I last posted about Laos and that adventure was nearly 3 months ago. Time has passed so quickly, it's unbelievable. Over the past 2 and a half months or so I' ve had my bouts with homesickness, and at the time, time seemed to be moving so slowly. Looking back now, with homesickness cleared up for the most part, the days passed in a snap.
That's what will happen when you stop traveling and start working. Joining the working, professional world in Thailand has been pretty eye opening. Joining the Thai teaching force has also been quite exciting.
So now, after about 2 months of traveling and getting my feet wet with Thai culture, language, food, islands, beaches and other great tourists attractions, I am settled into a great town called Rayong, on the eastern side of the country on the gulf of Thailand. Southeast of Pattaya and a bit northwest of Ban Phe, if you're looking on a map. Ban Phe sees a lot of traffic due to the fact that in order to get to Koh Samed, a popular weekend island getaway, one must take the ferry from Ban Phe.
Rayong is a cool town and I'm really enjoying living here. I've been here since October 23rd. I began teaching October 26th, and since then it's been hard to catch my breath sometimes! I am joined by three other new teachers through AYC and I traveled down to Rayong from Bangkok after our seminar with two of them. My new best buddy is a woman named Teresa, a Filipina dentist turned teacher. She has lived in Thailand for nearly 6 years now, and with the help of her and significant other Wat Chai, I was settled into a room in the same building as her the same night we arrived in Rayong. Wat Chai drove me, Teresa, and Mateo from Bangkok to Rayong. I realized that in 2 months time that was the first free ride I got. Ha! not that I'm complaining, transportation is quite cheap here, but just an observation.
We all teach at the same school, Watpapradoo School. I'm really liking it so far, everyone has been very welcoming and helpful, teachers and students alike. There are many school customs that I am still becoming familiar with, but I'm really enjoying my job. I teach Mattayom 1, 4, and 6 students, which translates to middle school and high school ages Mattayom 1 is 7th grade, Mattayom 4 is 10th grade and Mattayom 6 is 12th grade. I never thought I'd be teaching high school when I thought of myself teaching in Thailand, but here I am! And I really like it. Because the students are older I can get to know them and joke around with them. One thing I'll say right away is that 7th graders are the same the world over. And that's all I'll say on that subject. :)
My school is huge. I think there's nearly 3,000 students that attend Watpapradoo School. Now how many of those are actually in attendance everyday is a different matter. The attendance game is always fun, especially when you get into the 'higher' sections of any given class. How the sections work is like this- Each grade (M1-M6) has many levels- the highest being M1-1, M2-1, M3-1 and so on and so forth. 'slash 1' means those students are..um, the best. They work hard, they speak english really well, they come to class and they are well behaved. Sometimes. The sections go up to 15 for some classes. And, let's just say that 50 minutes with say, M3-15 might make you want to cry. I do not have any M3 students (roughly 9th grade) but my fellow English teachers do, and often times they return to the teachers office looking very down. But I'd say for the most part, Thai kids and students are really sweet and they are a lot of fun to be around and teach. But, when you have a class of 50 or 60 kids who are talking all the time, drumming on desks, talking on their phones in class, walking around, going in and out of class, and in general just not paying attention to you it can be discouraging. My largest class is 51 students. This has made me rethink how I plan lessons and restructure my activities. Now, I'm not saying I've been totally successful. When your students arrive nearly 20 minutes late for a 50 minute class and you need to assess 51 students on a conversation exercise, after you've given them a lecture on a new topic, you start to abbreviate things. I don't know if I'm painting the best picture of school life, but this is just the realities. I like what I do, I like my students, and these behaviors just start to feel normal, I don't think it's strange anymore that my students arrive 15 to 20 minutes late sometimes! I like them all same at the end of the day. Crazy how it goes once you've adapted to things. So in short to paint a picture for you- I teach M1/1, M1/2, M4/2, M6/1, M6/2, M6/3, M6/5, M6/7- that equates to 18 hours per week. All the M6 kids I see for two periods a week, M4/2 I see three times a week, M1/2 I see 4 times a week and M1/1 I see once a week. Sometimes I might not see some classes at all due to holidays or special events. Just this past week, our last week before midterms- when we were all under the assumption that we would have a full, normal week- we would have class everyday and have all of our classes. Well, Tuesday that changed. Wednesday we had no classes, just a work day, and Friday the 8th and 9th period was cancelled due to a...I don't even know what it was. Something about the students getting money and buying school supplies. All I saw were kids playing soccer outside. Not being sarcastic at all. Needless to say, it is a running joke that you will never have a full week of school or classes in Thailand. There are many national holidays and events at school. The school day starts at 7:50 with the flag raising assembly and goes until 4:30. 9th period begins at 3:40. Isn't that insane? It sure feels that way when I have 7th graders at 3:40 in the afternoon when they've had 4 periods straight since lunch. I usually arrive at school in between 7am and 7:30, and I leave between 5 and 6pm. We can leave at 4pm if we don't have a 9th period class.
