New School

I am home sick today writing this =(  I've had a horrible cough for the past three weeks and at first thought it was just from breathing in the black smoke coming from the back of trucks on the roads but realized it was more on Monday when I woke feeling like my head was 100 pounds and my nose was running.  Went to a clinic last night where I found a doctor that spoke relatively good English and turns out I have acute bronchitis, an ear infection and a sinus infection.  He gave me lots of meds and now I'm just waiting for them to work.

In other news, I am starting at a new school next week!  After the past few weeks at my current school being not what I expected, I went on an interview Friday at a school that I had applied to a few days after I arrived in Phuket just to see what it was all about.  I've been beyond frustrated at my current school being the only English speaking person in the building (ex. I showed up at school yesterday and half my kids were getting on a bus to go on a fieldtrip but no one informed me and they couldn't figure out how to tell me where they were going), not having adequate resources (yesterday there was no paper anywhere in the school) and the teachers changing my schedule 3 times a week.  It has been giving me anxiety because I never know what to expect or how many classes I'll be teaching that day and I was slowly turning in the constantly stressed out girl I was years ago.  Long story short, I went to interview at this new school that had 176 English speaking teachers and 2,000 students.  Talk about polar opposites from my current school.  It's a private school and has four smaller locations across the island as well. 

There were 3 position that the HR guy was looking to hire for: Kindergarten ESL teacher, English reading teacher for grades 1-3 and ESL teacher for grades 4-6 (not classroom teacher but instead pulls kids out in groups of 3-5 to work with them as they are slower at learning).  ESL teacher for grades 4-6 is the position I said I preferred because 1.  I like working with small groups  2.  I don't know much about teaching reading and 3. The kindergarten job was at a satellite location and I wanted to be at the big school.  Overall, there were definitely a lot of pros and cons about this new school.

PROS (all the things this school had that my current one doesn't):

Higher pay

Work permit aka working legally

Free health insurance

Paid sick and Vacation days

Dec. 24 - January 4th OFF

RESOURCES and smaller class sizes

Fellow Americans/teachers to collaborate with

An actual school atmosphere (at the big school)

CONS

Double the commute on my motorbike

A LOT of paperwork (right now I don't know all of my kids names let alone do paperwork)

Reputation for being intense and terminating teachers

Longer hours

Extra duties like lunch duty, morning gate duty, leading assemblies, etc. (but were all things I expected to do coming over here)

3 month probation period - sounds scary

Taxes taken out of my salary

The Kindergarten job at a small satellite school that just has kindergarten classes so it could potentially be like my current school

Yesterday the HR guy called and offered me the kindergarten teaching position at one of their satellite schools that's only 20 minutes from my house instead of 45 minutes like the big school.  The school has 100 students and a Thai, Fillipino speaking and English speaking teacher in each classroom which means including me there should be 3 other English speaking teachers.  I honestly didn't even think twice and said "Great, I'm excited to start."  I guess all the cons went straight out of my head and I just thought it was probably better than my school.  Double the commute - nope, a lot of paperwork - can't be that much in kindergarten, reputation and probation period - I'll do everything not to get fired, longer hours - more money outweighs an extra hour a day, extra duties - I go to lunch everyday now anyways because I don't know what else to do, taxes - the reality of a real job and not getting paid under the table from a government school.  You would think it would be the opposite right?

In regards to me wanting to be at the big school, if he didn't want me for those positions then he didn't want me and probably needed someone more experienced and that lived closer.  The way I thought about it was, at least I'll be teaching Kindergarten at a school with resources and other people to talk to.  I won't lie, I do feel very bad leaving my current Kindergarteners  because the kids are so cute but they have a 5 second rebound rate and will fall in love with the next teacher just as fast.  I think this is best for my own sanity and I'm really hoping that decision doesn't backfired on me and I'm left jobless or something for screwing up somehow.  I gave my notice ten minutes after I got the call from HR and my last day at my current school is Friday and Friday afternoon I'm going to my new school to meet the staff and kids.  Here's the link to my school - http://kajonkietsuksa.ac.th/baankajonkiet/index.htm

Keeping my fingers crossed....

Thanksgiving and Peem in Phuket!

