First Day Jitters

I woke up excited to get going. All the teachers take taxis to the school and there is no room for me so I rode on the back of a motor scooter to school (approximately 20-25 minute ride). Let me say, that was an experience I will never forget plus it was during work traffic. Once at school, I found a coffee stand while I waited for my head teacher to meet me. I also watched the students raise the flag while in formation and there is a massive “canteen” or cafeteria area where the children can buy food from multiple fresh food stands.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

At approximately 9:00am, Alex found me wandering around the canteen and she escorted me to the fourth floor where I met the other 16 foreign language teachers in our foreign language office.

I met Teacher MJ who had been teaching my classes and she provided me with a quick introduction related to what my job requirements entailed. I teach twenty-four 50 minute classes per week of M1-M2 (7^th-8^thgraders) and am responsible for testing, grading, and tracking attendance. In addition, there is a predesigned lesson plan with an associated workbook that I use with each class.

During the first class, I introduced myself and observed all of the students were for the most part proficient in English. They were receptive to me but were chatty amongst one another. By the third class, MJ did not want to teach anymore so I took over and taught the rest of the classes. Some of the classes were air conditioned and others were not, which definitely made me tired. Further, all my classes are on the ninth floor and there is only one elevator that only teachers can use. I found very quickly that the elevator runs slowly and left me with a decision whether to wait or take the stairs. At the end of the day, the head teacher asked if I could not wear my Nike shoes and also if I could start wearing some type of yellow clothing attire to celebrate the King’s recent coronation.

After work, there was a free van provided by BFITS that transports us back to our apartment complex. I laid down on my bed and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I rode on a motor scooter to Future Park mall and roamed around looking for clothing (shoes and yellow tie) and a new phone. The phone I had bought in Hua Hin was an older model Nokia phone (dumb phone) and I finally found the smart phone I wanted for 2,100Baht. I can now communicate with everyone using Line (texting and phone calls-similar to WhatsApp but used in Asia) and Grab (Car lift service-similar to Uber and Lyft).