1st Day of School

This is our 1st day of school photo. Its a tradition... even when you're the teacher!

Well, I am SO happy to report that I survived my 1st day of school! It actually went well, but my kids are much smarter than I expected them to be... the next lesson will have to be more challenging haha. I am teaching English Reading and Writing for M1 and M2 students, which is the equivalent of 7th and 8th grade in the United States. The m2s like to talk A LOT and work ahead of what we are doing at the moment... its a little tricky but I'll get the hang of it. The m1s are shy about using their English but they behave so well, its very endearing. All together it was fun, but extremely exhausting. I have just under 40 kids in 8 different classes (each grade has 4 sections) so there are a lot of students to remember and they all have different nicknames. The most memorable ones from today were "Golf" and "Bank."

It felt good at the end of the day when as I was walking out of the school and my students continued to day "goodbye teacher" and smile as I passed by. I'm going to take that as a good sign.

This is the outside of the school. King Rama IX sits above the sign, looking as cool as ever.

Below are mine and Dan's "all done with the first day of school" photos. It was a long day.

While Bangkok was burning, they put me on a beach

On Monday morning (May 17th), I was awoken to the sound of Whitney (my friend and fellow teacher at Yothin) knocking on my door with some pretty amazing news. We were going to an Island, and it was going to be free! Our host organization didn't think it was safe in the city with the protests going on, despite the fact that all of the teachers placed in Bangkok were far away from the main areas of action. So to be "500% safe" we were moved out of the city to the Island paradise of Koh Lahn, just off of Pattaya.

In my last entry, Kelly said I talked too much, so I'll try and be brief. NOT a lot of tourists go to Koh Lahn, except for the Russians (who like to take pictures of themselves posing in the surf... so funny to watch) and our hotel was very local... no one spoke English very well. Even as we left this morning it took Dan 30 minutes to try and explain "no meat" in the fried rice. Our meals were payed for also, but we had a choice of 6 entrees for breakfast lunch and dinner. This was great, but after 5 days the novelty wears off a bit. The idea of eating more mama noodles and boiled rice soup makes me a little sick to my stomach. Between the 7 teachers in Bangkok, we had 4 beach houses that also housed gecko lizards and marching ants at all hours of the day. We also had no flush toilets (you just have to dump more water in from a bucket to make things go down) and lots of mosquitoes. Being from Minnesota I feel confident in saying I know how to handle mosquitos, but these are a totally different breed. They are quick and they bite hard- even through bug spray, and I don't have malaria pills... this makes me just a little nervous. All this being said, it was an amazing week and I am now sporting a nice tan and only a little sunburn.

I'll quick explain the pics: The one in the back of the truck was how we got into town to buy things and briefly check email at night. The boat we ACTUALLY went fishing on, and its a genuine Thai fishing boat. Our guy was catching fish without bait, it was crazy. The picture of the building "COMPTALAE" is where we stayed, that specifically was the restaurant outside that looked over the ocean. The other pictures are by or near our beach. Its pretty amazing stuff.

I'm even more nervous to start on Monday but I'm SO excited! Tomorrow I am going to figure out my lesson plans for the week. My syllabus says I am supposed to give a pop quiz on the 1st day, but I think thats just mean.

Departure and Week 1 in Thailand

First, I want to reassure everyone that even though Dan and I are in Bangkok, we are VERY safe where we are right now. We are finally at our apartment and its very far away from the fighting in the center of the city. I'm really happy with our placement and I know that I don't want to move to a different school. Life in our area is pretty normal. Tonight we went shopping at Tesco (similar store to Walmart... not as nice as Target, but it gets the job done haha) and had noodles at one of the street carts. We even took a tuktuk to get places, and people are still so friendly and happy to hear our broken Thai and English phrases. Everything is low key and calm, although people are still very aware of whats going on. They declared a holiday for Monday and Tuesday in the city so people don't have to travel to work. I'm planning to hang out by the pool :)

That being said, OH my goodness, life has been crazy since Dan and I left Madison. So much has happened this last week, and the reason this wasn't started sooner was because it was really difficult finding internet access. At our hotel, it was 200 baht (about 7 usd) which was a LOT, considering that everything in Thailand is inexpensive. At best, I've been able to update facebook and talk to my parents every few days, so here is a reacap of all that has happened since May 5th.