So, midterms are upon us, and it has been a busy few weeks preparing. Another reason I stay so late at school besides just simply trying to gather my head at the end of a school day is because we have a Christmas show coming up at school and I am working with Teresa and a group of our M4/2 students to perform a skit for the show. The show will be on the 24th, Christmas Eve day. We have midterms Monday through Thursday, and then the show Friday morning, and then classes after that. No Christmas Eve off at my school, but some schools do have off. But, our skit- and I'm very proud to say this- was written by yours truly, and is an adaptation of Dr. Seuss's famous children's book- "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". The kids have been working really hard, and it's going to be great. I'm really excited for them. Thai kids are so creative and hard working. The first week we met to practice they volunteered to come in on Saturday to work on the props and backdrops, and they had all their lines memorized by Friday of that same week. Awesome. I may have written the lines, but they have contributed way more on the creative side. It's really cool working with them, they're really sweet. I may be tired at the end of the day, but I always enjoy my time with them. I really feel like I'm connecting to these kids and getting to know them. They're also teaching me a little Thai! Free lessons, what a perk.
But just being in school everyday has taught me so much. Being settled and being surrounded by Thai people has helped me learn a lot of Thai. I can now order food, talk about food, ask what things are, ask how much, and say hello and thank you, and "I don't understand". That sounds like so little for being here for nearly 4 months, but learning the Thai language is hard! If you don't get the tone right you sound like a doofus. There's high tone, mid tone, low tone, neutral, falling and rising tone. You can say the word 'ka' or 'mai' with different tones and be saying a completely different word each time. With some words you can even compose a sentence with the same word but just saying it a different way. When I practice saying Thai words with my students I think I'm saying it right, but they keep correcting me! Ahh, getting there...It's a lot of fun though. When I try to speak Thai to people sometimes they just laugh or smile. They're so polite.
So, back to Rayong. It's a pretty big town, and near the sea. There are beaches here, but according to locals they're not that great for swimming. It's always breezy here which is great. It's about 2-3 hours from Bangkok (depending on traffic) and about 30 minutes to Ban Phe to lay on the beach or to take the 30 minute ferry to Koh Samed to lay on even better beaches. Farang and Thai alike frequent Koh Samed, it's so close and easy to get to.
On my weekends I try to get out of town and adventure to other places, but I also like to wander around the downtown of Rayong and get to know the city. The people are very friendly, and I've even been invited to join the family to whom I take my laundry for dinner some nights. As I was walking to the shop where I use the internet by my apartment last Sunday night, I passed my laundry shop and was stopped by one of the ladies. A new girl was sitting with them, and she started speaking to me in English. She said that she is a friend of the family and she comes to visit and help with the laundry business every weekend or a few times a month. She's 25 and her nickname is Nick, and she is very friendly. I'm excited to say that she has potential to be my first actual Thai friend who is my age! Everyone is very friendly here sure, but it can be difficult to make friends. So I was very happy when she gave me her email and facebook, and invited me to come back and eat dinner with them next time she was back in town.
So, life is happening. Things are good, and I'm happy here. I finished Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume and I've just started Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. This will be the second time around for Siddhartha. I think it's just one of those books to read again. I read it a few years ago, but now that I'm in Asia I was drawn back to it. Thanks mom, for putting that one in the package! I was so excited to get those packages- just like a camper at Minikani, I was so pumped.
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