Kanchanaburi for Christmas

A few of the people in our TEFL course wanted to go to Kanchanburi for xmas so I went back for another round. It really is a great part of the country. I would have really enjoyed teaching out there. There is an awesome little stand on the street where you can get drinks for only 10 baht (10 baht is about 33 cents!) We got motorbikes for 24 hours to go out to Erawan National Park on xmas eve and a few other sites around town the next morning. Below is our farang biker gang.

The picture above on the right is the Bridge Over the River Kwai. It's the infamous one from the Death Railway constructed during WWII. The last thing we did before leaving was a trip to the museum in town. (If you visit, it's the one across from the cemetery) I had been there years ago, but it was even better than I remembered. It's a terribly sad situation, but the museum was really well put together. This is the railroad that was built when the Japanese moved into Thailand during the war. The Japanese wanted a railroad between Bangkok and Burma to transport supplies overland instead of sailing all the way around Singapore. They used POWs and locals to construct it. Thousands died during the construction because of the horrific conditions.

This was the first time Christy drove a motorbike and we went over 120 km. Not bad for her first day out! The second day I found a few dirt roads to explore south of town. The monkey and waterfall pics were both taken in Erawan National Park. The park has a series of seven waterfalls. That's waterfall three and you can swim up to it and crawl into the cave behind the water. It's sick.

This was my first time out to the Giant Monkeypod Tree. It was really impressive. I biked out to it Christmas morning and ate some breakfast under it. A dog joined me so I gave him about half of my food. In the picture on the right I am the red dot standing next to the trunk...it was massive!

There were some beautiful horses along the ride, unfortunately most looked underfed. There were a few underfed cows too. I am not sure why, but it was sad to see. Below is a video of Bobby and Christy playing around on waterfall four at Erawan....



Almost a Tradition

While eating an amazing Christmas dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant - May Kaidee's - I came up with an idea. When I was growing up my family never ate the traditional xmas dinner (just cinnamon rolls in the am). The meal at Mays was delicious and since I love Thai food, I thought about starting a Christmas dinner tradition with Thai food.

Then I started thinking about the logistics of it and where I have spent my last couple Christmas days. Last year I was in Rome with my dad, Pam and Hunter eating pizza, the year before I was down in Honduras and I'm sure I ate beans, cheese and tortillas at some point on Christmas day, the year before I was at my mom's place eating good old favorites from my childhood and the year before that I was eating whatever they served down in Antarctica.

I suppose there is a reason a Christmas tradition has never been established and I realized I want the tradition to be the randomness of it all. Whether the randomness involves the people I am with, the continent I'm on or the food I eat - it's more fitting to my lifestyle. =)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!!

First Week Teaching

There is no reason to sugarcoat what happened. My first week teaching was a nightmare. Miserable beyond miserable. I came in expecting a challenge but it was more than I thought I could handle. I had no idea how I was going to manage everything. The workload seemed impossible with no way to ever get it under control.

I am teaching a lot of different subjects. The compnay said it would be biology with a couple health classes. That made me nervous since its been about 8 years since I have taken a biology class (I know I was technically enrolled at JCU my junior year of uni, but I never went to class and during my senior year at UNCW the only science class I took the whole year was Senior Seminar which isn't really a science class. It's just a presentation to help you improve your public speaking). I was looking forward to the challenge. I thought it would also give me a better idea about how teaching would feel in the US.

Right now I'm teaching grade 12 biology (covering: physiology, human development and immune system, etc), grade 10 biology (which includes biochem, genetics and cell structure, etc), grade 7 science (physiology, weather, chemistry and physics - i have changed the order we are covering the topics and I'm hoping we will run out of time for the physics =), grade 7 ecology, 8th grade physics of light, grade 8 astronomy, health for grades 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and an English class too. Just a little overwhelming for a teacher who has never taught before.

When I arrived at school around 7:30am (I'm not a morning person so that has been hard enough in itself!) I was given a new schedule and that was it for my orientation and training. That was it-- 'Hi. Here's your new schedule....GO!'

