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....