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!

Elephants!

Today a group of twelve of us went on an elephant and rafting tour.  It was SO much fun!  We started with elephant rides, it was about an hour long ride through the countryside.  There was a mahout with each elephant, guiding them along.  There was also a baby elephant following its mother!  The elephants were beautiful and we even got to sit on their necks for part of the ride!  It was pretty surreal.

After the elephant ride we hiked for about 20 minutes to a small waterfall and got to swim in the river.  The water was a little chilly, but it felt great and it was really pretty.

Lastly, we went bamboo rafting down a river.  There were four of us on a raft and a Thai guy steering us.  We were all completely soaked from head to toe because the rafts were partly submerged and because anyone that we passed by on the river would smile and then splash us!  There were lots of Thai families and groups of people hanging out by the river, floating, and drinking.  It was definitely something I want to do again!

It was a long day, but so worth it!  It reminded me why I chose to come to this country.  Tomorrow we have a cooking class booked, so hopefully I'll be able to make some yummy Thai food when I get back!

Actually in the Classroom

I now have two days of teaching under my belt!  Yesterday we all had to attempt a young learners lesson.  We were split into four classrooms and everyone had half an hour to try and get through a lesson plan with 38 six year olds.  It pretty much felt like being thrown into a shark tank.  Apparently the kids were only there so that we could practice and were actually on their summer vacation.  Needless to say, it was difficult.  Everyone made it through without breaking down and we are all better for it.
Today, we each had to conduct a basic lesson plan with thirteen year olds.  They were ten times more well-behaved than the little ones, which made today much less stressful.  It was still pretty challenging because there were 48 of them in the classroom and no matter what, it's hard to make everyone pay attention to you without feeling like you are yelling.  The classrooms are really noisy: a combination of 48 students and no real windows or doors.  They're also quite hot; there are fans going, but when you're up there and no one's responding to your question it's hard not to sweat.  That being said, I think today went pretty well!  Tomorrow I have to do a listening lesson plan with 50 fourteen year olds, I'll let you know how it goes...

A Well Deserved Day Off



Ashley, Brit, Keely, Melinda, Tiffany, Jess



This week we had an extra day of class on Saturday so that we would be prepared to go into classrooms next week.  Six days of class had taken a toll on us, so a group of us went out to a couple bars in old city, the central part of Chiang Mai.  We ended up at this awesome reggae bar with a live band.  When we showed up no one was dancing, but by the time we left around 2 a.m. we even had some Thais dancing on the tables!  It was the perfect way to unwind after a long week.



I resisted the urge to sleep in today and Ashley, Melinda, Amy, and I went to Doi Suthep, one of the sacred mountain peaks in Chiang Mai.  After a long, windy ride up in a sorng taa ou we reached the entrance to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, the temple at the top of the mountain.  We hiked up 300 stairs until we made it to the temple.  There were lots of other people there, both foreigners and Thais, and lots of people praying.  The wat was beautiful and we got a nice view of Chiang Mai. 

 

After we got back, we went for Thai massages.  You can get an hour long massage for 200 baht, which is about $7!  It was heaven.  Then we walked around the night market, where you can pretty much buy anything, even bugs (and no, I wasn't daring enough to try).





So many food stalls, so little time! (4/22)

Ashley, Amy, me,  and Tiffany

The food in Thailand lives up to the hype; it's as delicious and cheap as I hoped it would be.  The main road by our hotel is lined with food stalls and open-air restaurants.  For breakfast, a lot of Thais eat curry, rice, or soup.  As a breakfast lover, this is a hard transition for me, so I've been sticking to fruit.  I bought some mangos from the market and they are some of the best mangos I've ever had.  For lunch we get an hour break from class and some of us will walk to one of the many restaurants that line the streets.  I've had a really good green curry, a pho-type soup with pork, a curry coconut chicken soup, papaya salad, and really good smoothies.  For dinner we'll either eat something similar or go to one of the food stalls on the street that come out in the evening.  There are all kinds of food stalls; everything from sushi to omlettes (don't ask me why the omlette stand doesn't come out til after 5pm..) to meat on a stick to spring rolls to desserts.  I've been having a lot of fun trying new things and will often end up ordering something without really knowing what's going to come out.  The prices are so cheap here that it's hard not to try everything!  My green curry dish was 35 baht ($1 is about 30 baht), a fruit smoothie is 20 baht, and a 2 egg omlette served on top of rice is only 15 baht!  Dinner for 50 cents is hard to beat.





soup with pork meatballs