I am in 1st grade again...

First off, for those of you who are wondering I did very well on my Thai Exam! I got an A! Which is a wonderful thing! All that's left for that class is a Final Exam....and a bunch for classes, but only one more major thing. The language class is probably even half over already...or just about. Classes will end in the beginning of March and then we will take a field trip to all the exciting spots in Thailand and end up in Bangkok...then it's spring break! When I will head to the beach for a week then we come back and go to the villages for a few weeks and then the trip is over! How crazy is that!
Next thing... Art class. We did some hard core art classes this week. After we had our exam on Tuesday we didn't have any more language class the rest of the week. So it was replaced with a few art classes. We didn't have lectures, we did Art. Like real Thai art. The first day I spent a few hours drawing lotus flowers. Correction...I had a few art students draw my lotus flowers. The trick to passing this class is to become friends with the art helpers. One would help me for a little while, then he would leave and I would call over the next one. My lotus turned out pretty well! haha. It's a good trick. Then they assigned us homework....but I completed it and did a pretty good job if I say so myself...and I did it all by MYSELF!
At the end of drawing class the teacher said that tomorrow we would be doing stenciling! And I was so excited because I thought all I'd have to do was paint over a stencil.... oh boy was I wrong. I came into class the next day and we were making our own stencils....as in taking a knife and cutting out a stencil. I made a few little mistakes but the art students were there to save my project. This took a few hours to do too, because after we'd make one, they'd tell us we had to make more! I made 3 flower stencils that day.
Then the next day things go even cooler!! We used the stencils we made to do "gold leafing". This is what is seen on the walls in all the temples we go to. First we paint this sticky paint stuff using the stencil onto a red piece of wood. The after it dries a bit, we use the gold leafing. It's these tiny pieces of real 100% gold and we cover the painted area. And it doesn't stick to the not painted part. It looked so cool. I was convinced this was one of the coolest art projects I'd done yet. Then we used gold paint to do another one using the stencil and mine turned out horrible! But so did everyones. It kinda didn't like using the boundaries of the stencil and spread all over the wood. I looked at mine with an art student and the look on his face was "oh my gosh...how did she make it look so bad". So I said oh my gosh it's so ugly! And he turned to his art friend and said something in Thai....and then they both turned back to me and said "mai pen rai"....which means, it's all good, whatever, it's ok. And I just laughed. That's the Thai answer for EVERYTHING! Everything is ok.
Then we had another art class that same day after lunch. And this project was even cooler! Though I didn't think it was so cool when I was doing it. First we go a picture of a fish. We were given tracing paper and put it over top where we then proceeded to make pin holes on EVERY line in this picture. So that when we used this "stencil" we could put powder on it and see the lines. This pin pushing hole making part took about 1 hour! And it was so exhausting. Then they powdered it on this black lacquered piece of wood and then we had to paint all the lines. We were given some strange paint glue again and a paint brush. This took another hour. And then we painted the entire background of the fish...so we painted all the "negative space"...whatever that means. Maybe some artsy person is reading this and understanding that term. But anyway after it dried we lacquered it again and then powdered it. And then we put gold leaf on the fish. And after all this we washed it all off and the fish was GOLD! I'll post pictures on dropshots because it's so hard to explain. But we all were in the bathroom washing our wood and then the fish just appears! It was the coolest thing ever! This is by far one of the coolest things I've ever made! It looks just so cool. And it's made of real gold! So cool...and boy oh boy do I have an appreciation for these temples now that have all this on the inside...that would have taken FOREVER!
Art class makes me feel like I'm a little kid again doing crafts. After each step I would call over the art student to make sure I was doing it right....I was the really annoying kid in 1st grade that wouldn't shut up in art class. But it was ok. In total on both days we only had two girls cry. Yes, two girls broke out in tears because their art projects weren't working. It was really sad. It wasn't me though. I just laughed and kept asking for help.
My internship has been going really well. In total this week we taught 8 English classes. It was a really neat experience. And after school we would stay and play with the kids. The one day I was sitting on the playground just watching kids play and I noticed this one kid beating up on some littler kids. And I was just not going to stand for that. So I matched right over there and showed them the proper way to use a basketball....one that does not involve kicking it at other little kids. So we played a game of basketball. It was super fun. The next day, the minute I got off the rot-dang the kids I played with the day before were standing at the fence saying "basketball later?". They were so excited to play again that day. So today we divided into teams...I am terrible at basketball. But I guess I'll be getting better. haha. They asked if we could play again on Monday too. It was really fun!