Hello, สวัสดี (Sa wa dii), Hola

So my first week of teaching has concluded and I have survived with flying colors. The week was filled with up and downs, mostly ups (thank god!) and now I will try to concisely describe the chaos that is my amazing life teaching here. I teach at two schools, Choom Chon Nong Hee and Phon Tan. Choom Chon Nong Hee is where I am at on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and there are about 300 students there. Phon Ton is where I teach on Tuesday and Wednesday and is significantly smaller with only about 55 students. At Nong Hee I teach P. 3-6 (which is the same as American 3^rd-6^th grades) twice a week for an hour at a time and P.1 and P.2 once a week. This all sounds well and good until you realize how many students that actually is! The P. 6 is combined and is about 30 students, there are two P.5 classes each with about 26 students, and there are two P. 4 classes each with about 21 students. I love these classes. Then since the school wants all of their students to be exposed to a native English speaker I have all of the 3^rd graders at once, which is about 40 students. Not ideal but definitely doable and I understand why it is this way so for that one hour I just need to be especially on top of my game. BUT THEN I realize that they are also giving me every P. 1 student at once and same with P. 2, which equals 50 at one time. WOAH. On Tuesday afternoon I was escorted to this pavilion that sits on the edge of a pond where there are 50 P. 2 students sitting cross-legged in neat rows staring at me. I am handed a microphone and told to teach them. O. K. WHAAAT?!?!?! Hahahah Luckily I am good at teaching on a whim because that was the hardest hour of my life and then I had to turn around a do it all again with P. 1. And if these students were the most adorable creatures to walk the earth and they had more opportunities in life I might complain or say no, but under the circumstances I am more than happy to sing songs and play games with these adorable children once a week! Also, at Nong Hee I was apparently signed up for cooking class and dance class … alrighttt! So on Mondays when I finish at 2pm I go to cooking class with the students, which consists of a recipe being described, students taking notes and then students using butcher knives unsupervised. YES Thailand! I am not exaggerating when I say that these were butcher knives or that the students were unsupervised. The students were literally behind a building washing and peeling papayas with these huge knives with the teacher around front. AND NO ONE GOT HURT. And I guarantee there were no lawsuits involved. Hahhaha Then at 3pm everyday there is dance class that I go to which consists of me and about 8 students learning traditional Thai dance … MAN THESE PEOPLE KNOW HOW TO MAKE ME HAPPY! On Wednesday and Thursday I went to Phon Tan, which is so small and so cute, and I teach Kindergarten, P. 1-3 and P. 4-6. So when I go there I teach, have a break, teach, eat lunch, teach and go home around 2pm. It’s awesome!

The language barrier is proving to be fun and hilarious and exhausting all at the same time. On Sunday before we could begin teaching Monday is was imperative that we offer flowers and pray to the 2 Buddha statues and campus to ask for safety and happiness. We also has to pray and offer flowers to the “spirit house” that is on the edge of the teacher housing to ask for protection from spirits while we are living in Nong Hee. The Thais are very concerned with spirits and have these decorative little houses on pedestals outside residences to protect the house from spirits. Very cool. So now everyone has seen my house and knows that there is no chance of a ghost attacking me. Hahaha Another weird thing about Thailand is that it get dark at like 6pm and everyone is very concerned with our safety so we’re basically not allowed out after dark. This means that I need to plan my day around what needs to get done during daylight hours in the 2 hours after I get home from school. Hahaha This first week of teaching was a little difficult party due to that and partly due to the fact that dinner came from somewhere random each night and that there was a lot of prep work to be done for each class, especially since I was making nametags for all my students. Classic overachieving attitude of mine. But my classroom will look SICK because of it AND hopefully I will learn these adorable students’ names. (and of course they always DIE laughing when I try to say them) There is a lot of laughing going on in my classroom, sometimes because I am trying to speak Thai and other times because when Thai children are nervous/shy/uncomfortable they giggle … and this happens A LOT with a farang (Thai word for white foreigner) teacher they just met!

I have been told so far by co-workers that I am “happy, happy, happy, smile, smile, smile” “quick to learn” and “funny” when I am teaching, which has also been described as “acting” hahahahaha