Hello, my friends!
It seems ages since last I blogged (though, in actuality, it's been about a year and a half), but as I am once again outside of the country--this time in Thailand, the Land of Smiles--I have begun again to blog so that those of you who care to may know what goes on over here and those of you who do not care to, may maintain unclogged email inboxes. (Also, I've been known to anger the maternal parental unit when I fail to recall anything that has happened during the mandated weekly skype rendez-vous.)
I've been here just shy of one week now--tomorrow marks the anniversary of the date of my departure, in fact--and much has happened...much of which was sleeping. I seem to be quite unable to stay awake in this country; whether it be because of jet lag or heat or the sound of the fan or exhaustion and overwhelmedness (clearly that ought to be a word), I am frequently given to overwhelming fatigue and am often to be found un- or semi-conscious when in my room. But I digress...
We arrived Thursday night, about 11:30pm Bangkok time, after a flight from JFK to Hong Kong and another from Hong Kong to Bangkok. We were supposed to get in sometime around 10pm I believe, but our first flight was an hour and 45 minutes late, the first hour of said delay being spent aboard the plane, on the ground at JFK. I slept a lot on both flights--not for long periods of time, but rather many a brief nap--and watched a few movies. The people in Hong Kong were fabulous and had a new flight and corresponding boarding pass for all 29 of us ready to go when we arrived there, and we were able to leave by 9:30pm Hong Kong time. In the Bangkok airport we met Miss Pat and a few other St. Gabriel's staff and we bid farewell to the Assumption U teachers, all of whom I have not seen since...
Arriving at the school after midnight, we hauled our luggage up the stairs (well, I hauled, some others took the elevator)in our business casual attire we were made to wear for arrival, and then we unpacked some and went to sleep.
Friday morning we all met together in a conference room where we had tea and a breakfast ham and cheese tea sandwich! There we met "the brother director" and several secondary 5 students (11th graders) took us on a tour of the school in small groups. Our tour guides were spectacular for a number of reasons: 1) My group had two tour guides and they would cut each other off when one couldn't think of the right word, and one smacked the other with a book when he couldn't remember which World War Thailand was involved in; 2)St. Gabriel's College has a number of museums the students are never allowed to go in but for special occasions (the shell museum, the butterfly and insect museum, the ship museum, the general artifacts museum, and the creepy wax statues of the brothers museum.); 3) one of the two gave a very heartfelt explanation of why Thai people love the king--so heartfelt that he seemed frustrated by his limited English vocabulary in explaining how great the king is; and 4) they both showed genuine concern and mild panic when I nearly (though not actually) wiped out down a flight of stairs.
After our tours, we returned to get a photo taken, get our timetables, and set up the fingerprint scanning for clocking in and out (mine still needs to be fixed as it reads "Daniel" not "Jennifer" when I clock in). When we were dismissed, we all took the bus to buy things for our room from Tesco Lotus. I, being tired, acquired only the essentials: hangers, a SIM card, an electric kettle, and Koala chocolate cookie snacks. When we returned, some people went out, but I'm pretty sure I went immediately to sleep (again, I've done a lot of sleeping here).
Saturday morning I returned with two other girls to Tesco to get other things that I had been too tired and too focused on koala snacks to get the day previous. Later, we went to Siam Paragon, part of the downtown Bangkok Mega-Mall, to see The Hangover 2. Having watched that movie in Bangkok, I know that Thai people found much of it funny, but I kept wondering if they didn't find some of it offensive, like the stuff with the Monk. Anywho, after we got back, people went out, I went to sleep.
Sunday I spent half the day trying to learn Thai/sleeping, but in the afternoon went to Pan Tip, a multi-level indoor electronics market. I didn't need anything, but it was fun too root through the bootlegged DVD options and to look at all of the overly "cute" tech stuff. I'm noticing a trend in Asia where if you can make something a fun color or shape or put a face on it, you do; Example: Dolphin back massager (which a few tried out). In the evening ventured out again to go to dinner with a group of fellow American teachers. It was the first time the restaurant where we ate, "The Flow," had had all six of its booths filled by customers (our group comprised three)and the proprietor was very excited and took pictures of everyone and each booth individually. The Phad Siew there was delicious and all dishes came in heart-shaped bowls which was fabulous!
Monday we met our co-teachers (well, at least one of them) and jumped right into "shadowing" which really amounted to actually teaching for most. Because one of my co-teachers was away I haven't met any of my secondary 5 (11th grade) students yet, only my secondary 6 (12th grade students). Class here is interesting. Each class is a room full of 50-60 boys and they stay in the same classroom all day, the teachers rotate. There are 7 levels in each class year and classes are determined by test performance. All of the kids talk almost non-stop through class and even get up and walk around to talk to someone on the other side of the room or they smack one another. This may be more exaggerated because I am teaching writing wherein they have in-class writing assignments, so it is not like they are talking over the teacher exactly. But it is definitely different and decidedly borders on the chaotic all the time. I was really overwhelmed after class on Monday because I had grading to do that I didn't know how to begin to tackle, so I pretty much fell asleep immediately after class for two hours. Then, I got up and went on an adventure with some friends to try to find the climbing gym. However, there was tons of traffic and the cab ride was gonna be absurdly expensive, so we got out and started walking back only about 4k into a 17k journey. So we never got to the gym, someone stubbed a toe and was bleeding from the foot, we got kinda lost, and ended up taking a cab back (though we were closer, so it was less expensive than cab fare out), and all in all epically failed, but it was fun all the same and I got a banana chocolate crepe from a street vendor at the end, so in the end it was a win.
Today we just had class again. Same same, but different. Then I went to get some food and ended up being totally overcharged (because we can't speak or read Thai and we look like "wealthy" Anglos) for some admittedly delicious street restaurant chicken. When I got back to my room I started writing this blog.
That is more than enough for now, I believe, having just written a novella of sorts. Cheers to you if you make it all the way to this point!