Thanksgiving definitely did not feel like Thanksgiving.  #1 - I worked 8 - 3:30,  #2  - no family and #3 - no turkey!  We did end up deciding to make a dinner for ourselves and we did a pretty good job.  Rolls and crackers, mashed potatoes, corn, snap peas and a broccoli, green bean, carrot and onion stir-fry.  I didn't miss the turkey as much as I missed my mom's apple pie and cookies!

We tried!

Missing the turkey and cranberry sauce

My friend Peem from Bates lives in Bangkok and him and his mom, dad and uncle came down to Phuket for the weekend to compete in the Laguna Phuket Triathlon.  I was so happy to see him!!  They were staying two beaches up from us and came down on Saturday night to take us all to dinner and it was great. 

Saturday Night dinner

Sunday, I got up early to go to the triathlon with Courtney and Shawn and it was awesome.  Extremely inspiring and Peem and his team did a great job.  The triathlon was competed as an individual race or a team event and below is a photo of the winner - apparently whoever wins gets to cross the finish line with a baby elephant.  We were completely speechless to say the least. 

3 time champ

After Peem biked 55 km in under 2 hours wooo wooo

Koh Phi Phi

After a crazy first week at work, Nancy and I decided to take a little weekend trip to get off this big island and go to a different one.  We picked Koh Phi Phi because we had heard great things about it (and it was on my Thailand bucket list) and it wasn’t going to cost us an arm and a leg.  Koh Phi Phi is an island off the southeast coast of Phuket and is between Phuket and the Thailand mainland on the other side.  We left our house at 7am (though we almost missed our van because neither of our alarms went off and Nancy just happened to wake up at 6:56am), took an hour van ride and a two hour ferry and we were there.  It was just like I pictured - it was beautiful and surprisingly not crowded so that was also nice.  Koh Phi Phi was completely flattened and destroyed by the tsunami and the whole time I just kept thinking how scary it must have been for people to see the water coming and have nowhere to go on this little island.  We found a local that we paid to take us on a three hour boat tour of the main island we were on, Phi Phi Don, and its sister island, Phi Phi Lay.  We went to “Viking Cove”, which we still aren’t too sure of why it was called that, a lagoon that I couldn’t understand the name when our guide said it, and stopped to snorkel and saw some really awesome fish and coral. 

Viking Cove

The Lagoon and our guide

We then boated over to Maya Bay, which is where the movie “The Beach” was filmed and explored there a little before heading to Monkey Beach where we saw lots of monkeys and ate some yummy corn some guy was selling. 

Maya Bay

Monkey Bay

Monkey Bay - I would hang out there too if I got fed all day

  Then it was back to the mainland to enjoy the rest of the day on the beach (well mostly just laying in the water because the beach was too hot) and shopping around the many little shops and food stands.   Ate an interesting crab cabob and some pad thai that was so spicy I literally couldn’t breathe after.  Spent the night out at a beach bar called “Slinkys” where we watched fire throwers on the beach and a tightrope walker that was twirling a fire stick while drinking a beer and walking across the tightrope over the dance floor where there were tons of people dancing and jumping double dutch with glow-in-the-dark ropes.  I’m telling you, you can literally do whatever you want in this country and it’s considered normal.   

Sunday was another day on the island and we headed back to Phuket in time for dinner.   It was a good weekend and I’m glad I was able to see the beautiful Thailand that I’ve always heard about and we are definitely going to plan more island weekend trips as long as my bank account allows me. 

Main Beach at Phi Phi Don

Four more days of school this weekend and then my friend Peem and his dad are coming down from Bangkok!!  Excited to see some familiar faces!

P.S.  For those that were wondering, on Thursday, the children were wearing brightly colored patterned parachute pants and peasant tops.  I didn’t have school on Friday because of teachers meetings so we’ll have to wait and see until this week to see what Friday’s attire is.  Who knows.

This is going to be lengthy...

