Work it out.

This week hasn’t been the best, I’ll admit that right off the bat. I haven’t been feeling well but the promise of eleven days off for my favorite holiday has been damn good motivation to get me through. I was really hopeful for my lessons, because as midterms (the reason we have off) are next week I was going to review with my classes. I had a great game to play, we had things to accomplish, and I was excited to see how much of my awesome knowledge they had retained. Working out has been something I have been looking forward to every night with my roommates and a few Thai teachers we work with. All in all things have been going fairly smoothly, until about Monday night.
We went to the stadium, which is a great facility, pretty much anything a good gym has only outdoors. There is a huge lap pool (for 20 baht per visit), tennis and basketball courts, a weight room you can use for 10 baht or a free outdoor weight room with concrete weights that Muay Thai fighters train with. The track runs around a nice football (soccer) field and they have aerobics classes that are pretty entertaining to watch. I actually got a great run in on Monday night and lifted with the boys, but when I got home I started feeling crappy like I was getting the flu or something. I was achy all over and getting hot and cold, finally fell asleep after taking some Tylenol. I was hoping it was only that night but Tuesday it was worse. I opted to stay home from the stadium to rest and get some sleep, a much easier thing said than done. I actually got an embarrassingly large (but beautiful and I loved them:) display of flowers from Jason at school, a Christmas present, and was elated. I was finding it hard to stay upbeat feeling the way I was though. I had a rough night’s sleep and woke up Wednesday feeling a little better. I got to run and swim laps that night, which was actually awesome. I haven’t swam in a long time and have forgotten how good of a workout it can be. I went home early and fell asleep quickly.
Thursday was a better day altogether, except for my classes. With no scientific evidence to back my claim, I am certain kids can tell when you are feeling run down and take full advantage of it. One of my classes had a total of 18 students show up (not good), and most of the others were struggling through the review. I am actually quite nervous about getting their exams back to grade… Maybe it’s just my skewed sense of the world around me because I’m not feeling well, but their behavior was exceptionally chaotic and disruptive. One class had me close to tears with their antics, nothing helps at all with them. I must say after only two months of teaching teenagers I have an even bigger respect for middle school teachers than I had before.
I had promised Achanee to do water aerobics with her Thursday night so the boys headed to the stadium and I went to a great little private spa/gym with her and a friend. It was a basic aqua aerobics that we did, but this place was beautiful. An outdoor pool was enclosed by trees and flowers and there was a Jacuzzi, sauna, weight and workout equipment and they also offered an array of massage treatments. We stopped on the way at a stand to get some fresh orange juice; they literally sit there with a truck bed full of oranges and their table set up and squeeze away. Aroi mak mak. I didn’t quite get my level of a workout in, but was glad to see it. The ladies laughed when I asked for my noodle. Yeah, the pool foam toy, they thought it was the silliest thing. The class was jamming to Britney tunes, I guess you can’t get away from that train wreck anywhere. The ladies took me out to dinner afterwards and now, as I sit here enjoying my Friday afternoon, I am more than thrilled to have vacation. Four o’clock will not come soon enough…