I'm a Teacher!

Well, I'm officially a teacher now and I'm exhausted!  We get to school at 7:45 everyday and stand outside for the flag ceremony, which lasts about 30 minutes.  Some mornings I have a class at 8:30 and some mornings I can relax a bit.  My homeroom is grade 5, so that's where my desk is (and where I'm currently writing this post from!).  Mondays and Tuesdays I only have 2 classes, but Wednesdays and Fridays I have 4!  Thursday I don't have any classes, except for a conversation class which I have everyday from 4:30-5:30.  Classes have been good and bad so far.  The older kids all have a relatively high level of English since they've been in this Mini-English Program for a few years.  In those classes I'm teaching things like the stages of human development, the digestive system, and the circulatory system!  (How was a 3 week TEFL course going to prepare me for this??)  The younger kids are harder; not only because they have a lower level of English, but also because they have so much energy and it's hard to get 35 eight year olds to pay attention!  Luckily we have workbooks that all the students were given and a general curriculum that the school wants us to follow, so at least I know what I'm expected to teach them.  The conversation class is a small group of seven and eight year olds that I meet with everyday.  So far, I've just been playing games with them because it has been a long day for both of us and they don't want to sit in one place any more than I want to lecture them.  There are classes when I feel like I'm shouting over everyone to just get them to sit down and classes where I actually have fun!  I know that it will only get easier with time as I settle into the routine.  Yesterday our director brought us to a bank and helped us all open up our own Thai bank accounts; hopefully getting paid on Tuesday will take away a little of the exhaustion!  Back to lesson planning...tomorrow I'm going to teach grade 3 to play dodgeball! :-)

Settling In

Well we finally made it to Lopburi!  And yes, there are in fact monkeys roaming around the street at will.  They mostly stick to the downtown area and some of the popular ruins, but they have no qualms about running up and stealing any food you may have hiding in a plastic bag.  Luckily, the four of us found an awesome house that is in a monkey free part of town.  We each have to pay less 3000 baht/month, which is about $100!  I could get used to this.  Here's a picture of Nermal and Lisa doing some lesson planning in our new house.



We met with the director at our school on Wednesday.  We're working with the mini-English program at Anuban Lopburi School, which has students from kindergarten to grade 6.  I am the new Physical Education and Health teacher for grades 1-6!  Haha, I'm not sure that I'm the most qualified for the job, but I think it will be fun!  The students are in Thai classes half the time and English classes half the time, so I'm hoping that their English will be pretty decent.  We're only actually teaching for about 17 hours a week and the rest of the time we can work on lesson planning or helping out with other school activities.  School starts this Wednesday, so wish me luck! 

Ashley and I took advantage of the long weekend and met up with some friends down in Hua Hin, a beach town in the southern part of Thailand.  We were able to get a minivan down to Bangkok and then another minivan from Bangkok to Hua Hin, it took about 6 hours total, but only cost around $10 to get there.  It was nice to be near the water again!  There wasn't any good snorkeling, but I enjoyed being on the beach and floating in the saltwater.  There was even a Subway in town and I indulged in a sandwich, something I've been missing since I've been here!  It was a great weekend get-away, but I'm anxious for the first day of school!

Outside the McDonalds in Hua Hin

Goodbye Chiang Mai

This was our last week in Chiang Mai.  Sunday a group of 9 of us did a cooking class.  It was a lot of fun and while I might not be able to replicate the meals exactly, I definitely learned some good techniques.  We started by going to a traditional market and our tourguide, "Cook", showed us all the ingredients that are important in Thai cooking.  They had everything from pig heads to bags of MSG!  (Cook assured us that we would not be using any MSG in our cooking.)  Then we went to an organic farm and got to see some of the Thai vegetables we were using.  I got to make five dishes; Thai vegetable soup, green curry, papaya salad, pad thai, and mango sticky rice.  It all tasted great and I was stuffed by the end of the day.
On Tuesday I visited a Thai dentist and had my teeth cleaned for 600 baht, about $20!  Since I haven't had dental insurance for the last year, it felt really nice to get them cleaned.  They were very thorough and knew pretty good English, "You floss everyday?". 
We had our last two days of teaching practice at a school in Chiang Mai.  This time we were teaching 16-18 year olds and the classes went much smoother than the previous week.  Their English levels were quite good, so classes went well and they behaved much better than the 6 year olds too!  Originally I thought I definitely wanted to work with younger kids, but the teaching practices made me realize how much harder it is to teach them when you don't speak any Thai!  I'm still not completely sure what age I'll be teaching, but I think learning some Thai will be very helpful no matter what.
Tomorrow I'm heading to Lopburi with my roommate Ashley and two other girls from the program.  We're supposedly all teaching at a primary school in Lopburi, but we haven't really gotten much more information than that.  Most Thai schools are on break right now and I guess the Headmistress doesn't get back until tomorrow.  Lopburi is the part of Thailand that is famous for monkeys!  Apparently they roam the streets at will and can be somewhat of a nuisance, I guess I'll find out soon enough!