I've only been teaching six days at this school and already I have time off! That doesn't include sports day last Friday that I had to attend as part of the faculty. All I did was wave at students and watch them spend all their parents' money on worthless junk. It was like a carnival type thing with face painting and even a haunted house! Actually it was more like a haunted tiny room. But those kids were paying upwards of 20 baht to see inside so at least the school made money! Money to give to me during all these days off!
The weekend was fun. My fellow English teachers took me out for dinner at this steak restaurant in Pran Buri. Here's the thing about young Thai restaurants serving western food: everything is made in the order starting with the longest item to prepare, and then goes on down to the dishes that take the least amount of time. Only one item can be cooked at a time (not because they can't, but because that's just what they decided) and when it is finished, it is brought to the table. There were seven of us. We ordered at 7. The last dish arrived at our table right before 9. And my southern manners prevented me from eating until then. The only problem was that I had gotten my food around 7:30. Eating cold chicken reminded me of how my mom loves eating cold meat. It was good, but not good. After that most of us went to a bar right down the street to loosen up and hang out after our first week back after the holidays so that was fun. It felt so good to use sarcasm again! It had been way too long.
After a nice first weekend in the middle of nowhere, school started again. Every morning I have to be there at 7:30. I go to my office and look at what happened on Facebook in the United States while I was sleeping and then at 8 we have assembly. Like other schools, we raise the flag and sing the college football fight song-style national anthem. Then we say our prayers to Buddha and thank him 3 times and sing a little song to him. Then one of the English teachers gets on the little stage and gives what my boss calls "general English knowledge." I don't think any of us has any idea what that means. But the teachers so far have just given a word of the day and explained its meaning. I have to give the general knowledge tomorrow and I can't decide if I'll just do a word of the day or if I'll choose to speak the lyrics of a western pop song. I want to be brave, but we'll see how it goes. More on that later.
Next we all scramble and go to our first classes. My schedule is different every day, but Mondays are good because I only have 5th and 6th grade, but bad because they're a bunch of rebellious preteens. My first class is 6/4. This class has my favorite student, Ploy. She sits next to a girl also named Ploy. And there is another girl a couple rows back also named Ploy. They're only 3 of the 7 Ploys I teach in the 6th grade. Confusing, huh? I like her the most because regardless of whether the class is sitting quietly doing work or wildly screaming and not paying attention, she is ALWAYS focused and ready to learn. It makes the class worth it knowing that I can impart knowledge to at least one student. Mondays and Tuesdays are hard because I only have one free period at the end of the day, but not the very end, so I can't leave early.
The best day is Wednesday because periods 1 and 2 are free so I can sleep in! This week is different though because all my students have mid-terms today and tomorrow. So I go to assembly in the morning and then I'm finished for the day! And then Friday is Teachers' day and no one goes to school for that!
My very kind, accommodating, efficient, and helpful new agency is giving me a salary advance since I only came here with about 9000 baht and I wouldn't be getting paid until the 30th! I spent 8000 on my rent and deposit and 1000 has been spend solely on food. In fact, today I literally spent my last 20 baht note. And that was just for water. Now I have exactly 28 baht in change and that will only be used for an emergency between now and tomorrow afternoon. I have to be very careful because my motorbike is very close to empty and I have to drive almost a kilometer to get to the bank and then to the gas station. But if bad goes to worse I can just push the bike to get the gas after I'm at the bank. Anyway, the agency is giving me 10000 of my salary now, and then 20000 of it on the 30th. The Lord at work again! It's interesting how frugally you can actually live when you literally have no money. I'm not worried though. If God has taken such good care of my up to this point, I know he's not gonna stop now.
My very rude, unaccommodating, inefficient, and unhelpful previous agency conveniently "lost" my time sheets for a whole week in December. Of course they didn't ever mention to me that they couldn't find them. When I asked when I'd be receiving the rest of my money, they didn't even say that didn't have them! After all I went through with them I was certainly not happy. I knew I sent those time sheets so I went back into my email and found them for those geniuses. I literally cannot understand why they would either be so ridiculously rude and delete that email or "forget" I sent them, or be so incredibly incompetent that they actually did think that I didn't work an entire week in December and think that was completely normal. I'm getting all worked up again talking about this! They better get it right this time or they will get an earful from me and hopefully from XploreAsia in the process. I will not be cheated by them again!
Now that the rant is over I can talk about what I miss. FOOD! I miss the ever flowing fountain of ginger ale that would flow from the outside fridge. I miss eating eggs in all its wonderful forms. I miss smelling grilled beef and then actually getting to eat grilled beef! I miss being able to cook my own food in an actual kitchen! I haven't even seen a real live kitchen in almost four months! Microwave food is good, but at some point I have to move on! Street vendors are good too, but again, at some point I need something more! And one day I'll have that and it will be such a magnificent meal I'll take a bunch of pictures and post them on here. But until that day, peanut butter sandwiches with a side of wavy lays and a bottle of orange fanta will have to do!
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