December 2, 2010: More Snow

December 2, 2010: Snow has fallen the past two days, distracting the students as they looked at it longingly through the windows -- they even begged me to allow them to go outside and have a snowball fight rather than study English. I eventually closed the curtains of the window to prevent further distractions, but I must admit it was kind of fun to watch the flakes gently fall to the ground outside. And it looks like the snow is here to stay for a while, although when I walked outside to the bus this morning it seemed to be warmer than it was yesterday.

Today I continued my lessons in preparing the students for the oral English examination that will take place on December 14th. Although the students seemed at a loss at first, they seem to have thawed out a bit. However they continuously mix up "he" and "she" and miss verb tenses in their discussions. Some of the topics have been illuminating to me. In one class we discussed favorite holidays and one student told me that Easter is his favorite holiday. I asked him why and he answered that he enjoys throwing water at girls. Fortunately I had read somewhere recently about the Hungarian tradition of throwing buckets of water at girls on Easter so I wasn't too surprised to hear this student's answer. When I asked about this custom I learned that he just squirts girls and his mom with a squirt gun and that this is done so the girls won't "wilt". I asked if the custom applied to boys as well to which the whole class said "No way! Boys don't wilt. Only girls do!" Somehow I think there's more to this tradition that I have yet to learn and understand. Hopefully I'll find out by Easter. It can't be much different than the Sonkran Holiday celebrated in Thailand in April where I once traveled looking out a train window only to receive a bucket of water in the face! But back then it felt good since it was an extremely muggy day.