According to the new schedule, 3 classes were added and one started at 8:30 which gave me less than an hour to prep for a 12th grade biology class covering the circulatory system. There was no time to even think about the craziness of it all (aka freak out) since I had to learn about the circulatory system well enough to teach a 50 minute class on it in less than an hour. I didn't even know where my classroom was! I had a couple 'get to know you' activites planned and name game, but that was only going to take up a few minutes at the beginning. Luckily I had looked over that section a little the week before, but on the original schedule they gave me, I didn't have to teach that class till the end of the week so I wasn't prepared yet.

When I went into the class room I had one student since the other one was absent. (yeah there are some small classes here!) There was no way to kill time playing a name game, but on the upside it was really easy to get one name down! I guess I learned enough right before class to get through the lesson. Def not the best, but it could have been worse. The other upside to just being thrown into a classroom is that I had no time to get nervous beforehand. It was just time to go. And that's pretty much how it was for the rest of the day.

I'm teaching at a government school in the small English Program section. Not all of my classes have just 2 students, but quite a few of them are small and my 'larger' classes have 13-16. I really really love the fact that the classes are this size!!! It's a good thing since I have not had any training and am horrible with names! I'm a week in and probably know at least 75% of the kids names. I'm teaching grades 7-12 so there are a lot of names to get down. Some of the students I only see once, maybe twice a week which makes it a lot more challenging. I have my 7th graders 6 times a week and I know all their names and a fair bit about their different personalities already. They are super cute!

Unfortunately I don't get a classroom. All the foreign teachers have a desk in a shared office which makes it a fun system. Then we move from classroom to classroom to teach.

I think it was the fact that there were so many unknown factors that made it difficult and overwhelming last week-- I had no idea (and I'm still not that sure) how the testing and grading work (Thai students always pass even if they fail so its a weird system), the amount of material was overwhelming, I was lesson planning every free second of the day and staying up till at least one every night, not only figuring out what to cover, but re-learning a great deal of the material so I could teach it- there is a big difference between memorizing enough of it to pass a test back in my college days and actually teaching the material. Last week I was told I had to fill out a materials lab sheet for all my labs for the semester (it was also due last week, but I still haven't gotten around to it...labs? for the semester? Are you kidding me? I barely know what I'm teaching and they needed all my labs and a materials list for the semester!).

There is always pressure when starting a new job with wanting to do it well (that was an added stress), but now that I've figured out the atmosphere is sooo laid back it takes off some of the pressure (hence why my lab writeups for the semester are not done, however-  my classes have already completed 2 labs and 2 experiments). The other kick in the balls was the fact that the other teachers in our TESOL program were placed in schools to teach English (that's what I came over here to do), they had all the lesson plans handed to them and they were teaching material they already knew (English vs biochemistry). The other teachers weren't coming home and reading, writing, researching, planning labs, making worksheets, studying and staying up till the wee hours of the morning. And they also had a month longer to teach which means another months pay. Christy and I were not very happy about the whole situation so she sent an email to the program that placed us. Considering how useless they have been I wasn't expecting much, but they sent back a response saying we could receive our whole salary and they wouldn't take the almost 50% cut each month. Amazing news!

I'm about to wrap up my second week teaching here. Things are a million times better!

Teacher Clothes

For some reason Thais don't find it acceptable to wear t-shirts and 10 year old faded shorts to work everyday. I knew before coming over here that some of the schools might have a really strict dress code so I didn't bother bringing any 'teaching clothes.' And let's face it, my wardrobe didn't really have many options anyway.
Luckily I was placed at a school with a pretty relaxed dress code. Long skirts below the knee, shoulders must be covered (but it can't be a t-shirt), no flipflops, etc.

So the other week I went out on the street and went 'teacher clothes' shopping. It felt like Halloween! I think I did alright considering you can't try anything on and I have no idea how to dress nice. My plan is to get an extra shirt or different skirt once a week to throw into the mix so that I am not wearing the same couple outfits each week. Hopefully I can trick the kids into thinking I own 'nice' clothes.

