i got a hair cut today. it cost me 40 baht. that is like $1.14. wow. i like it.

last few days in chiang mai. hmm.

update

so monday morning at 6am i head to myanmar through mae sai, thailand. i will get there at 11am and go across the border for a while and then head back to chiang mai at 2pm. i will get to chiang mai at 7:10pm and then go to bangkok at 8:30pm. i will get to bangkok around 8am. fun times. then i will take a bus from bangkok to my home school town. all of this travel in total will only cost me 25 dollars, but then i have to pay 15 dollars for a myanmar visa.

it wears me out just thinking about it.

tonight is friday night. exciting. we are having a big traditional thai party here. dressing in traditional thai attire and doing karaoke, eating good thai food, thai dancing, etc.

this weekend we have to take thai culture classes from 9am-5m every day. it is a mandatory requirement for english teachers in thailand now.

chao for now.

oh and welcome to my life here is my visa situation: i came in on a 30 day tourist visa, then i have to now go to myanmar to get another tourist visa for thailand for 30 days. then i go to my school and fill out paperwork and get all of the papers from the govt that i need. then i have to leave the country on december 28th, go to cambodia, get a stamp, get another 30 day tourist visa for thailand, then go to bangkok and give them the paperwork from the school and then i will get a non-immigrant-b working visa. goodness. its a headache.

political issues

yes, there are political issues in thailand right now, mostly centered in bangkok. but i am safe and up north in chiang mai.

i will head to bangkok on the around the 5th of december so that i can go to my town i will be teaching in.

i leave chiang mai on monday to go do a border run to myanmar. i have to get my passport stamped and get a new tourist visa because mine runs out on the 3rd. then i have to bus it down to bangkok and hopefully get my working visa. the visa situation is so complicated really i dont even understand.

i go on the 5th to my home school town and they are going to help me find an apartment. im busing it because i dont want to have to pay 75 dollars to check my bags again. thats 2,500 baht.

i will be teaching kindergarten and i also have 1 nursery class. so that will be fun and different. i also have a thai teacher assistant, so she will be able to help translate for me and do my photo copying, etc. the school is a private school, and it has air conditioning.

today we taught high schoolers, which are far better behaved here than in the states. it was a fun time. i taught about exercise.

okay time to finish my lesson plans for the week so i can go have fun!

my friend kwang was supposed to arrive today but the airport has been shut down due to protesters. hopefully she can come tomorrow.

teaching the cute thai kids!

today was the second day teaching actually in the thai schools. it was fun because the kids remembered us and were hugging us and giving us presents.

my class was a different class this time, and they did not have as much english experience as the first class, they were also not as well behaved. i had to confiscate some notebooks because a couple kids were playing tic tac toe. haha.

i was teaching about weather, and they followed me for the first 5 minutes and then they were overloaded with english i think. but they did alright, i think my lesson was a bit complex for them. i have some cute pictures with the kids on facebook. i will try to put up a link on here for those who dont have facebook.

i need to prepare my next lesson and maybe other days lessons too. my friend kwang is coming to hang out in chiang mai tomorrow night and staying for a few days and i dont want to be doing lesson planning while we hang out.

tomorrow until friday we go to a tech school to teach 20 year old kids english, but they supposedly know only as much english as these 12 year olds we've worked with so far.

i ate a hamburger and fries today at a place called Mike's. it was tasty. we even got an onion ring, and free refills on drinks. it was so un-Thai. and tasty. :) here in thailand, basic things are exciting. like having toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms. that is high rolling.

1st teaching day

Well the first day of teaching went really well. I was so nervous about it, but when I saw the kids- they were so cute and smiley, I knew it would be okay. We taught at a k-7 government school, and there was no air conditioning. I taught a class full of 12 year olds vocabulary, reading, and speaking about the topic of zoo animals and what each animal eats. It was fun because they enjoyed my topic.

They had a very low level of knowledge of the English language, so we all had to simplify our lessons a bit. But when we walked the in classroom they were all sitting on the floor, and then they stood up in unison and said “good morning teacher.” And then they sat down again. They all had to take their shoes off at the stairs, so they were also barefoot. It was Monday too, so they were all wearing their yellow “I love the King” polo shirts, as was I.

I didn’t get even halfway through my lesson plan, but I didn’t think I would anyways. We just had to adjust to their level, as we had never met these kids before. It will be much easier when I get to have my own classroom and know my students, but for now it is just teaching practice.
I’m really exhausted because 1. It is hot out, but 2. It is mostly because our neighbors in the hotel were partying and singing really loud, playing guitar through the whole night, but moreso than that they were smoking so many cigarettes and the smoke just comes right into our room, and I couldn’t breathe, and I also didn’t want to get lung cancer over night. It was disgusting. I opened the window, but that didn’t really help either. I woke up feeling exhausted and sick.

where i am teaching at

For your information I will be teaching in the town called Nonthaburi. It is north of Bangkok. I will be teaching at the Anvida School. The website is in thai but it is www.Anvidaschool.com

More info when I get it.

First Post

So finally after a little over a week, this is my first post to keep you updated on my activities while I am teaching English in Thailand. The internet here at our hotel is sketchy, and that is my excuse.

Presently I am here in Chiang Mai taking classes from 9am-5pm everyday (including weekends) with the American Tesol Institute, and I am learning how to be an English teacher. After my completion of this course I will be qualified to teach anywhere in the world. Next week we start practice teaching in Thai schools. The first week of december will be my first week of teaching alone at my school. I am not sure where I will be teaching until next week. The other trainees taking this course are from USA, England, Australia, Canada, India, Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The other trainees are a lot of fun to work with and we hang out after class.

Right now I am eating pad thai from my new favorite pad thai restaurant from the street, and watching bbc news. I am also working on a lesson plan for tomorrow. I, and others in my group have to teach the class tomorrow following one of our teaching models we've learned. We are teaching them vocabulary, reading, writing, listening, and speaking dealing with the context of Weekend Activities.

This week has been packed with activities aside from my days being kept busy by classes and lesson planning. There was the Loy Krathong festival which was about 4 days long. It was a buddhist holiday which involved lighting big lanterns and letting them float in the sky, fireworks, parades, and lotus shaped objects that they floated in the river. It was very cool to see all of the festivities.

The day that those festivities ended the Princess' funeral processions started (note: she died about a year ago). So the town went from loud fireworks from morning to night with tons of people in the streets to everyone wearing black and shops being closed on the weekend, no alcohol, etc.

Last Sunday me and some friends rode up to Wat Doi Suthep, a temple on top of a mountain nearby and then we hiked around the national park, which was very jungle-y. On our hike we saw many waterfalls and swam in them. Then we went to the local zoo, which was very cool. Then we went to a forest temple nearby and had a philosophical discussion with a monk about attatchment, love, ego, and the soul.

Those are just a handful of things that have been keeping me busy. More later, I need to finish my lesson plan.