Now class, pay attention.

I suppose I can officially call myself a teacher now. Not in the way that I have an appropriate degree, experience, or any idea what I'm doing, but it's my actual job description. That counts for something, right? I've been at school for almost a week, so I'll break it into days.

Wed: It was my first full day in Suphanburi and luckily I didn't have to teach. the plan was to sleep in, but the construction got me up early and there was no point trying to sleep through a giant banging machine (real name unkown) that makes my bed jump - just a little, but still, it jumps. Wattana, my coordinator and thai mother/keeper of the crazy Westerner, picked me up before noon to take me to school and show me around.

The school is called Kanchanapisek. There's actually at least four more syllables, but that's what everyone calls it and I can barely pronounce that. It's huge and beautiful and surrounded by rice fields. I litterally can see people pick rice on my way home. It's about a ten minute drive from my apartment, so the school van (Thailand mostly uses vans instead of buses) picks me up and takes me home. I could tell right away that finding my way around would be more than a bit difficult, but (thankfully) I found out I teach 90% of my classes in the same room and - this is key - that roomis air conditioned. They put me with a lot of advanced classes and - their their words, not mine - the smart kids get air conditioning as a reward for being better learners.

Thurs: My first day of teaching. I got up with plenty of time (a trend I'm sure will not last) and thought about panicking, but decided it was too early. I got dressed instead, in heels I already knew I would regret. But almost all of the Thai teachers wear them and as the Thais do, so shall I. After I left the building, I realized I wasn't really clear on where I'm getting picked up or what my van looks like. I live right next to another school so while I wandered back and forth, hoping someone would shout "Teacher, get in" I had hundreds of uniformed students staring and giggling at me. I have it on good authority that the staring and giggling will not go away and that I will not get used ot it. Finally, I saw a promising vehicle and said the school's name to the driver. He nodded, looked confused, but let me in. I successfully made it to school, only to find out that I took the wrong van and my van's driver called Wattana, who in turn got everyone worried about me. Not the greatest start. Then, I found out that I had five classes that day, and the first three were right away, back-to-back. Nothing like getting throgn into the deep end.

My classes that day probably could have been worse, but if they had I think I would have quit right then and jumped on a plane home. Five minutes into the first class, I realized I should have just said "screw the heels, the Thais are crazy anyway". My lesson plan was less than stellar. It's hard to prepare when you have no idea who you're teaching until the day before. And that still doesn't help determine skill level. Luckily, the students had no idea. They consider teachers in general to be pretty infallible, and Westerners? Every word we grace them with is pure gold.

The first two classes were not in my main room, so they had a computer and projector system instead of a white board. Fancy, but I didn't know how to use it, although it didn't matter because they weren't working anyway. So the classrooms had to get switched. And on top of everything, changing climates and pretty much my entire lifestyle finally caught up with me and I had a massive cold. But I did learn something useful: it's not the sun you need to watch out for, but the humidity. By my third class (in a row) I was swaying on my feet and figured out that although I'd been sipping water all day, I need to be gulping it. Constantly pouring sweat tends to dehydrate one.

By the end of the day, I was more exhausted than I've been in a long time (26 hour plane ride included), I was forcing myself not to limp, and the heat, humidity, and illness had not me the prettiest person at school. I still had to figure out a way to improve the lesson plans for tomorrow, but I couldn't get my brain to work. It was time to go home and die - or, at the very least, shower.

Fri: I can't fully explain how much better this day was. I woke up illness free, learned from my unfortunate shoe decision and wore flats, and found the right van without any trouble. Hooray! I only had three classes that day and, even though I didn't do any work the night before on the lesson, somehow I managed to wing it and things were better. I had a long talk with Wattana about all the levels I'm teaching, which is the primary source of my stress. Just about every teacher in school, in most Thai schools, teaches one or two grades. Kanchanapisek goes from 7th to 12th, although they call it 1 to 6. I teach all of 1 (which is 11 classes), three classes in 2, one 3, one 4, and four in 6. And they all have 50 or more students in each class. It's a massive amount of prep and while they might think I'm some sort of language god because I'm a native English speaker, I'm not even close to being a qualified teacher. I asked Wattana if I could replace my 3 and 4 classes with ones from the other levels, which would make my load much more manageable. We're giving it a week and I don't know how likely a schedule change is, but at least I told her right away that I wasn't sure I could handle it.

This is already a monster post, so I'll cut off here. Don't worry, things go way up from this point. Later, my weekend, my apartment building mates and fellow English teachers, and life so far in Suphanburi.

Nit noi: Little bit. As in, "a little bit spicy". I don't use it much, because they don't listen anyway.