The Holiday Season Is Upon Us

As this year starts to draw to a close, so does the full academic schedule at Assumption. For the past few weeks, the school calendar has been rearranged with shorter lessons (some even cancelled completely) and inundated with activity after activity. To begin with, the school celebrated yet another national holiday, Loy Krathong. This holiday falls on the night of the full moon of the 12th month of the Thai lunar calendar. The name 'Loy Krathong' translates as 'to float a basket'.
If any of you have been avid readers of my blog for that past year (thank you by the way!), you'll know that I wrote a blog post about this holiday last year. But, seeing as this year was slightly different, I'll tell you all about it again.

Loy Krathong celebrations at the school.

Just like last year, my Loy Krathong celebrations were split into two parts. Firstly, the school celebrated the holiday by having a half-day's worth of classes and then a giant all-school event in the afternoon. The event began with a procession through the school of the students and Thai teachers all dressed in beautiful, traditional Thai attire. However, the beautiful clothes are also accompanied by a ridiculous amount of makeup; it is literally painted on them. My 6 year old girls looked in their mid teens...it was very creepy. It was like they'd become porcelain dolls; they showed no emotion and hardly spoke all day...

The main event was the floating of the "Krathongs" or boats/baskets into the water. Traditionally, these boats are made out of banana leaves and decorated with different flowers. As we didn't have any body of water to float the krathongs, we had to make do with a large 'paddling pool'. It was cool to see all these boats and just how colourful they were. That celebration was then followed by a beauty pageant, both for Primary and Secondary students. I watched the Primary one of course and saw one of my Primary 2 students win first prize. I still have to double look to see if it was actually her!

A few of my students entering the pageant. Number 2 was crowned the winner!

After school had ended, once again I headed to Bungta Lua where the main celebrations in Korat were being held. A group of us headed over, purchased our own Krathong and floated them into the lake. This time around, the krathongs were also decorated with insence and candles so they could be seen glistening across the entire lake. It was in the evening also that the true meaning of Loy Krathong was really recognised and displayed. Before we floated our Krathongs in the lake, we were asked to thank the Goddess of water, known as Phra Mae Khongkha, for her blessings as well as making a wish for the upcoming year. As we placed our boats into the water, it was told that it symbolises our sadness and misfortunes from the past year being floated away and marking the beginning of a new chapter; I found that to be a lovely sentiment and a rather fitting one after the past month or so that I've had with trying to move on from some personal issues.

Not even 48 hours after that holiday, the school held another big event: Sports Day. For the past 3 weeks or so, the students had been preparing in the form of chanting cheers for an hour every day...which equated to an extremely boring and wasted hour for us teachers. As with last year, Sports Day at Assumption isn't just some kids running around a track -- as with all the events at my school, they like to put on quite a show. The opening ceremony of the day was a giant spectacle with the 5 teams (Orange, Blue, Pink, Violet and Green) parading into the 'arena' with their cheerleaders and 'models' in their traditional Thai dresses. As much as the aesthetics of the day are dramatic, it was also amusing the see the student athletes after they finish their respected race fall to the ground collapsing and to be carried off on their stretchers, like they had just ran a marathon in the desert or something...
Once again, the cheerleading portion of the day was an amazing spectacle. The winning team had an oriental theme to their dance and spent almost a minute of their routine setting off firecrackers! I've got the say, as much as the lack of motivation in their education that some of these students have, they sure make up for it in creativity and being artistic.

Gold, Silver and Bronze medal winners!

The final race of the day was the Teacher's Race. If you remember last year, my team won silver in that event but this year I was going for the gold! And, by the skin of our teeth, we achieved that feat! Granted, I got a little over-excited and competitive and was screaming (yep, literally screaming) at my teammates to run faster. It paid off though...right? What a great way to end my last sport's day at the school.

And continuing in the spirit of the holidays, there are only 3 weeks left before we break up for Christmas and New Year! And once again, I will be performing at the staff Xmas party! Cant wait for that! Better start getting in the spirit! **plays Slade**