Well I've survived three days in kindergarten.  Not sure how seeing that I have no idea what I'm doing and all of the teachers kind of scare me.  I'm the only person in the entire school that speaks English and out of the 130 kids I have in class, only one looks American so obviously he's my favorite.  And he's the cutest.  Kindergartener's are funny - they fall down a lot, take their pants off a lot, spill everything put in front of them and are constantly punching each other.  I have yet to figure a lot of things out about the school such as why 130 kindergarteners take my English classes and 30 do not.  Seeing that they have pay for public and private schools here, I'm assuming maybe they have to pay more for English classes?  I think I'm at a public school but I have yet to figure that out as well.  Another thing...the uniforms.  Monday, the teachers were wearing military looking uniforms and the kids were wearing yellow shorts and vests.  Tuesday, the teachers were wearing pink sweaters and white skorts and the kids were wearing pink polos and white shorts.  Then today, the teachers were in black track pants and green polos and the kids in yellow, green and white polos and white and yellow shorts.  I can't figure it out!  Another thing I am mind boggled about is how after lunch, the kids brush their teeth and the security guard (who is the only male adult at the school and acts like a father figure) comes around and dumps baby powder in the kids hands and they rub it all over their faces.  If I have a class after lunch it's like I have 35 little powder faced monsters in front of me - so weird!  Something I am loving is that I'm barefoot all day - if I ever teach in the US, it'll be hard to keep my shoes on in the classroom.  One more thing - they don't have recess!  What's kindergarten without recess!  But I guess there's only rocks and dirt around the school so that wouldn't be much fun.  Instead they nap for two hours and I get really bored sitting there watching them sleep.  Also, the teachers smack the kids and it's something I don't know if I'll get used to - it makes me feel kind of uncomfortable. 

I have a lot of learning to do and I'm already running out of ideas for lesson plans!  I do wish I had another English speaking teacher at the school so I could have someone to talk to and to tell me what's going on.  Twenty-three more weeks in kindergarten and maybe I'll get the hang of it before then. 

On another note, I've become a decent driver on my motorbike.  Driving on the other side of the road isn't so bad, it's just the fact that no one drives in between the lines and goes right thru red lights that freaks me out a bit.  Motorbiking 10km over a mountain everyday will become the norm soon enough. 

Other things:
-  I miss the gym!  Who would have thought I'd be saying that - I do wish there was one around.
-  I miss my phone! Well I miss being able to text and call people whenever I want. 
- Food: (yes I'm sick of Thai food already)  Don't worry, after about five days of not eating (the smell still gets to me), I've found my food schedule.  Breakfast - granola bars that I brought over - soon to run out, Lunch - p,b and j and goldfish or white rice if I eat the school's food which I've been getting guilt tripped by the teachers into eating, Dinner - pasta and sauce.  I miss salads! And my orange chicken from Trader Joes!  We have a burner in our kitchen so I'm going to try to start going to the market and finding things to make stir-fry. 
- Weather:  HOT - The Thai are used to it and wear long pants, flannels and coats and I sweat thru a tank top in 5 minutes.
-  Internet:  Still at an internet cafe - we're working on geting it at the house but they will only install it if we pay for a full year so we'll see.
- The Beach:  I went yesterday after work!  The water was amazing and hopefully I'll be able to put it in my schedule to frequent it more often.
- Shopping:  Only food is cheap here (minus the American food store I found an hour away but I'm okay with that if it keeps me sane).  Everything else is normal priced or more expensive, probably because we are on a tourism based island.  I miss Forever 21!

One more thing - the lady I rent my motorbike from owns a bar and wants me to tutor her "ladyboys" that work there.  I said I needed one more week to get settled and I'd get back to her.  Teaching five year olds during the day and transvestites at night would definitely be an interesting schedule.  I'm sure my lesson plans would have to be adjusted...

Kamala Beach

Since I last posted, we have found a house, learned how to ride motor bikes and started school.  On Saturday, Courtney, Shawn, Nancy and I went apartment searching.  We decided to start out looking in a place called Kamala Beach because we were told that it far less touristy than most beaches and it in between where Nancy and I are working.  Kamala Beach, along with many other beaches on the west coast of Phuket, was hit extremely hard by the 2004 Tsunami.  There is still a lot of construction going on but the houses and buildings that are completed are very new and nice.  Within 5 minutes of getting out of the cab,  we wandered down a random side street and ended up meeting a lady who brought us to the house she was renting.  It was super cute but very small with two bedrooms with one big bed in each so I headed back outside and saw 3 others houses on the same street with for rent signs.  We ended up seeing inside of four houses and decided to pick two of them because it seemed like a good neighborhood and they were cheap enough so we could afford two.  Nancy and I picked the first one we looked at because the landlord was very nice and Courtney and Shawn picked one that's two doors down from ours because they loved the couple next door to them.  Alec and Jenny have proved to be an interesting pair - Alec is Thai, has long flowing hair, is covered in tattoos and is a tattoo artist that tattoos with bamboo instead of a needle gun.  Jenny is his girlfriend and is Scandanavian and has lived here for four years and is a kindergarten teacher.  They have already taught us so much and are very willing to show us around and tell us where the best place to do our laundrey is and how much we should be paying for our motorbikes and little things like that. 