And yes, I bought heels too! So far I have not hit the ground. (But I usually wear my flipflops on the walk to work and change right before I get to the school entrance =)

Kanchanaburi

This is my last weekend before the teaching begins. After a couple weeks in the city finishing the TEFL Course, I figured I should really take advantage of the 3 day weekend so I came out to Kanchanaburi. Kanchaniburi is the name of the town and the province to the west of BKK. I was here 3 years ago and it was one of my favorite places I visited. It has been just as amazing this time around. I came back to the Jolly Frog and I cannot say enough about this guesthouse. A single room is only 70 baht. Sure, the rooms are basic and the beds are average but the location more than makes up for it. The property is right on the river, the garden area is beautifully landscaped, it has hammocks and a lot of chairs overlooking the river with mountains in the background, the food is good and it’s in a convenient location in town. Oh, the air is clean too. I feel like I am countries away from BKK even though it’s only a short 3 hour bus ride away.

I arrived here yesterday afternoon. After I put my stuff down on the bed, I went straight for a hammock and just vegged out. I worked on lesson plans and put together some powerpoints at the bus station and for 3 hours on the bus. By the time I got here, it was time to relax. I cannot describe how happy I was… so you’ll just have to take my word for it. (There was also no pressure to go see the sights either. Usually I am on the go, but since I had done a lot in this area it felt more like coming home.)

Eventually I got out of the hammock and went for a wander. The infamous bridge from the river kwai is located here in town. The sun was setting by the time I reach it, but it is lit up by rotating colored lights.  After walking back and forth across the bridge I headed down to the night market with a new found friend from Holland, grabbed some food, hung out then called it a night.

I woke up at 7 this morning and signed up for a tour. Now I am usually hesitant to do the tours and last time I was in this area I hired a motorbike to get around. But last time I had 4 days. This time I only have one full day. That’s one of the big advantages of backpacking – lots of time. Now that I’m going to be working here I will only be able to do weekend trips.

It ended up being a fantastic tour and a very good deal. We started off with some elephant riding and the mahouts let us ride on the neck of the elephant (way better than the seat).

Then we floated on a bamboo raft down the river. I would have been happy if that was all we did for the day but we were just getting warmed up. The minibus met us and we drove north up to Erawan National Park for lunch, swimming, photos opps and relaxing. The park has a series of 7 waterfalls that are some of the most beautiful and famous in Thailand. Today was my second visit to the national park and I know it will not be my last. It’s very popular with thais and its proximity to BKK helps.

All of the waterfalls are beautiful but waterfall 4 is def the most fun. There are 2 natural rock slides so we played around on those for quite a while. After Erawan we went to a cave along the railroad. During WWII some of the POW had to live in it…it would have been terrible. There is a giant Budda in it now and it has an overwhelming smell of incense. After that we took the train on the railroad back towards Kanchanaburi (so fun – I LOVE trains!), stopped for a few mins and saw the bridge over the River Kwai and that was the end of our tour.

This is still one of my favorite areas of Thailand and I know I’ll be spending quite a lot of time here. There are about 5 national parks in the province, many caves, wildlife sanctuaries, river floating opportunities, and more. It's time to head back to Bangkok for my first week of school!

Koh Phangan

I spent about a week on this little island in the Gulf of Thailand. It’s part of an island chain off the east coast of southern Thailand. The other more well known islands in the chain are the scuba diving Koh Tao and resort island of Koh Samui with Koh Phangan located between them.

My bungalow at the Laidback Resort

Life is easy on the island. It's great spot for backpackers. You can stay just about anywhere but I stuck to the south. Haad Rin is the town at the southern tip of the island (where the Full Moon Party takes place) and it has two beaches. One beach is on the east called Sunrise Beach and Sunset Beach which faces west (this is where I stayed). The west side is much quieter and only a 10 minute walk away from all the partying that takes place on Sunrise Beach at Cactus Bar, The Drop In and many other beach bars.

I arrived on the island the afternoon of the Full Moon Party and the place was full of people from all over the world. Thousands of people were wearing outrageously bright colored clothing so it would glow under the black lights that were scattered throughout the beach bars and town for the night. I already went on and on about the party in another blog, but it was definitely a fun night…and morning.

When I came over to Thailand I wasn’t planning on traveling for 3 weeks before school so I have been on a tight budget. I decided to just lay low on the island. I found an amazing bungalow right on the water for only 150 baht per night! That’s about $6 US dollars. It was very simple and most people I know would never set foot in there even if it was free, but I loved it! There was even a hammock on the front porch. There was a squat toilet and cold shower around the corner, but it did come with a fan, mosquito net and if I wanted to I could spit in the ocean out the window while lying in my bed. The view was amazing and I fell asleep to the sound of the ocean.

