The First Day

Well the first day was interesting. They apparently have this whole assembly every morning to sing the school song and they all line up on the grass. Two out of my three classes were canceled because they had some sort of camp so I had one class with the oldest kids, the M6 class. Thats 50 minutes out of a 8-5 work day.
Class was so funny, but the kids were helpful so that was nice. I got real nervous and blew through my introduction while forgetting to do half the things I wanted to do, but it was too late to go back. Sooo I played hangman with the class for like twenty minutes. The kids loved it... I think. What I guess I didn't realize until now that I'll actually be a teacher with little to no guidance from anyone. I'm not sure why I thought it would be easy to be a teacher when I have no teacher training at all, but I suppose I'll manage.
I'm pretty sure one boy was laughing at me like the whole class, but it could just be my nerves talking. Overall the day was fairly uneventful.
The coolest part is hanging in the teachers lounge. I'll tell you one thing, you know when you're in school and you always wonder what the teachers do in the teachers lounge? Well they literally eat, plan, and talk about the students.

We eat lunch together a lot. She brought me lunch today.

Just your average Wyteboard Marker...

Karma.. Did I spell that right?

We had to go to the school this morning to get our schedules for what we'll be teaching. For the entire week I see 16 different classes once and one class twice. Weird, but it's cool. Should be thrilling.

Just your average boring picture of the language department

Anyway guess who tried to be my friend. Well I'll start at the beginning. We go to a meeting to receive our schedules. Then I get back and am siting at my desk and I think, "Hey I should probably try and make some sort of a lesson plan even though I have no idea what I'm doing." So I open my desk and I'm like jeez what a mess (in my head of course). The teacher next to me happens to look over and says, "Oh my gosh Leah the rats got into your desk!" And that was when I realized that my drawer was full of rat poop and chewed up stuff. Karma from my last post for sure.

 Poor dude will be drowned in the river behind the school. Thats what he gets for pooping and chewing on other peoples things though. P.S. that is not my juice box.

Don't worry cute face, I'll still be your friend.

We had a coffee break which was actually a lot of fun. It was basically just us Americans hanging with a bunch of ladies who were the Thai versions of our moms. They told us stories and we laughed.

Homies love their coffee breaks here

Thai desserts are actually quite good. I mean I'm pretty sure they're all covered in sweetened condensed milk so no wonder they're so good. Don't be surprised if I weigh a hundred pounds when I get back. Wait thats not right... Don't be surprised if I weigh a hundred million pounds when I get back.

Lunch was scary, but good

P-Moo my coordinator.

"Tell your mom I'm your Thai mom and take good care of you."

Rats and Physicals

Today we met everyone in the language department and were also introduced to the rest of the teachers at the school. There were tons of Thai names that I cannot at all remember, some Chinese names, and Ann which I do remember. They were all very nice. My favorite part occurred when there was some commotion in the language department before the meeting and I was just watching, listening to a language I could not understand when a younger teacher turns to me and laughs and says, "There is a huge rat problem!" And I thought to myself I'm not sure I'd find discovering this information as humorous as them, especially if the rats had apparently infested my top drawer in my desk. I later found out a mouse had chewed through my coordinator's Masters diploma.
At the meeting we had to go to the podium and introduce ourselves via microphone and golly my voice sounds funny, especially that loud. So I introduced myself and laughed half way through, but the Thai homies loved it. They gave me a ceramic mug which was pretty dang cool. For hot beverages I had been using an old plastic iced coffee cup.
Later in the day we went to a clinic because foreign teachers must get a physical in order to work in the country. While we were there my coordinator said, "Leah, you know the doctor is very smart!" and then started laughing. At first I thought she was trying to make a joke that he was incompetent and laughed because she was laughing. Then she said something about a new boyfriend and I realized she was trying to hook me up with said random doctor. Classic. The physical included: being weighed, blood pressure being taken, a doctor asking if I was sick, a doctor asking if I had any symptoms, a doctor asking if I had a cough, a doctor listening to me take two deep breaths, a doctors having me hold my arms out and lightly squeezing each forearm as well as the same with each calf. Then we went to another room to have our blood drawn by a nurse who was gloveless. They test for syphilis and that only.
I'm terribly sorry I haven't any photos to further tell the story of the day.

Adventures and dead pigs

We we're supposed to meet up at 9 AM this morning to walk around the school and meet some other teachers. We get there early and wait for PMoo, our coordinator. She arrives and SIKE we weren't supposed to meet up at all. But she feels so bad she walks us around the school. There's a really cool garden on one side of the school thats tended by the agriculture department and students. She then takes us to coffee and buys us treats and pineapple. We feel super bad because not only were we not supposed to go there today, now PMoo is buying us all this stuff. It was yum though.

Sometimes you see some hip dudes.

We then ate some street food and it was so dang good and cost only $1 American which was coolio.

After lunch we felt adventure was necessary so we took a bus to this outdoor market. When I say bus I mean more of a trolly type thing that is really hot and homies just pack right in. I should just stop saying it was hot because everything is always hot, except the showers.. those are just on/off. Anyway, the bus only cost 20 cents American so its casual.

There are bridges over the streets providing amazing views.

The market is huge and has just about everything in the world except what you're looking for. Just kidding they probably have what you're looking for, but they didn't have what we were looking for. However, I saw a ton of used old tennis shoes and boots and said heck why not. I found some cool old Everlast shoes after bypassing the high top denim hello kitty converse which I very much regret. The lady tries to get me to pay 280 baht and I'm like what the heck is this, no way. After like 5 minutes of no one understanding each other and the shoes being a size and a half too big, I buy them for 250 baht just to get out of there. So that was fun!