In short, leaving Madison and Minnesota was difficult. I cried a lot. I had some very sweet and sad goodbyes to say. But on the positive side, it made for many good chances to see so many people. Mifflin weekend in Madison was one of my favorites... needless to say it was a blurry weekend, but a very very good one. On my last night, Kasey and I walked through campus and did all of our favorite Madison things, including taking pink cups from pops (throwback to freshman year haha).

I had the biggest surprise my last night in Minnesota. I was planning to go to the Twins game with my Mom and Dad, but it turns out it wasn't just us 3 after all... Kelly showed up to join us as well! She had visited in Madison over the weekend and I thought that would be the last time I would see her before I left, but no. She had planned on coming all along and finished her finals early to make it back, and somehow they all managed to keep it a secret until she stepped in the door. Since she was so tired by Dad drove to pick her up so she wouldn't be sleepy driving back on her own. The game was amazing, target field was impressive, and we ended up winning. Best night I could have had.

The flight was long and I cried all the way from Minneapolis to LA, and then a lot in LA too. I got myself some Carribou to make it better though haha. Luckily, in LA I met Dan and he held my hand through everything. LA is not a pretty airport, but it was also my first time in the city so it was pretty interesting... I even got to exit the terminal haha. However, as I was saying goodbyes to my parents I was all teared up again and they just started making fun of me, saying Dan was going to push me out of the plane if I didn't pull myself together. Luckily things have been much better since LA, and I am a happy girl once again.

We had a layover in Taipei and it was the BEST hotel I have ever stayed at. I'll steal some pictures from Dan and post them soon. Even though it was so close to the airport, the room was only $80 per night. We also got to leave the airport, which means that I now have 2 more stamps in my passport! I am always so proud to get those.

Arriving in Bangkok I realized right when we stepped outside that all of the clothes I had packed were going to be completely useless. IT IS SO HOT HERE!! Its been a week and I'm still not used to the heat.... just probably more used to sweating all the time. I still haven't found the right clothes, but the ones I have, even though they are summer clothes, don't breathe enough for this heat and humidity. Really, its unbearable. When we were up in Kanchanaburi it was even worse... but I'll get there shortly. Even driving to the hotel, pictures of the King are EVERYWHERE. At first it was a little strange, really it is about one huge picture every mile or so... sometimes more. But I can see why Thai people love the King so much. He does a very good job of rallying the country and making the Thai people proud of who they are. Dan is in love with the king now too. We decided we were going to start collecting photos of all the places we see him. The best one so far was at Tesco, where they have his picture on a clock. Another good runner up is at our apt building, where they have the King on a calendar in the front entry way.

The hotel from orientation had been moved, so we were pretty far from the center of the city. The original hotel was too close to where the protesters were downtown so we ended up being very far in the north. It was pretty residential, but we found a few bars to frequent. During orientation we had really long days inside and one outing to the Grand Palace. The place was huge and impressive, with lots of little mirrors on all the buildings so it really sparkles and is full of detail. But again, it was hot and I went through 5 bottles of water, which made the experience a little uncomfortable. Otherwise, the sessions we had were about Thai language and culture, and teaching techniques in the classroom. OEG had us very well fed and introduced us to some pretty standard / commonly loved Thai cuisine. I'm not big on seafood and there's a lot of it. LOTS of rice and chicken and pork too. Its funny because its almost the same meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I miss bread and turkey and cheese. Luckily Dan asked his parents to send Velveeta so we can have some American meals again. One of the days during orientation a group of us went to the mall so we could get some pizza. It hit the spot and I don't think our servers had ever encountered a group so excited to eat their meal.

On Thursday we left Bangkok to go to Kanchanaburi, which was about 2-3 hours north west of the city. The city runs along the river Kwai and is really beautiful. Again, our hotel was outstanding. The only thing that could have changed was the way the AC was set up- great for the hotel, not so great for us. You couldn't operate power or AC unless you were in the room. Being gone for long periods of time was terrible because you would walk back into a sauna after being in the heat all day long. Either way, it was still an adventure. Both nights we had dinner on the river, and it was, as Dan would say, "idyllic." The second day we got to ride elephants and go rafting on the river. Elephant riding was amazing and elephants are such smart animals. I even got to sit on the actual elephant behind his head and feed him bananas. He would listen and respond to whatever our tour guide said too, whether it was to slow down or go a certain direction. VERY cool. We even got to take them through the water.