It’s been the tail end of the rainy season down in the south. There was a shower almost every day but when the air temp is somewhere in the 80s (30s in °C) it just feels good. I spent a few days motor biking around the island, exploring waterfalls and beaches. There was a bit of snorkeling up off the nw coast. It felt so good to put my mask on and get my head back under the water. I have really missed the ocean. One afternoon I had to race back in to the beach once bc of a sudden downpour which still managed to soak most everything. The camera survived but the book swelled up quite a bit.

The beaches on the island were amazing! And there were so many. I didn’t even make it to half of them. There were a few beach swings scattered around the island and I totally fell in love with one of them. I went back a few times and hope to see it again.

If you ever want to go to a place that has some fun night life than I would highly recommend this island. Even on the nights when there is no full moon party there is always a party happening and that means free drinks (which happen to be my favorite kind). I have a weakness for free drinks especially when you have to play drinking games to win them. Over the course of the week I experienced  fire jumprope, kicking a soccer ball into different holes for free drinks, netball for free drinks, fire breathing after you put some clear flammable liquid in your mouth and spit fire to try and light a post….yeah I blew fire! There was a fun balloon popping game that I won with another dude, jumping thru a hoop on fire, connect four and the highlight of partying…a foam party on the beach at 3 or 4 am! I made a bubble igloo. After burying myself in bubbles I had to rinse off in the ocean and then dance myself dry till the sun came up. I missed my taxi/boat/bus that morning.

I didn’t mean to pull 3 all-nighters in a row, but when you only spend maybe $5 dollars a night on drinks there is no reason to go to bed before sunup (when they put the alcohol away). I’m really getting too old for this stuff, but I have been making up for all the wasted time I’ve spent tied up in relationships recently.

Since I missed my ride off the island I was around that night for the Half Moon Party too…. All I wanted was sleep (this was night three)….but at 28 I still give in to peer pressure….I ran into Richard and Chris and next thing I know we are going to go paint ourselves for the party. That was a party all in itself and all three of us will have paint on our clothing and shoes forever just to remind us! But the night was awesome!

The Half Moon Party takes place somewhere out in the jungle on the island. Chris had a motor bike so all three of us piled on. The funniest parts were when the bike couldn’t make it up a couple of the hilsl with all three of us on it so Richard and I had to walk! The Half Moon is basically a rave at a sweet venue with techno music playing aaaaaall night long. The next day my legs were sore from dancing and I woke up still covered in neon paint!

After sleeping for a full day I booked another ticket and actually left this time. I was off to Krabi and the Andaman Sea on the west coast of Thailand.

TEFL Complete

The TEFL Course wrapped up today. I have been taking the course for the past two week- learning how to put together lesson plans, presenting them, learning about Thai culture and a few Thai words, ect. Everything in the course will come in handy while teaching over here. The course was geared towards teaching English to students who don't know the language, but there were lots of useful teaching techniques that should cross over while teaching Biology and Health.

The school I'll be teaching at is called The Demonstration School of Ramkhumhaeng University and I'll be working in the DSRU English Program. (Its a mouthful.) Christy, a girl from the course will also be working at DSRU. The students started school this week and I was able to meet a couple of them while filling out paperwork for the school yesterday. They are super cute!

Christy and I will be moving into our apartments this weekend. We are living in a building called Full House and have rooms right next to each other. The room is very simple - bed, desk, chair, toilet, cold shower, a small but cute balcony and a fan.  I'll take some pics of the apt and school soon.

We have a three day weekend before school begins so I'm going to go back to Kanchanaburi. It's a town to the west of the city that I fell in love with last time I was here. I'm really looking forward to getting out of the city for a couple days. Time to go put together some lesson plans and power points.

School Books

Most of my books for teaching

 Yesterday I went to the school I'll be teaching at beginning December 11th! I have a lot of different subjects to prep for this next week.

I'll be teaching:
Biology for 10th and 12th grades
Science for 7th grade
Ecology for 7th grade
Astronomy for 8th grade
Sound and Light for 9th grade
Health for grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and11