Speaking of motorbikes, I will be riding one to school every day.  I've had about 2 days practice and they still scare me but I'm getting better.  Seeing that there seem to be no traffic laws here and I have to drive on the opposite side of the road, it's going to take a while to get used to.  I rode to school this morning, took one wrong turn and was an hour late for my first day of school!!  School proved to be pretty overwhelming and not exactly what I expected but hopefully I'll get used to that too.  Having four classes of 35 kindergarteners in each is not an easy task and in my last class of the day, I had one boy running around naked, three girls crying and about seven little ones hitting me in the stomach right when I walked in while the teacher was outside the classroom on her cell phone.  That class will definitely be my most difficult. 

We are getting settled but still haven't had time to relax yet.  I have been in Thailand for a week and I haven't gotten to lay out on the beach yet!  Hopefully this weekend I will have time to relax and go swimming in the beautiful water.  Whenever I am feeling homesick or missing my office in Rhode Island (crazy, right??), I try to remind myself that not everyone gets to see elephants on their morning commute or live in the mountains with a ten minute walk to the beach (that I plan to make it to sometime in the near future).  We don't have internet at our house yet but hopefully soon so I can update more!

My Bed - bedding is expensive here!

I need to go shopping!

Employed!

Three days into job searching extremely aggressively, I have taken a kindergarten teaching position!  Let's just say I will be very broke by the time we leave here due to the very small salary but I would rather work with the little ones than make a little more and try to teach crazy 12 year olds.  I will be splitting my time between two kindergarten schools Monday thru Friday - one in the morning and the other in the afternoon - so I going to have to give in and get a motorbike and hope I don't die driving on the other side of the road on a mini motorcycle.  I'm going to practice this weekend because did I mention....I START ON MONDAY!! Not my preference but I was afraid if I passed it up, I woudn't find something I liked better and had been wishing that I took it.  Nancy also took a kindergarten teaching job but at a different school on a different part of the island so we are going this weekend to try to find an apartment in the middle of our school's locations, hopefully still on the beach....We shall see!

My horoscope from the Phuket Gazette

 A second positive from today was that I found peanut butter!!!! We found a mall and when we walked inside it was like walking into a mall in America - Levi's, Office Depot, Bebe, Baskin Robbins, Nautica, The Body Shop and the list goes on...It was all very strange.  There was a food store and I went tearing through the aisles in search of peanut butter and success!!  And then Nancy found goldfish and then I found my favorite tomato sauce...we realized that even though these foods might cost us far too much money ($6 for mini jar of Prego), it would be totally worth it when we were feeling homesick or when we get sick of noodles and rice.

I think I might just survive here

Loy Krathong Festival in Karon Beach

Loy Krathong is Thailand's 'festival of lights' and is held once a year on the evening of the twelfth lunar month.  It is a festival that takes place on all bodies of water around the island when the sun goes down and you light your wish on a candle and send it into the water or light it on a paper lantern and send it into the air.  If it floats or flys away, your wish is supposed to come true,  if it comes back to you, they say maybe the tides aren't with you this year.  Luckily Nancy and my paper lanterns flew right up into the air.  We happened to hear about it from a guy we met while applying for jobs so we decided to take a break from the job search and head to one of the beaches to see what it was all about. 

Karon Beach

Apparently this is the norm for parasailing in Phuket - a little thai man flies with you with no harnass or anything to strap him in.  Don't worry I won't be doing this.

Fried Insects!!

Lighting my wish

About to send it into the sky over the Andamon Sea

Not so safe cab ride back to Phuket Town where we are staying for one more night and then heading to the beach tomorrow for the weekend to look for apartments

Pictures

I am so tired!! Too tired to write anything so I'll just post pictures. 

