The First Day of School

"Ramona could not understand why grown-ups always talked about how quickly children grew up. Ramona thought growing up was the slowest thing there was, slower even than waiting for Christmas to come. She had been waiting years just to get to kindergarten, and the last half hour was the slowest part of all."-Ramona the Pest
I think this quote sums up the feelings of the kids and the parents on the first day of school. Gabe couldn't wait to go to school. He woke up extra early and immediately asked me if I thought he looked like a bigger boy now that he was going to kindergarten. Eric left a half hour before Gabe did and Gabe was very impatient. He was yelling "I can't wait to go to school!" at the the top of his lungs and I'm sure it was causing the teenagers next door to roll their eyes.
When we arrived at school there was a big crowd of parents sending off their children. For some, it was the first day of kindergarten. For others, it was the first day after a couple of years of homeschool in the village. Some were sending their children to their very first day of school living in a new country. You can see the crowd at the fence in the background of this picture. There were tears and some anxiety(mostly from the parents) and even after the children had lined up and the Thai national anthem had been sung and children were ready to go inside over a hundred parents lingered, clogging the walkway. Some stayed for a prayer walk around the school. The kindergarten moms went to one mom's house for brunch-a pre-arranged event designed to keep our minds off the fact that our babies are growing up.

Gabe thoroughly enjoyed his first day of class. Many of his classmates were in the co-op last year. His teacher is Mrs. Jarot, whom some of you may have met. She has been teaching for longer than I've been alive and has raised/is raising 6 children. We've known Mrs. Jarot for 7 years and although her style of raising and educating kids is very different from ours, we know she'll have a lot to offer Gabe. Gabe has a very diverse class. The classmates I have met are from America, the UK, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, Burma, Korea and the Netherlands. It should be a fun year.

Sunday Afternoon

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2.55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."


I thought of this quote from Life, the Universe and Everything a couple of weeks ago. It was another hot and listless afternoon at home on a Sunday afternoon and I finally decided I that there had to be more. A couple of years ago, Eric decided that we should not work on Sunday afternoons and that we ought to avoid shopping and other things that prevent us from resting on Sundays. It was actually a great idea because I do feel more rested, but sometimes it does feel a bit dull. As I mentioned above, a couple of weeks ago I started to feel that sitting around reading and sweating wasn't as restful as it could be. We decided that we'd try to go out and do restful outings after church more often. Last week we went to the night safari and walked around the lake and enjoyed a truly beautiful sunset over the mountains. This week we went to a lovely botanical gardens. The gardens seem lovingly cared for and besides an extensive waterway on which you can take a paddle boat or canoe and miles of shady walks there are lots of bushes shaped like animals. These monkeys were the oddest bushes I saw. They also have a hedge maze. Gabe is peeking through the branches on the other side of the wall in the maze. The highlight of the day was sitting in a sala (a small, covered pavilion) and watching the rain come down in sheets onto the little lake in front of us. I really love watching rain.