What's Happening Now

Every time I go to blog, I've tried finishing up our Vietnam trip, but it's been slow going and I wanted to give updates about how things are going right now for us. Plus, I miss writing/story-telling in general.

The school year has started and we're now in our fourth week of teaching. As you know, Thailand's school system breaks down into Prathom 1-6 (equivalent to grades 1st-6th), Lower Mattayom 1-3 (equivalent to 7th-9th), and Upper Mattayom 4-6 (equivalent to 10th-12th). Julia and I co-teach Mattayom 1 (which was coincidental; originally I was supposed to teach Upper Mattayom, but we walked in the first day of orientation and found out we were both teaching M1). We teach 10 classes twice a week. The time slot for each class is supposed to be 50 minutes, but of course the Thai way makes it so assemblies end late and other teachers let out their classes late so that class can end up being cut to be as short as 20 minutes. Luckily, this has made us more adaptable. We can now come up with lessons that can still work in a 20 minute time period or can be expanded to fill the full 50 minutes. Unlike in America, the children's have classrooms and it's the teachers that move from class to class. This is incredibly inconvenient because if we ever have any supplies (our main one usually being a Powerpoint), we have to carry it and take time to set it up in each classroom. This includes hoping the computer works, hoping the monitor works, hoping it recognizes our flash drive, hoping the projector turns on (trying to get a student to stand on a desk with a broom handle to physically turn the projector on, since there's supposedly a remote, but it's impossible to find), and hoping the keyboard and/or mouse work so that we can open and actually use our Powerpoint. It's an adventure every time. Unlike our other school, the classes don't seem to be organized according student intellect. It's supposedly random, but there are definitely classes where it seems students are of similar caliber. For the most part, we only have three classes that are troublesome and difficult. This does however change from week to week, depending on the time of day and how the students are feeling. Our favorite classes (1/7 and 1/9) are ideal in every way. Lessons go perfectly and we always leave them feeling like we're amazing teachers. For our troublesome classes (1/1 and 1/3), we try to go in with the mindset that we'll be able to teach them, but usually end up hoping we can make it through without losing our voice from trying to talk over them or get them to quiet down. Because we don’t speak Thai, we have had to come up with multiple strategies to communicate to the kids what we want; saying “please quiet down” or “just give me 5 more minutes” makes no sense. And a 7^th grader’s natural reaction is to ignore you and talk to their friend, somebody they do understand. Some of the teachers have tried barking like a dog, which startles them into silence, others have tried implementing a “yellow card,” “red card” system similar to soccer, which ends in a child being ejected from the classroom. Julia and I have started the silence game, which involves the kids being quiet for one full minute. If anyone talks, the clock starts over. We believe that part of the reason some of the classes can’t be quiet is because they don’t quite know what quiet means. They think they can’t be heard or seen so if they continue to talk to their friends, it won’t interrupt the class. So if we convey what actual silence sounds like, then they’ll remain actually quiet for the lesson. This surprisingly works, though it takes up about 5-10 minutes of class time, since it takes four or five attempts before the kids can be quiet for a full minute. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have to come up with something new soon since I have a feeling this will wear off.

Outside of school, Jules and I have been going on lots of Chiang Mai adventures. One of the things that makes Chiang Mai such a great place to live is all of the wonderful things that are just an hour or two away right outside the city. There’s a great rock climbing site that was built and is maintained by Chiang Mai Rock Climbers. It’s a beautiful area that definitely makes me want to pick up rock climbing as a hobby. We’ve also been to Huay Tung Tao lake, which is a great relaxation picnic area. We have a membership (which is really just a buy 9 get the 10^th free punch card) for a swimming pool. There’s also the floating houses, which is exactly as it sounds, where people eat, drink, and are merry in a house on the water. Some other things I’m looking forward to are the botanical gardens, the hot springs, Mae Sa Waterfall, the Golden Triangle, and other beautiful scenic routes and hikes. We’re going to start taking Thai language classes soon, which I’m super excited about because as I’ve said before, it’s near impossible to learn the language by just listening to it and trying to pick it up. We also volunteer at a nearby dog shelter, Care For Dogs, though we haven’t been able to stop by in a while since we can only go on weekends and things have been hectic with the school year starting up.

It's monsoon season now, which is actually really fun, both getting caught in the rain (depending on where we're coming from) and being inside while it storms outside. Plus the nights are a cool 85 degrees sometimes.

Our big break will be in October and Julia are deciding whether we should go home (since it will have been over a year since we’ve visited America) or travel to more countries in Southeast Asia. We’ve also talked about our various plans for after this year, since if either of us are looking into grad school, we have to start researching, taking the GRE, and applying soon.

I’m sure there are things I’ve forgotten, but I hope this gives you somewhat of an idea of how/where we are now. J