After the elephants, we went river rafting. Really it turned into river floating because the entire group ended up jumping off the rafts and into the water (really, it was too hot not to). The water was ok so long as you didn't actually think about what you were floating in. It felt PERFECT though. Rivers in the US aren't this temperature. It was cool and perfectly refreshing, and also very fast moving. The current was quick, but its pretty wide and deep so we didn't have too much to worry about. Our coordinator Phillip said that no one has gotten sick from swimming there, which made me feel better. Swimming in Thai rivers was one of the things my travel doctor advised me not to do, but at this point I'm pretty sure travel doctors are overly cautious. Just watch me eat my words though and get a parasite or malaria haha. Either way, its all part of the adventure.

Leaving orientation was hard because it ended up that Dan and I made some pretty good friends. Luckily, we are all still in Thailand so it gives us some good people to see on breaks and on the weekends. The entire week Phillip had been giving us updates on the situation downtown. It was part of our debriefing for the day. Upon arrival, the coordinators pulled all of the participants placed in Bangkok aside for a special update. Our host organizations (like CIEE) want us to have the option to be placed in a different city if we no longer wish to stay in Bangkok. They reassured us however that the areas we are placed in are far away from the fighting zones and downtown. They got out a map and drew where the blockades were, and the areas we were in... it felt like a war de-briefing. The only thing we encountered was more traffic than usual, which actually is hard to imagine because Bangkok is already known for having really bad traffic jams. It took us about an hour to move to our new spot in the city, but we arrived without problems. I packed A LOT so it was really hard to move it around. Our school coordinators were the ones helping us move and they kept insisting on taking our luggage. My mentality has always been "if you pack it you carry it" and I didn't anticipate putting that burden on someone else... really it was pretty embarrassing they were so heavy. I was pushing 50 lb on both of my bags haha.

Anyways, once we dropped of the bags we went to school and got a small tour of the English Program office and met a few new teachers. They had us try durien, which is known as "the smelly fruit." They were so funny though! They closed the staff door and opened a window, and just waited to see the look on our faces as we ate it. Its yellow like a banana, and kind of tastes like one but not really. Its very unique, but I liked it! Dan, not so much. After going to the school, the teachers came with us to the shopping mall to pick out sheets and things for the apartment then took us out to dinner. They are some of the sweetest people I have encountered in Thailand and I think it will be so nice working with them. Our main coordinator is very maternal, and even though she doesn't speak excellent English her concern and intentions translate very well. Its nice to know that we have a great group of teachers looking out for us as well.

This all happened yesterday. We finally have internet at our apt and are in good communication with friends and family back home and are settled in and unpacked. Today, however, we have been receiving a bunch of text messages from our coordinators about the situation in Bangkok. The biggest one is that schools in Bangkok will be starting a week later because of protests. OEG has also set us up with one of the newspapers so we can receive breaking news updates via text as well, which is so nice. There is a holiday for Monday and Tues so all businesses will be closed. It makes it seem kinda scary, especially when we tell family and friends at home and they are worried. But really its great because we are planning to travel outside the city now and get away for a bit if we can. I really want to go to the beaches haha. I haven't decided where to go yet, but Dan and I will be traveling with other program participants in Bangkok if we do leave the city. We also have some friends living closer by with an open room... the options are endless at this point. In any case, I don't plan on going into the center of the city, or really leaving our neighborhood unless its to travel outside Bangkok. I will keep everyone updated on whats going on, but there are many people here looking out for us. All our travel plans will be checked with our OEG coordinators so they know where we are and where it is safe to go. I'm still really excited. The only thing that I'm nervous for is my first day of class, and now I have another week to plan for it. 7th and 8th graders can be pretty terrifying, but I'm ready for the next part of the program to start!

Hopefully I will be able to write every few days (more frequently than weeks at a time haha) so check back in soon!