Sunday, April 20, 2014

Football and Kookaburras



Happy T’eo’s birthday for yesterday!  I celebrated the day by doing a listening activity with my year 7s on a My Little Pony episode which had Spike as the main character which they thoroughly enjoyed.  Or, at least, almost thoroughly because they still had to answer questions on it.  My year 6s sang Happy Birthday as loudly as they could to try and make sure that he heard them.  I’m sure the classes around us greatly appreciated that.  Since I had to cancel my p.e. lesson with them on Friday, I taught them two games which were both called ‘cat and mouse’ but I re-named to be ‘dragon and pony’ and ‘dragontrap’ making it very clear that the dragons were doing the trapping, not being trapped.  The first game was the one where most of the kids hold hands in a circle and let the mouse or pony through but try and stop the cat or dragon.  T’eo should be pleased to hear that the dragon got the pony every time.  The other was another tag game which the kids didn’t quite understand or play properly but they still had fun running round and making up rules as they went along.  Perhaps I could start a Calvinball tournament.
I couldn’t quite manage a cake so instead I had a woolworth’s Christmas pudding given to me by Mark LaPrarie.  It wasn’t exactly Delia Smith but wasn’t too bad and I didn’t even burn myself getting it out of the container after boiling it.  I refrained from lighting it with methylated spirits though.  I hope Bill doesn’t mind (See The Big Six). 
One of my students even gave me a gift which I’m sorry to say, I couldn’t quite keep.  One of my year 8s came and told me, ‘There’s one like a kookaburra in the class!’  I assumed a bird had flown into the classroom and was probably surrounded by shrieking students.  However, this was not the case.  One of my students had caught a bird the day before and thought I might like it as a pet.  I would like to take this opportunity to say that the bird in question was not injured in any way.  It was a very beautiful bird, which really didn't look like a kookaburra, and I thanked my student very much but explained that wild animals would be unhappy as pets and it would be nicer to let the little guy go.  Fortunately, he seemed to understand and did not appear unhappy or insulted.  I carried the little guy back to Samdinkha in its improvised carry case (a cardboard Druk lager box) so I could let it go near where it was found.  I’m not sure was species it is but it stuck out a very long tongue and kept pecking at the box so my wild guess is some sort of relative of the woodpecker.  For now I’m calling it a geleytenzini in honour of its finder.


Awwwww! I would like to stress that I washed my hands very carefully after the little one flew away.
The final thing I have to report is that the boys' football is over.  Sadly, Raven House lost the crown (which is a bit of a pun if you know about the Bhutanese kings) and came fourth but still played very well.  Cypress House was victorious and I continued my tradition of taking photos of people’s backs and ones that would be fine if they just weren’t so blurry.  Perhaps Pete and Dick could give me lessons (The Big Six once again).
"Help, the nasty football's attacking us! Hold me!"  "Only if you hold me!"




I'm not sure what game is going on in the foreground but they seem to be having fun.
He totally meant to do that

Hugs to All and curses to the wind gods for not being nicer to the James Craig on the recent Newcastle trip!

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Sticky Geckos



The Ravens won their first game!  I shouted really helpful things like ‘Go Phub Dem!’ and ‘No, get the ball to go the other way!’ which I’m sure helped get them to a nil-all draw and then 4-0 win on the penalty shoot outs (I hope I’m using correct football, as in soccer, terms.  I don’t think any off side rules came into play but then I wouldn’t have noticed if they had).  Sadly, they lost their second game which was 1-0 to Takin House and, even more sadly, I wasn’t there to see it as I got a wonderful strain of the flu which kept me at home for a few days.  I’m sure they would have won if I had been there to shout more really helpful things.  I did manage to get a few pictures of the first match and a couple of them were hardly blurry at all.  I need mom to come and teach me how to properly use a camera.
The Ravens are naturally in white and the Blue Poppies in red because that's logical.  I'm not sure which team the dog was playing for.

The Ravens during half time.

A Raven poised to attack.  To be fair, this was probably taken when the ball rolled down the hill and had to be rescused which happen about every 2 and a half minutes.

Damcho did not push Sangay out of the way.  It just really looks like she did.
Along with trying to act like I knew something about football and being irritatingly ill, I had a stressful adventure after my desire to have a moth-free pantry went slightly wrong.  I brought with me some moth and silverfish traps which are a little cardboard tent-y thing with really sticky stuff on the inside (Apologies to any insect lovers out there but they drive me nuts.  Are silverfish insects?  I’ve never counted their legs.  Well, apologies to any arthropod lovers anyways).  Until last week I had totally forgotten that I had them but set one as soon as I remembered.  I got home from school and checked to see if the trap had been successful.  And while it had been successful in catching something it was about as far from something I wanted caught as possible.  A juvenile gecko was stuck fast to the pad and was obviously displeased with the state of affairs.  It had already dropped its tail which was also stuck fast but that hadn’t really helped.  I tried to unstick it with a spoon but the poor thing really was stuck fast and I was terrified of hurting it.  So I did the only thing I could think of.  I called my mommy.  She first suggested sprinkling flour (which I didn’t have but for reasons I can’t remember I did have icing sugar) on the sticky stuff which did help in stopping my hand getting stuck but had limited success on the gecko.  I managed to get its front half off the stuff but could not get its back half off and it was understandably not cooperative.  By now I was utterly in tears because I had a very distressed gecko and I really didn’t know if it was going to be ok.  Fortunately, my incredibly tolerant and patient mother asked the all-knowing Oracle of Google what the best course of action would be and it immediately answered ‘Olive Oil.’  This was generously poured over numerous things in the kitchen including the moth trap.  I’m happy to say that it worked almost instantaneously.  I had to give the little guy a quick bath before setting it free.  It did need a bit of persuasion to get off my hand but eventually ran off to a hopefully less sticky destination.  I hope it accepted my apology which I gave numerous times.  And I love my mommy very much and I hope the gecko does too.
We also had our school rimdro last Friday which did not include any fire dancers unlike last time.  Though they are fun to watch I was quite happy that nobody was there to throw a handful of kerosene soaked bark powder on me.  Of course, since I wore my kira many students insisted on having a photo with me but it is Bhutanese custom to not smile in photos which, since I did smile, led to some interesting photos.
Ecstatic

I swear they asked for the photo!

And since you are meant to wear a badge, I came prepared this year and wore this on my tego (blouse).  I didn't really try to explain it.
It's now a secret to everyone.
 And finally, last year I saw some young monks gaming in an internet cafe but was unable to give you a photo because the only one I took was a bit blurry.  Yesterday a couple of slightly older monks came into the same cafe and were happy to pose.
Ah, meditation
Hugs to all and have a strawberry on the 19th for T'eo's Birthday!  That really should be an International Holiday.  T'eo!