Hello, สวัสดี (Sa wa dii), Hola

Today was my first day of practicum (student teaching)! A few days ago we were split into groups of three to plan lessons and work ideas out with one another. During practicum we will be in the classroom together, to observe one another and help out! We teach for 2 hours a day for 6 days. Therefore each day 2 of the people teach and the other just observes. Of course my group decided that I would be the first person to teach … thanks guys! Haha I got over it quickly and was mostly just excited until … we showed up at the school this morning and there was not a soul in sight! Whhhaaaattt???? We immediately called our field director, who obviously freaked a little, called the Thai school director we work with and found out everyone thought it started tomorrow … awesome Thailand. But in the spirit of being in Thailand we all yelled “mai pen rai” and decided to go with the flow! The school was able to round up some kids and the 2 groups of teachers melded our lessons together and taught the random group of 20 … IT. WAS. SO. MUCH. FUN. I can’t even explain how fun it is to teach these little Thai children English! The experience I had this morning completely sealed the deal for me on what I am doing here, why I’m doing it and how much fun this is! We hear time and time again from Thai people who come to speak to us how happy they are that we are in their country and willing to help the children of Thailand. And while its nice of them to say these things to us, it means nothing until we are in the classroom working with the eager young minds, dressed in dirty American super hero pajamas. Seriously … the amount of misspelled American clothing is out of control! You see a lot of Mickey and Minnie mouse, hello kitty (obvs), Spiderman, and I even saw Stewie from Family Guy. My most favorite shit I’ve seen on a child so far is one that has a train on it and says “Reading Phillies” with a number on the back and underneath the number it said “sexy girl” … random! I would have taken a picture but we were at a restaurant and the little kid was playing and I didn’t want to be that awkward white person taking a picture of some random child! Haha but I digress … I LOVE teaching here and can’t wait till I’m at my own schools!