They're cool though and had brand new laces.

We continue walking around and see some weird and crazy stuff in the market.

 Sweatshop made clothing

 A model

 I guess all the little piggies went to the market

 I got him to smile

Food

I've had two semi humorous events surrounding food happen. Firstly last night Jonathan (one of the other american teachers here) and I went in search of some food and we stumbled upon this giant half outdoor/half indoor buffet style restaurant. We were the only Americans at all so we had no idea whether it was a private party, a wedding, or simply a super crowded restaurant. But we go for it, you know whats the worst that could happen. We somehow get a guy to get us a table. It is the hottest moment of my Thailand experience because inside this tent-like covering are upwards of a hundred tables each with their own individual mini bbq. It was the coolest thing, but not at all cool... good joke right?

Anyway we get our food and I never know what I'm eating unless its fruit. Like cool some deep fried stuff that looks like fat? It tasted pretty good. One thing though, they had little chicken wings that were the best I've ever had, ever.

Just a couple of crabs. At first I was a bit freaked by the masses of raw fish and raw meat like chillin in huge trays, but it ended up being pretty cool cooking them right in front of our faces. Like literally I got burnt a couple times from the coals popping. The main point though is coming. Jonathon returns with a plate that looks like giant leeches (the plate sitting right in front of him in the picture) and informs me that I'm going to try liver tonight. And I'm like... "NO WAY JOSE!" but then I was like.. "okay, but only so I can say I've tried it before." So we cook these pieces of slimy black slime. Finally they're ready and I'm like okay I'll have at least one bite. And I bite in and immediately my mouth is filled with chalky cat food and it won't get out of my mouth and I feel really bad for making funny faces. And then Jonathan starts laughing and is like, "Its good! You don't like it?" and then he takes a bite and makes the same face and says, "You said it tasted like cat food so all I could think was cat food."So we decided it was probably just a cat liver.

Tonight I decided to make rice..

Classic right? Who tries to pour rice from a full 5 pound bag into a quarter of a cup measuring cup? Everyone knows you put the tiny cup into the giant bag. Funniest thing ever. The good news is, the rice ended up perfect.

Wifi went for a walk.

One topic that must be mentioned at least once is the wifi. I keep trying to tell myself, "Hey Leah! You're in Thailand! Cry me a huge gigantic river if theres bad wifi! Show a little appreciation for the simple things in life!" It hasn't been working though. Probably because I would never show that much enthusiasm when talking to myself and would rarely show that much enthusiasm when talking to other people. It can be a big old bummer when trying to find some connection with loved ones back home. But I will take a faulty connection over no connection at all. Oh the advantages of the 21st century! Gosh that is like 17 too many exclamation points for one paragraph.
I went on a short and solo walk to the 7/11.

I call this "Life in the medium speed lane"

Just another hut.

The walk was partially terrifying and partially exciting. Terrifying because ever since birth I believe I have been told to not walk alone since I'm a girl, but check me out! I'm alive and well and running wild. It was exciting because I was going to find out if 7/11 sold bread, I was going to buy a Coke for sure, and I was going to take a gander at the variety of juices because I should try to remain somewhat healthy and I like the taste.

One thing about the convenience stores here is they provide you with a straw with every beverage purchase. So dang classy. So far one of my favorite things about Thailand. Also Minute Maid "Pulpy" is divine.
I kind of love the look of my apartment building. There is probably a better word for "kind of love", but I'm not a dictionary.

 Don't listen to anything your literature, humanities, film or otherwise teachers say. Being barred in can just as easily symbolize freedom. Such a geometric view.

Baby blue never looked better.

So anyway I got my daily exercise. I'm going to be frank with you all. Due to my lack of activity (I don't start teaching for another week) I have been working out in my room like your average inmate. A girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

Carry on dog.

(That caption applies to both the dude in the pic as well as you, reader.)

Apartment Living

My apartment is this studio apartment which is basically one huge room with a door to the bathroom, a door to the barred off balcony that looks directly into everyone elses apartments, and a door to leave and well enter. I know what you're thinking... how chic and starving new york artist of her. But its more like cool big white florescent lit room with matching dark painted particle board furniture and no kitchen. Don't get me wrong its pretty cool.
I feel like I'm earning my way in the world. Shower curtains and refrigerators are for babies! Who even dries their clothes anymore. Wait theres more food in the world than ramen and rice (don't worry mom the food is by my choosing)? These are the sort of things that as parents always say in books and movies (never my own parents) "It builds character!".
So anyway I'm building so much character or whatever. But I mostly just go online and watch movies because I haven't started work yet. I know what you're thinking again (I'm super psychic right now)... why don't you go explore and see a bunch of cool stuff? In due time my friends. As I sort of implied in the earlier paragraph, this homie is poor.

Well my first post.

Due to the fact that I'm on the opposite time of roughly everyone I know, minus of course the few people I know here in Thailand, I've created a blog so as to entertain myself. I say myself because I doubt anyone else will get much entertainment from it. I suppose we'll see.
I did a bunch of stuff during orientation like walking around the grand palace and sweating a shiz ton (sorry for the language). I also sat in a large gold adorned ballroom for several hours on end. Rode some elephants (I laughed the whole time). Our "driver" had a really cool naturally distressed denim shirt. I ate dinner on a party barge, okay that's an exaggeration, but it was cool. I also rode down a river on a raft. The rafter guy had a really tech haircut. And hung with some new homies. In other worlds, welcome to my life.

See isn't that a great shirt? All of the things listed above were thrilling in many ways. It's just been too long since they happened to divulge all the juicy details. Plus I already wrote them in my travel notebook.