters there as well, and Pat (I hope I'm getting the name right) even helped to create a TSL dictionary. We all enjoyed ourselves and wished we could have had more time with them.

After dinner, we all split up. The boys went to see a movie that was apparently so scary that as soon as I got back to the hotel, Anthony announced he was sleeping with me that night as he and Greg had bonded enough by holding onto one another during the movie. Rachel, Shabby, and Kari went to Khao San road to do some shopping and to get massages. Adrienne, Anita, Mia, Anne, and I (Ali joined us later) went to Patpong market for some serious shopping.

Regarding Adrienne, that girl can negotiate!!! Anne was blown away by her skills. We all lost track of one another so we ended up meeting up at the hotel. We did our GRO moments then the team leaders had a lonnggggg meeting with Alim to discuss feedback, thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc on GRO, the workshops, each other, etc. It was very constructive and I'm glad we had that opportunity to sit down and talk. Meanwhile, the other delegates met to come up with a skit for the closing ceremony.

Arriving back in our room at 1:30am, I realized with a groan that we still had to pack as we were slated to fly to Phuket the next day. We would have to go straight to the airport from the school. So imagine 3 sleepy team leaders grudgingly packing up a room that looked like a tornando hit it after 3 days of occupation. Nonetheless we got it done and got some sleep.

I will update y'all on day 5 once it ends :) it is only Wednesday afternoon here in Thailand! :)

Until next time.
KT
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