Tundra to Thailand: Culmination Time

The last few weeks have been very busy, plus, I got my first taste of an extended period with no electricity! Fortunately, here in Thailand, that isn't a huge deal. But it did cut me off from my late night blogging and the relaxation of a good book before falling asleep. Apparently now our electricity is fine since the lights are on and my computer hasn't shut down.

One of the most exciting things for me since I last wrote was our graduation. We actually only had one student graduate this year. (Usually it is between 6 and 8, but his whole class left last year.) It was still pretty fun, though, because the students performed, choir performed, and two of my piano students played songs. I was pretty excited about that. It takes a bit of courage to get up and play. Especially when your hands shake and your palms sweat - both of which make playing piano difficult! One of the girls had never played in front of a group, but she did a nearly flawless job. It made me feel good when she said she decided to play because I had put in a lot of time so she wanted to show what we had done. Awwww.

Another highlight of the music show was a song that two of the students composed. It's just fun to see them get really involved and come up with their own ideas for things. Their song was actually pretty good and the Thai students especially liked the style.

One of the students was the MC, which put a smile on my face because she was so confident. Plus she came up with all of the transitions and comments herself.

Toward the end of the program I directed the choir and was a little nervous because our songs had started to fall apart just a couple days before the performance. On graduation day, though, it came together very nicely.

The graduation mainly consisted of the awards, music, graduate speech - and then a buffet. This year we also had a magician come and do an act. His son stayed with the school for a few months so he volunteered his time. He definitely had the students laughing.