Today’s Stream of Consciousness Prompt is Motive

We all have a motive for what we do or don’t do.  Some motives come from something within and some from something without.  As a teacher I had to have the word “motive”clearly in focus so that I could motivate my learners to do their best. The best motivation comes from within – intrinsic motivation – when a child will do something because he enjoys it of finds the task interesting and the reward to himself satisfying.  This is the best type of motivation.  But sometimes one must motivate with extrinsic motivation which will get the learner to apply herself for that gold star, accolade or treat.

Using these two types of motivation is the key to getting learners to do their best.   It’s part of the teacher’s job to make the tasks interesting and also to discover how each learner ticks so that she can know how to make the intrinsic motivation kick in – and have as many learners wanting to reach their full potential for their own personal satisfaction.

What was my own motive for teaching? In the beginning it was because I thought I just loved kids and wanted to work with them. But in the end it was the thrill of watching a child grasp a new concept, to see her eyes light up with each small and great success.  All the stresses and struggles are worth it just for that moment.  It is the most rewarding career in the world.

My contribution today comes from the Botanical Gardens of Singapore.  I have no idea what they are called.  But they are rather beautiful.

More Orange Flower a day Challenge

Here is my contribution from Nancy Merril’s challenge

Walking on Struisbaai Beach

At the top of Elsie’s Peak after a lovely hike

Cycling Fun

Here is my contribution to this week’s Black and White Challenge – Texture

Spotted Thick-knee comfouflaged in thorny texture

So much texture in the craters on the moon

Vygies in beautiful texture

Just love the texture in this photograph

Kelp Gull texturning in the rippling sea

It’s Spring in Struisbaai and the wild flowers are in popping up all over.  My favourites are vygies so I’m sharing them here on Cee’s Flower of the day challenge

Vygies (mesembryanthemums)

Cee asks us to use a four-letter word beginning with C for this week’s  Fun Photo Challenge.

I have chosen the word Cape.

Cape Bunting

Cape Francolin

Cape Longclaw

Cape Sugarbird

Because we the Emirates flight from Bangkok to Dubai to Cape Town leaves at the rude hour of 2:40 am we decided to spend a night in the city so that we could enjoy a full day exploring instead of spending hours in an airport.  Of course we did not anticipate that The Earl would be unable to walk!

We checked into the Cha-Da Hotel in the late afternoon and had dinner at their restaurant.   It was not easy deciding exactly what to do with an entire day with Hop-Along-Harry.  We thought we might just spend the day at the hotel pool but it was on the roof and not easy for the Earl to get to.

Hotel Pool

View from the roof top

My friend Peggy had once lived in Bangkok so I rang her and asked for some advice.  She suggested a cruise on the river – Perfect for a non-walking hubby.

The hotel tourist desk were superbly helpful.  They offered us a private transfer for 1000 baht.   Now this may sound a lot but it saved us having to get busses and trains to get to the starting point of said cruise.   Our driver was outstanding.  He was fluent in English and during the hour long drive chatted about the city and gave us lots of interesting information.  He was also very keen to know all about South Africa and was fascinated to hear about our lifestyle.  He was happy to wait for us at the River port  and drove us back to the hotel.  The Earl was still hobbling but could put weight on his foot and managed fairly well with one crutch.

The boat trip was lovely.   It was in a long tail boat and we were the only tourists on board with a guide and a sailor.   The guide could barely speak English but she pointed things out and was very friendly.  The water was choppy but we had a lovely trip nevertheless.

River dwellers try hard to beautify their humble abodes

A floating vendor selling her wares – I bought a bag.

Our boat looked like this one

Our guide kindly took this shot

It was a fun trip

This took up most of our morning and we still needed to fill up our afternoon.  But the time we returned The Earl’s foot was much better and he felt he could manage a short walk.  We found a mall that had a Starbucks and had a snack and a coffee there before finding another mall that had a movie theatre that offered on English move which we sat through although it wasn’t very good!

I’m not keen on Starbucks Coffee but it was better than nothing

The problem I have with Starbucks coffee is that the mugs are too big and the coffee too bitter.  Their duck wrap was pretty good though.

After the movie we strolled around the mall. Every inch was used up on markets and it was fascinating.    We had an early supper at a Japanese restaurant that did not allow photography.  Their sushi was excellent and inexpensive.  Our entire meal was less than 700 baht and included a 8 pieces of sushi each, a salad, a soup and a drink.    It was more than adequate.

Interesting extra large citrus fruit

The Market

An interesting sculpure on a street fountain

Bangkok Traffic at night

Although we checked out of our room at midday the hotel kindly allowed us to leave our luggage with the concierge.  We had a coffee at the restaurant and sat there using the remainder of our free wifi until our transfer collected us at 10 pm.   We couldn’t have asked for better service.

The long flight home turned out not to be too bad as on the second leg of the journey the plane was half full and all the passengers were able to spread out, sleep across three or four seats and have plenty of leg room.  The perfect way to travel!

And so ended our very enjoyable Asian Adventure.