What a week! I have successfully lasted 4 days so far at Sarasas Witaed Saimai School and hoping my streak lasts through next week. As starting Monday, I will be teaching the youngsters of 1-C (grade 1, class C) all by my lonesome. A scary thought, I know! 1-C is actually the smartest of all the classes, but lucky me, also the most rambunctious and chatty. You all might want to keep me in your prayers for the next couple of weeks and keep on the lookout for any headlines in the newspaper including the words "American teacher," "Thailand" and "strangling of children."
The kids are absolutely adorable though, and I think I've picked my favorites - what a good teacher I am already! Today, one of those - a chubby boy who is missing is two front teeth and sports a classic military haircut - saw me after school and (phonetically speaking) said, "Goooodbuy Meez Hullee," and it completely made my day.
To avoid looking like the new creepy teacher though, I have refrained from taking photos of the children so far. I want to maintain an aura of professionalism as long as possible. Here are some lovely photos of the view from my classroom to enjoy instead, although I will try to get pics of the kids soon.
So, one things I must mention, which I have neglected to do so far, is to say that it is ridiculously blazing sweating your everything off hot here. Irony of ironies, it's supposedly "cold" here right now. Go figure. From the moment I exit my air conditioned bedroom, I immediately start sweating. This doesn't cease to end until I get to school and enter my air conditioned classroom. I have stood up before in the open air lunchroom after eating and have had sweat stains on my skirt. Not quite the impression I wanted to make here :)
It is also the rainy month right now, but I guess October, November and December are the nicest times here so I definitely lucked out there.
I have slowly been making progress with the language here. Currently I know 4 words: sawatdee (hello & goodbye), kop kun krap (thank you), maprao (coconut) and nam top tim (pomegranate). A slightly odd combination, yes, but it has gotten me by so far.
This should be a big weekend for me...I am finally going to head into central Bangkok this weekend, and I should be moving into my permanent home. I haven't gotten to see much of Thailand yet, seeming as I have mostly been shuttling between home and school all week, so I am excited to get out and see some Buddhas, palaces, markets and much more. Lauren - a new Canadian teacher and new friend - and I are moving into a 3-bedroom house so it should be a huge relief to finally unpack and stop living out of a suitcase. This girl is way excited!
There is sooooo much more I want to say about school, about Thailand, about everything but unfortunately it must wait. I am going to dinner with some fellow teachers and hopefully exploring somewhere new. I will leave you all with a cliffhanger though - last night I had suki, which is a soup with rice noodles, greens, liver, octopus, fish and much more...story to come! Stay tuned! ***Note: I dislike seafood with a burning passion.
Here was my very first Thai meal which I talked about earlier - Wonton Soup, Pork Balls and Fried Mussels. Now I just need to learn how to say delicious in Thai - we'll work on that one!
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