Getting Hired
In the morning, Jonathan and I took a taxi from our hotel to SSP1 Tower in Bangkok and met with our BFITS agent (Angel Ha). She was kind, spoke fluent English, and provided three of us with our contracts for the duration of our teaching experience (35,000Baht per month plus 2,000Baht in travel money). I noted that the school I would be teaching at was called Suankularbwittayalai Rangsit School located at 2/617 ซอย รังสิต-นครนายก 31 Tambon Khlong Si, Amphoe Khlong Luang, Chang Wat Pathum Thani 12120.
I said good-bye to Jonathan who is teaching in Buri Ram (northeast Thailand). I also met a woman (Melissa) who just arrived from Texas and was scheduled to teach in Bangkok for a year. She explained that she had found a teaching job in Thailand through an online website called ESLCafe which placed her in direct contact with BFITS. The only issue I observed was she did not have any time to adjust to the new culture and had no training like I had with Xplore Asia.
After eating lunch, I took a taxi to my new apartment located in Rangsit (Lumpini Township Apartments). I arrived around 2:00pm and met with the sales agent who escorted me to the seventh floor. She opened the door and we both paused because there was a massive infestation of spiders inside of the apartment. It’s interesting because I asked someone a couple of days ago whether they had seen any spiders in Thailand since they had arrived and like me; they had not. But they (spiders) were in my apartment and the sales agent promised they would be cleaned up as soon as possible. I called Angel to inform her of the situation and she contacted the sales agent who did not have another apartment for me so I had to wait outside in the downstairs lobby until they had cleaned them.
My nightmare has become a reality but I’m quickly learning to find solutions to problems I may encounter and not focus on any negativity. Problems here seem inevitable and with that in mind, I am changing my perspective to embrace the situation and not classify it as some insurmountable issue or “problem”. Keeping that mantra at the forefront of my thought process, the apartment manager had the apartment cleaned and I walked down to the local mall which turned out to be humongous (Future Park Mall). I bought bug spray, essential items (coffee, spoon, fork, etc.), a pair of brown dress pants, and ate dinner. Trying to get home was a little bit difficult. I flagged down a taxi and he refused to take me back to my apartment. I’ll admit, I was a little annoyed at being waved off, but I later found out that taxi drivers don’t like to sit in traffic for short distance rides (makes sense). I again have to learn the Thai way of not taking things so personally.
I decided to walk across the street and spoke with a motor scooter driver who stated it would be 25Baht to take me back to my apartment. I hopped on the back of the scooter and went for the ride of my life. We rode against the flow of traffic along the side of the road, down a side pathway, across a bridge, and finally arrived to my apartment. It was by far one of the wildest rides I have ever experienced and no exaggeration; we narrowly missed being hit by cars at least three times. Back in the apartment, I set my mind to cleaning, spraying bug spray everywhere, and finally felt somewhat comfortable. Probably the highlight of the day was the fact that the apartment does not provide Wifi and I happened to guess someone in the apartments Wifi password so now I have free Wifi (WooHoo– but don’t tell anyone!).