Platypus

Responding to comments:

“Mawidg, Mawidg, is wat bwingz uth togever tuday”
–Quote from The Princess Bride.
(I really need to watch that sometime… its been far too long.)

Christy, Alyse, Heather, and all other girls who have ever caught the bouquet at a wedding: No, it was not really my intention for everyone to talk about bouquets or marriage, but it happened… and I really don’t mind. I wish all of you girls well and hope that you don’t have to wait too many more years before you get the chance to get married.

Official blog entry (and nothing about flowers or marriage)

I can hear the wonderful sounds of thunder of rain on a tin roof as I sit here and use the Internet. (happy sigh)

Today my students at the school all wore some of their favorite clothing, and then each person got a chance to explain why they like their clothing and how it makes them feel when they wear it. I wore a pair of my favorite jeans (the really comfortable ones that I have mended a couple of times—for those of you who might know which ones I am talking about) and my beige? tuxedo shirt (what color is this shirt—tea colored I guess) It is the one I like to wear with the sleeves rolled up. The one that I tea-dyed with Christy and Alyse. I have other favorite clothing, but these are my favorites that I have with me. Tomorrow in that class everyone will be bringing a favorite possession and each person will tell a little bit about it. I will let you know how that goes tomorrow.

Here at the office, I have been working with prepositions. It is difficult to explain when you use at, for, in, and on in relation to time. I have been drilling them with these, by making sentences with a blank at the beginning and having them fill in the word with the proper preposition. (i.e. ___ Friday, I will go to Mukdahan.) They are doing quite well. Today I also worked on the difference between another and other. So much of this is automatic, it sometimes takes me a little while to be able to explain how to know which one to use. So when I can’t explain, I just do examples. With another and other I realized that we use “the other” when you are talking about two things, and “another” when you are talking about three or more things. I had never realized that before.

I got a grand idea for something I will do next week in class. I was looking on the internet for a picture of a platypus (because I needed to show my students what my favorite animal looks like) and I came across a web page that explained some interesting facts about platypuses (“is that how you make it plural?” Luke asked with a raised eyebrow) I decided I will print it off, take it to the school, have them read it at home, and then we will go through it in class both to explain meaning, and to work on pronunciation. If you would like to see the web site, here it is: http://www.pbs.org/kratts/world/aust/plat/ and here is another great site: http://www.platypus.org.uk/.

As has been the tradition for the last couple days, I will once again give you a little piece of information about Laos. Lao food includes some flavors that we don’t use in America very much… at least not in food. They like to use bitter and tart flavors. I believe most of the bitter and tart flavors come from the greens that they use. (I say greens, because I don’t know if you can call them vegetables.) Lao people eat leaves from lots of different plants and trees. Sometimes the leaves look like a pile of giraffe food in the middle of the table. Today I was looking at a picture, and I pointed to the “greens” and Ter said that it was “morning glory” in English. I don’t know if that was an accurate translation, or if morning glory here is the same thing as what we have in America, but if it is, Mom, you should pick some of the creeping jenny out of the garden and serve it at supper. (laugh)

-Luke