Week 1: We spent this week adjusting to being on the other side of the world. We also learned about our responsibilities as teachers here at ACT. These looked a little different than what we originally thought. Ed did not have a Thai teacher and my teacher spoke very little English. Also I found that my modest clothes were not quite Thai modest. I needed a white collared button down shirt. Ed and I searched the mall (a huge mall at that) but there is nothing about me that is like a Thai woman! I have curves! Ed and I spent our second first wedding anniversary getting Thai massages and walking around Chinatown. I think we should have a video of Chinatown- who said scooters didn't belong at the market? Sunday was spent preparing for our first day of school teaching in Thailand.
Week 2: Teaching- everything that could go wrong did go wrong for me. I didn't save my ppt to the right format, I only filled 3/4 of my 100 minutes, the kids were crazy, I spent hours looking for information on the internet because I don't have a text book, and so on. After much frustration I sat down and talked with Jay and my teacher and came up with a plan for the moment. It would still be a few weeks before I realized that I only needed to teach about half of the units given to me. This would change my stress level greatly! Ed's teaching experiences were a little different but let's just say that grade 1- Thai teacher = frustrating!! We can't remember exactly what we did this weekend but I think we went to Sanam Luang Son. It is a huge market with many different shops. There is a huge garden section, a huge pet section, and then many other clothes and electronic shops. Pretty much anything you could want. It rained on us, but we had our umbrellas and backpack raincoats as well. Also this weekend we went to see the "A team".
Week 3: Teaching is getting better, there are however some fundamental differences that we are learning.
- It is okay to copy. Why not look at the Thai market- they copy everything.
- Thai students have no self control! You wouldn't either if you were studying form 8:00 until 9:00 pm Monday through Saturday.
- Rules on hitting are very different. They constantly have their hands all over each other.
- It is okay to have white out and box cutters in class. If these classes were in the U.S almost every kid would be suspended.
- Students have marks not grades...100 marks for each semester. I am not sure I understand this but I will just go with it for now.
This was a fun weekend! We went to a mad made island in the middle of Bangkok. It is called Ko Kert. We had tried to go here last weekend but didn't know where we needed to go. The people of the island specialize in pottery. We have lots of really cool pictures from this trip. We walked the long way around the island ( there are no cars on the island only a few scooters) to get to the pottery village. It was a very humid day and rained a little at different points. We found a plant that Ed learned about when he was growing up. It is called the sensitive plant. When you touch its leaves they curl up. We also saw our first durian tree (this is a very smelly fruit), some very unsafe wires with vines and ants climbing on them, banana trees, and coconut trees. This was the first time I remember feeling "wow, I live here" I made my first pot. Some of the locals were making pots and let me try. I'm not sure who took more pictures us or them. We bought coffee mugs there. It was a suited souvenir.
Rain Storm: One day it started raining before we woke up. It does that a lot, but this day it did not stop all day. It pored...like one of our really hard pours for HOURS!!! Half way down the street my shoes were soaked and they started to flood. There was water everywhere!!! And deep water at least up to my ankles. It also flooded the roundabout closet to the school. It was flooded up the curb which is about a foot high and stayed there for about 3 days. Welcome to the wet season.
Week 4: WE are settling in nicely. Ed has been playing badminton after school and everywhere we walk on campus people will wave to him and he says "I play badminton with them" I have started swimming- not everyday, but some. It took a while to find a suit that fit and would be okay to swim at the school pool. They have an Olympic sided pool so I get a pretty good workout.
We are enjoying the food and finding our favorite places to eat around the school. After dinner we enjoy some of the wildlife Bangkok has to offer. There are lizards everywhere. It is fun to point them out and see how well they blend in. I still like it better when they are outside and not in our apartment. One day there was a baby one in the shower and Ed called me in to see it. Then he started chasing it around with his hands and it fell...almost on my head. I screamed! A while later we found it and Ed caught it to take it outside. He sat it on the ledge and then moved toward it and it went flying off the side. No more lizard until...we went into the bathroom. This weekend was mostly boring for me, but Ed loved it! Ed and Jay want to go play BB guns- air soft guns. Like paint ball but without the paint. It gets expensive to play a lot and not have your own gun so they went to the market with boy toys- guns, model cars, things like that. We were gone ALL day. They loved it; I was board. Ask him if you need more details of the days excitement. Once they were done he took me to see Eclipse so it was okay in the end!
Week 5: I had 1/2 my classes for the week Monday and Tuesday, then off to Singapore. We had to make a visa run to Singapore this week. English sub plans for a Thai teacher???? We left early in the morning on Wednesday. The taxi ride was exciting as always. We were flying"first class" or hot seats for Asia Air. We had to take a bus to our plane and walk up the stairs to get into it. It was funny. Our hot seats were in the first row and had just enough leg room...it would have been very uncomfortable anywhere else. It was well worth the extra 250 baht or $8.00. Once in Singapore we exchanged 20,000 baht for 850 Singapore dollars and headed to our hotel. We stayed in the Hotel M, a very modern loft style hotel. Unpacked our backpacks (yes I took a backpack for 4 days...what is the world coming to?) Repacked for the beach and went in search for something to eat. We were quite close to the nightlife area so nothing was really open. They did have a Burger King Bar and we had lunch there. Yes it was really a BK and really a bar..wow! Next we figured out the public transportation system and headed for Sentosa. This is the Southern most point of South East Asia. They had beach and that is where we spent the rest of the afternoon. Once we were sufficiently burnt and had enjoyed all that we could for the day we headed back. On our way we found a National Geographic Store and mini museum in the mall. Anything done by them is pretty cool! Day 2 The Zoo and night safari. This was one of the coolest zoos I've been too. We spent hours taking pictures...mostly of the monkeys, but still lots of pictures. The night safari was really cool also. So many animals are nocturnal, now we could see them in their environment. The highlight was the flying squirrel that came flying at my head. I'm not sure what it is with animals flying at my head but I don't like it much. By the end of the day we were VERY tired of walking and day 3 needed less of it! Day 3 we went on some sight seeing tours. We saw the Merlion, Little India, Sky Park, helix bridge, a show (Songs of the Sea) and went up in the Singapore flyer. For dinner we decided to have the Singapore dish which was chili crabs. Let me paint a picture for you..Ed and I (very slow eaters) eating crab legs with chop sticks. It was very mess. We only had a hour until they closed, but we could have been there all night!
Week 6: This was Ed's last week as a P.E teacher. He will be moving to being a music teacher after mid-term. This means we need another computer! We all your work is done on the computer we can't share any more! So we spent the week looking for one. I am looking forward to after mid-term and a fresh start. A lot of my units were messed up from coming late and my teacher not taking scores. Also this gives us lots of time to plan! This weekend we went to Wat Arun. It is one of the really old temples. You can hike 1/2 way up the temple. These were the biggest stairs ever! We got some really cool pictures. We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing, doing laundry(I never knew I could miss a dryer so much and appreciate clothes pins) , and Ed played so BBall. He will be playing on the school teacher team when we have sports day. I am also on a teacher team. I will be playing boccie
I think this finally brings us to the present week and our upcoming long weekend. Be looking for our pictures and videos from this post and a much sooner and shorter post of our long weekend.
Christelia Earhart
