So she has already had her acting debut in the critically acclaimed Xmas show as Mrs Claus, which some reviewers (me), gave an astounding 10/10. However being in the spotlight was not for Kristine and she found her passion was in the background, organizing the show :) 
She had to select 20 of her kids to preform in a 10 minute show and 4 other teachers would be doing the same. She had to get them all dancing in unison and doing the correct moves as well as understanding all the lyrics, all while keeping the attention of 20, five year olds. 
So you can imagine it's tough and requires a lot of patience, but she said she "had a ball" teaching them and they all loved the part of the song, when it got to "you put your back side in and you shake it all about" I (Stephen) said I would come down for support and to take pictures. Definitely not to get any embarrassing videos of Kristine doing the dance to the right of the stage without her knowledge :) oh yeah here are the videos ;) click the link - Hokey pokey dance 1 and Hokey Pokey dance 2 
She was also showing the other teachers the dance as they were not familiar with the song. A few friends came down, bright and early on a Friday morning to watch the show. All the other teachers' students preformed their mini shows but even though im biased, Kristine's was by far the best, as her kids were not stopping during the performance to pick their noses, fight with other students or to stare blankly at the crowd, well most of them anyway.
One other show did Muay Thai performance and another did a "waking up" song, with all the things you do before school when you wake up.."but in song form".. well you get the picture it's not rocket science the kids are 4 and 5 after all. One class had a girl easily a foot shorter that the rest of her class who had a bone marrow disease causing her height and she led her whole group in the performance even having to throw a stern look at other kids who were not following the routine and pull them back into place... adorable to watch.As Kristine's show finished they then brought in the kid from the pre kindergarten class to watch the show so she was the only act to get an encore for a second performance.
To celebrate that weekend we had been helping out in decorating our friends bar for her Psy Trance dance party she was hosting. She had invited some Dj's from Thailand, Finland and the UK to perform on the night and they had advised one of the guys would be doing fire juggling and Poi for everyone also. Rainny wanted to make it a festival style atmosphere, so borrowed some tents to set up in the garden for people to stay over if they wanted, which some happily agreed. Its very easy to sleep outside as the temperature throughout the night, is close to the hottest summer in Ireland's history at the moment only dropping to 24 degrees, so its no problem once you have plenty of mossie spray :)
The whole place was covered in amazing string, printed and painted art work and with the black lights to illuminate them the place looked amazing. It was a great turn out and she had purchased some UV face paint which I began to just paint on some of the guys in our group but that turned into a queue of people asking me to paint them, including a Thai cop which I was at first a little bit hesitant but they said he may be just here for fun so I obliged. 
The reason I was not pushed was that the cop and his friend had been in the previous night and they can't ask for a hand out direct but they kind of imply it. 
Usually if a bar wants to stay open passed midnight they have to pay money to the cops but these guys just wanted to drink for free so weren't too much trouble. We usually avoid cops at all costs as there are unfortunately quite a few who just want bribes so its hard to pick out the good ones but Kristine's teaching a kid of one of the top cops in her school, after a class he gave her a wink and said if you have any trouble contact me and it will be sorted, so I took that as I have Immunity right?
So I painted a few faces and they came out really well against the black light, even tried my hand at a Pac man design but not easy painting over eyebrows and beards but gave it a go. We knew it would be busy, so we helped out the owners and Kristine helped behind the bar for the night til she went home, then I helped them finish up serving drinks with the other staff, well drinking drinks would be more accurate, but I was there :). 
We have helped before in the past when they went away to Hong Kong by opening and running the bar with her friends and family and it was good to get a feel for it again. This is what Kristine and I would like to do in the future, is to one day, own a bar/restaurant and small guesthouse somewhere. Its' a pipe dream at this time as we are just enjoying life at the moment with no set plans while we teach, but as future ventures go, it's top of our list. So work wise Kristine has 2 weeks left then she gets a nice 2 months paid vacation. She is going to teach private classes Monday to Friday for 2 hours a day as she was approached by one of her kids parents, who wants us to go to their house to meet and have dinner and to work some Summer camps. As for me, I have been doing teaching in language schools so my heavy work is only beginning as summer camps start next week. So this week my job is to sit in a reception area behind a desk and wave... yep wave, I'm doing the job of a cardboard cut out and smile.
The reason behind it is that all week students and parents are coming into sign up for the camps so the owner believes if they see me they will be more likely to sign up as I'm not some creep in my 80's and I'm white so that makes me handsome here.. crazy right. 
So I'm getting paid a lot of money to sit on my laptop writing blogs and watching movies for this week and I was able to pop out at lunch time to go to the pool around the corner to meet Kristine for some Indian food. Its the job I was born to do.
Next weekend we have been invited by Rainny to go to her cousins ceremony as he is being ordained as a monk. We are looking forward to this as we will get to see a part of Thailand you wouldn't usually get to see doing the usual touristy areas. As an added bonus the temple is beside the monkey village so the next blog shall be about monks and monkeys... cant wait.