Daily walk through of the market next to our hotel....you can only imagine the smell

Courtney liked the big dead fish

The public bus that we used to go to the beach - 40 minute ride for $1 - probably one of the most unsafe things seeing that there seem to be absolutely no traffic laws or seats belts.  Hence why we are moving to the beach and not riding buses.

Running from the rain

Night Market in Phuket Town

Phuket Town

Well I won't be eating eggs again anytime soon.  We thought they were okay to eat because they aren't on our list of do not eat but now they are definitely on the do not eat list.  Spent the day shaking and threw up in the cab en route to Phuket Town and have been feeling a little wierd ever since.  Nancy and my first dinner in Phuket Town is below - not very exciting.

My luggage arrived about 5 minutes ago!  However they locked it shut with something that I don't know how to undo so I guess that will be the next thing to tackle.  Phuket Town is definitely not what I pictured it to be!  I don't exactly know what I pictured but I guess I thought it would be more commercialized but it definitely isn't.   It seems to be a poor town but clearly has a certain charm to it.  We got here about 5 hours ago, immediately took a nap and walked around for a little bit before it got dark.  The smell of food is overwhelming!  It's everywhere and made me feel pretty nauseous but hopefully tomorrow I'll feel better and can enjoy the markets because they look amazing.  We've seen a couple white people but not many and we are definitely in the minority here.  I'm thinking that will be different when we head to the beach towns this weekend because that's where all the tourists head to. We definitely have some more wandering to do here in Phuket Town and hopefully we feel well enough tomorrow to see some more of it.  People here are crazy drivers!! I can't even tell you how many times we almost got hit by scooters in the 45 minutes we were walking the streets.  There are tons of dogs and cats on the streets and everyone one is very nice and doesn't harass you like in some other countries I've been to so that is very much appreciated. 

I spent the morning today looking up schools and Nancy and I are going to venture out and attempt to get to some schools tomorrow.  We are still unsure of how we are going to get anywhere as we don't understand anyone and no one understands us.  To say we are overwhelmed is an understatement.  I applied for a great looking job today as a kindergarten teacher and the email immediately got kicked back to me so that was disappointing.  I'm so tempted to go live by the beach and waitress but that wasn't the plan so I'm going to try to stick by the original plan of me getting a teaching job.

Courtney and Shawn arrive in Bangkok tonight so hopefully we'll be seeing them here in Phuket sometime soon!  I'm going to bring my camera out tomorrow so will upload some pictures next time I post.   Goodnight!

First Impressions

A few of my first impressions:

 - Everyone is really nice and understands that I don't have a clue what is going on...lots of smiling and nodding
- Real thai food is different than American Thai food and the distinctive smell of food is everywhere
- IT IS HOT HERE and VERY humid
-  Lots of palm trees!
-  Pad thai is not the signature thai dish like it is in America
- Jet lag is painful!
- When looking outside on my very short ride from the airport to the hotel, it reminded me of downtown Fiji - we'll have to see if that holds true when we make our way down to Phuket Town tomorrow

I know a lot of people were worried about me coming here with all of the recent flooding.  There is no flooding here in Phuket but I did see the flooding in Bangkok from the air and it was unlike anything I have ever seen before.  It was miles and miles of land underwater and what looked like large lakes everywhere when you could clearly tell there was water where it wasn't supposed to be.  Hopefully the situation gets only better and not worse.

Below is a picture of my first meal in Thailand.  Not a clue what it was, but I was determined to find a noodle dish and it was pretty good.

 

