So I'm back at my trusty cafe, the one I talked about the last time I hadn't posted in a long time and the one that always serves as an inspiration to be more diligent with the blog, but this time around the reason we don't have much to say anymore is because we live here now and have been just working so really this is just daily life now and as you well know, that isn't always that easy to write about because the most interesting things are the small everyday things, like a kid giving you candy and a heart sticker, rather than the big things, like you riding and bathing an elephant.
*Deep breath*
It's getting much much hotter here in Chiang Mai. We had a solid two months in which no air conditioning was needed, but now I can barely stand the heat. And at least I can sweat. Julia's body doesn't know what to do since it's supposed to be living in England, so it's just freaking out. Meanwhile my hair is fabulous. If you didn't understand any of that, not to worry, it just means you're not a girl and/or you're not racist (one more explanation, the racist part is because Julia says I was biologically and evolutionarily made for this kind of weather and that's why I'm thriving, hence the hair).
The first thing I'd like to write about is our new job! With the help of our fabulous friend Haleigh, we've managed to get a job at the Prince Royal's College, which is google-able and has been around for 100 years, which is impressive considering Chiang Mai has only just become a city of prominence in Thailand second only to Bangkok about 100 years ago. Do you know how exciting it is for us that we can tell you where we work and you can google it? And not only that, you can find it on google maps! And it has a web site! In English! Anyway, this job will be full time for a year. Along with the prestige will come a higher salary, health insurance, paid holidays (we get Christmas off!), and help with our visa/work permit stuff (which of course isn't needed anymore since we already went through all the steps on our own from our current job). We'll also have an orientation that comes with swag. All of this may sound matter-of-fact and obvious to someone with a job in America, but this is really awesome and a step up for us here in Thailand. It's about a 20 minute commute (that includes traffic) on our motorbike (no more hour commute!) as it's right on the other side of town.
The most obvious downside is that we have to leave our students, and naturally it comes right at the time when we feel we've gotten through to them and could really begin to make a difference if we continued teaching them. We love our morning school (in fact, we have a big ASEAN celebration/parent-teacher party thing where all of the students are performing and I'm giving a short speech on a stage with a microphone! That's this Saturday and I'm sure the next entry will describe the adventures of that) and we would gladly work there again if it weren't for the commute. One of the teachers has already told me we should just move to Lamphun (in an adorable manner that this is the obvious solution and why didn't I come up with it myself), but in all honestly that would be like being asked to move to Bakersfield after living in LA (not hating, just saying that the only time I went there was for soccer tournaments and there was nothing but windmills and flat land and one huge building that seemed to be the only hub for all their entertainment, from pizza to movies to bowling to beer). The other smaller cons are that our days will be longer (7:30-4:30 rather than our current 9:30-3 and sometimes 2, but that's not including the commute), but there will be fewer actual contact hours (2-4 classes a day max compared to our current 5 classes a day every day). We'll also have only a handful of grade levels (I'll be taking upper Mattayom which is like 10-12th graders, while Julia will be taking lower Mattayom, which is like 7th-9th graders) and if you haven't already googled the school by now (shame on you for not interactively reading this blog entry so that you can grasp the full scope of our lives and how we're feeling and what it looks like), it's a fairly prestigious school so the students overall tend to be ones that work hard (excepting the ones whose parents are the ones that want them to succeed and are just pushing them along, hoping that the motivation will eventually become intrinsic). Another interesting factor to this new job (you can decide for yourself if this is a pro or a con) is that appearance is a big thing. We've already heard plenty of stories from the other teachers about how important it is to be well-dressed with skirts past the knees and no nail polish, or only light colored nail polish, and hair and make-up done, etc. etc. As with a lot of things in Thailand, it's all about appearances. This is also true for our current job, as when we were first interviewed, we were only considered for the kindergarten jobs and we quickly found that everyone who worked at the kindergarten looked a bit like us, while basically each person who worked at the upper grade levels was a sharply dressed over 6-foot white male. But at PRC, appearance means always looking like a pristine Marry Poppins-esque teacher even outside of school. Alas, someday our skill set and experience will be what's important, but maybe it's a good thing that day is not today.
Well the computer/internet is freaking out on me so I think it's time to bring this entry to a close. My ramblings will continue soon with a nice detailed entry about the entire process of getting a visa and work permit here (if our blog ever gets famous, I think it would be nice for someone to have an easy to understand step-by-step process, something that we couldn't find during our adventures. Of course, since the likelihood of that happening is minimal, that entry will instead most likely serve as entertainment for you all who can chuckle at the red tape and relish the fact that it wasn't you who had to dance around the Thai government for months, trying to remain legal).