Oh man what a trip

Well let’s just say the journey to get to Thailand did not go as planned.  I had a good flight plan of Boston to DC – 2 hour layover, DC to Toyko – 3 hour layover and Toyko to Bangkok – stay at the airport hotel for the night and depart for Phuket around noontime on Monday.  Not exactly what actually happened.   I got off the plane in DC and went to my gate for my Toyko flight where the agent in Boston said my boarding pass would be waiting because they were changing the plane and therefore the seat I had previously picked might have changed.   I come to find out via a VERY unpleasant United counter lady that they had overbooked the new plane by FORTY PEOPLE.  Not five, or ten but forty!  I asked her if I would be getting a seat and she said “Probably not, too bad for you maybe we can get you out in the next two days.”  And I asked her what would happen with my connecting flight in Toyko as I already had that boarding pass in my hand and she said she didn’t know and she couldn’t help me.  I wanted to say well why are you standing at the counter if you can’t help anyone but of course I didn’t.  That led to tearful phone call number one to my dad.  Then I saw a friendly looking older man appear behind the counter next to the mean lady and I decided to try again.  He ended up telling me that I probably wasn’t going to get on the flight but that I could be rerouted to go DC to LA then LA to Bangkok so I figured that was the best option because I didn’t want to wait another day and miss my flight from Bangkok to Phuket.  It was going to take me an extra 7 hours so I would miss my hotel stay and arrive in Bangkok at 5:30 am on Monday but I would be there in time to get my 12:45pm flight to Phuket.  Long story short, I got to LA, realized that my next flight was 18 hours straight and panicked.  I didn’t believe my mom when she told me how long it was because someone told me that the longest flight in the world was 16 hours and 20 minutes so I thought she was mistaken with all the time changes.  She wasn’t.  I had been traveling for 18 hours already and hadn’t even left the United States yet and I couldn’t bear the thought to getting on an airplane for 18 hours, sitting in the Bangkok airport for 8 hours and taking another flight to Phuket.  Hence, tearful phone call number 2 to dad saying I wanted to come home and I wasn’t getting on the flight to Bangkok.  Then I called Nancy and hearing her voice made me remember that I wasn’t in this alone and she was getting on a plane the next day to meet me in Phuket.  I wasn’t about to leave her stranded and kept telling myself over and over that we were about to go on the adventure of our lives.  Getting 2 hours of sleep the night before departure and traveling for hours on end had made me so overtired that I couldn’t even think straight.  I honestly might not have gotten on the plane if I was in this alone.   Let’s just say I got some funny looks in LAX crying for an hour before departure.  

And now I can say that I made it to Thailand!  My luggage didn’t of course but I did.  I was waiting at the luggage claim and I see some guy walking around with my name on a sign.  I waved him down and he didn’t speak one word of English – just kept gesturing for me to follow him.  So I did, (sorry mom I know that was your first rule – don’t go with strangers) but he had a badge and a walkie talkie and wouldn’t let me leave his sight so I didn’t really have a choice.   While following this strange man around the airport I saw my first monk! (soon to realize they are everywhere) And he was wearing his orangey monk robes with Timbs which I thought was hysterical.   Anyways, I come to find out that my luggage missed the flight to Bangkok and they were putting it on the next one that wouldn’t get to Bangkok until tomorrow when I would be long gone in Phuket.  I tried to tell the guy the name my hotel in Phuket and I think he understood so hopefully I’ll be seeing it sometime soon. 

I am currently hanging out in the Bangkok airport waiting for my next flight and its 8 am on Monday here which means its 8 pm on Sunday at home.   I got a SIM card for my old Australian cell phone so that was good even though the lady at the counter didn’t speak English so I’m not really sure what my plan consists of but it works because I was able to call home.  I’ve soon realized that I am going to have to get used to not really knowing what is going on language wise and I’m hoping to pick up some key Thai phrases soon.  I’m off to find my first bowl of real Thai noodles and to see if my flight is on the departure board so bye for now!

Departure!!

Hi!!!

This is my first blog post and sadly it isn't too exciting - I am in the airport waiting for the first of my four flights!!  After getting home from Providence on Thursday night around midnight, I spent yesterday unpacking from my apartment and repacking until around 2:45 am and got up at 5 am to get to the airport in plenty of time.  As most everyone knows, there is extreme flooding in Bangkok, Thailand right now so I unfortunately my trip has been delayed a few days and I had to cancel my trip to see my friend Peem in Bangkok.   Instead of leaving on Thursday and spending three and a half days in Bangkok exploring with Peem, I am instead flying to Bangkok today, getting in at midnight Sunday night - 27 hours after leaving Logan - spending the night in a hotel (hopefully) and then headed to Phuket Monday afternoon.  I'll try to check in at our airport hotel in Phuket on Monday afternoon and then head back to the airport around midnight to meet Nancy!!  I am very excited and was actually very sad to leave the US but I know there are many adventures ahead of me.  I am about to board a plane to DC, then onto Tokyo then to Bangkok so I'll post again next time I have internet and hopefully by then I can figure out how to upload pictures because I tried but have been unsuccessful so far. 

ลาก่อนดี
(Good-bye)