Happy Valentine's Day from here in Thailand! Love and miss you all.
*Deep breath*
It's getting much much hotter here in Chiang Mai. We had a solid two months in which no air conditioning was needed, but now I can barely stand the heat. And at least I can sweat. Julia's body doesn't know what to do since it's supposed to be living in England, so it's just freaking out. Meanwhile my hair is fabulous. If you didn't understand any of that, not to worry, it just means you're not a girl and/or you're not racist (one more explanation, the racist part is because Julia says I was biologically and evolutionarily made for this kind of weather and that's why I'm thriving, hence the hair).
The first thing I'd like to write about is our new job! With the help of our fabulous friend Haleigh, we've managed to get a job at the Prince Royal's College, which is google-able and has been around for 100 years, which is impressive considering Chiang Mai has only just become a city of prominence in Thailand second only to Bangkok about 100 years ago. Do you know how exciting it is for us that we can tell you where we work and you can google it? And not only that, you can find it on google maps! And it has a web site! In English! Anyway, this job will be full time for a year. Along with the prestige will come a higher salary, health insurance, paid holidays (we get Christmas off!), and help with our visa/work permit stuff (which of course isn't needed anymore since we already went through all the steps on our own from our current job). We'll also have an orientation that comes with swag. All of this may sound matter-of-fact and obvious to someone with a job in America, but this is really awesome and a step up for us here in Thailand. It's about a 20 minute commute (that includes traffic) on our motorbike (no more hour commute!) as it's right on the other side of town.
The most obvious downside is that we have to leave our students, and naturally it comes right at the time when we feel we've gotten through to them and could really begin to make a difference if we continued teaching them. We love our morning school (in fact, we have a big ASEAN celebration/parent-teacher party thing where all of the students are performing and I'm giving a short speech on a stage with a microphone! That's this Saturday and I'm sure the next entry will describe the adventures of that) and we would gladly work there again if it weren't for the commute. One of the teachers has already told me we should just move to Lamphun (in an adorable manner that this is the obvious solution and why didn't I come up with it myself), but in all honestly that would be like being asked to move to Bakersfield after living in LA (not hating, just saying that the only time I went there was for soccer tournaments and there was nothing but windmills and flat land and one huge building that seemed to be the only hub for all their entertainment, from pizza to movies to bowling to beer). The other smaller cons are that our days will be longer (7:30-4:30 rather than our current 9:30-3 and sometimes 2, but that's not including the commute), but there will be fewer actual contact hours (2-4 classes a day max compared to our current 5 classes a day every day). We'll also have only a handful of grade levels (I'll be taking upper Mattayom which is like 10-12th graders, while Julia will be taking lower Mattayom, which is like 7th-9th graders) and if you haven't already googled the school by now (shame on you for not interactively reading this blog entry so that you can grasp the full scope of our lives and how we're feeling and what it looks like), it's a fairly prestigious school so the students overall tend to be ones that work hard (excepting the ones whose parents are the ones that want them to succeed and are just pushing them along, hoping that the motivation will eventually become intrinsic). Another interesting factor to this new job (you can decide for yourself if this is a pro or a con) is that appearance is a big thing. We've already heard plenty of stories from the other teachers about how important it is to be well-dressed with skirts past the knees and no nail polish, or only light colored nail polish, and hair and make-up done, etc. etc. As with a lot of things in Thailand, it's all about appearances. This is also true for our current job, as when we were first interviewed, we were only considered for the kindergarten jobs and we quickly found that everyone who worked at the kindergarten looked a bit like us, while basically each person who worked at the upper grade levels was a sharply dressed over 6-foot white male. But at PRC, appearance means always looking like a pristine Marry Poppins-esque teacher even outside of school. Alas, someday our skill set and experience will be what's important, but maybe it's a good thing that day is not today.
Well the computer/internet is freaking out on me so I think it's time to bring this entry to a close. My ramblings will continue soon with a nice detailed entry about the entire process of getting a visa and work permit here (if our blog ever gets famous, I think it would be nice for someone to have an easy to understand step-by-step process, something that we couldn't find during our adventures. Of course, since the likelihood of that happening is minimal, that entry will instead most likely serve as entertainment for you all who can chuckle at the red tape and relish the fact that it wasn't you who had to dance around the Thai government for months, trying to remain legal).
Happy Valentine's Day from here in Thailand! Love and miss you all.
