One of the most integral parts of Thai culture (and general politeness) is the 'Wai', the traditional Thai greeting.
If you want to learn more about it taking a trip to ESL guru Kieron's website about the ins and outs of Thai culture is very handy. He'd appreciate it if you clicked on a few of the adverts also and so would I on this blog (as hitting my target of £60 keeps me out of the UK for another 2 days!) Alas, I don't feel that it is my purpose in life to educate people about important things. Instead I'm going to talk about my problem with 'the wai'.
The problem I have with 'the wai' is......... (drumroll)........
.......when somone 'wai's' me and I have to wai someone back..... I NEVER HAVE MY HANDS EMPTY (no laughing at the back!)
My laptop, my crash helmet (no laughing at the back), 5/1's homework, more blu-tac than a man can carry. None of which I can drop. This invariably leads to me giving them a slightly bent 'quarter wai' that can't be good for my spine and makes me look (and feel) stupid amongst my colleagues. A cup of coffee is particularly bad as it usually results is a spillage and stain that won't fade in the heat.
That leads me to the question? Why are all my Thai friends ready to 'wai' a a moments notice? They never have to awkwardly put something down. Is there some kind of secret utility belt that no one has told me about?
If you could point me in the correct direction that would be massively helpful.
However, an awkward wai is infinately better than an awkward handshake. Every morning... much to the amusement of my 3rd years, one of the older Thai teacher's approaches me, wai's me and then shakes my hand. .....
....initially it was charming. She obviously sees it as the correct proper way to great 'an Englishman' and I appreciated it. However, the handshake is incredibly weak and lasts way too long.
It's not helped by the fact that she then procedes to tell me how unwell she is feeling. By rights she should be dead. A new symptom every day.... all due to the weather changing. I'm seriously considering opening a homeopathy clinc in PR.
Meanwhile, my 3rd year boys, who I discussed this with, are finding the whole exchange very amusing. They've done their research on the internet and know the significance of a weak hand handshake. "Teacher, Teacher.. why is handshake so weak?...Ladyboy?".
Thanks boys.
In the meantime please find a youtube video of the least classy wai you will ever see. It comes in at 0:55.
Cheers.
Saturday 23 February 2013
Thursday 21 February 2013
Mid-term (End of year) report M5
I'm now even further down the track away from Mid-terms and I've taught my last ever lesson at PR School, I'm in the process of testing the children for their unofficial end of year exams.
(Unofficial in that I'm under no contractual obligation to do it, but the children deserve to know where they are. Although in truth, a lot of my grades are highly inflated, purely to give the kids the confidence and enthusiasm to advance their studies. I'll cover this in another post about 'English in North East Thailand'.)
It's very appropriate today to write an article on M5 as what happened today is typical of my experience teaching them.
Due to a last minute realisation that Scout camp, end of year exams and a school trip where going severely reduce the amount of time I had to test the students, I was left with the only option of having to get test 30 children, on conversational English, in 1 hour! (there will probably be a post later on entitled "No one tells Teacher Steve nuffin'"). Due to the timetable this was 0830 on a Thursday morning. I feared the worst.
M5's progress in English is victim to the school timetable (comedians will claim that its because they are taught by me 3 hours a week). Of the 3 hours I teach them, 2 of those lessons start at 0830...... just after assembly.
Sometimes, Thai school assembly is all over in 10 minutes (National Anthem, Buddhist prayer, Student's promise, School song, everyone 'Wais' each other. Job done). Unfortunately I teach M5 on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Wednesday's its English Assembly, meaning that sometimes I get pulled up to teach the children some key phrases. On other weeks Kru KhaoJao gets up on stage and teaches the children a few inappropriate phrases I taught her whilst watching the football on Sunday evening.
Assembly overruns by 10 minutes, the children disappear for breakfast and then by the time they are all in class I've got 20 minutes with them.
Thursday's are even worse. The assemblies can last for days. I have no idea why.
Today I turned up at school ready to test 30 students in 60 minutes, only to find out that the lesson had been replaced with a 'PR's Got Talent' show in the school hall, I kid you not. Buddha wept.
Bless, my lovely M5 students, but they were very happy to re-schedule the test out of hours.
M5 are probably my most conscientious class. No problem students. Lots of strong English speakers without any being exceptional. This probably boils down to the fact that out of 30 students, 27 of them are girls.
They were a great class that lacked a few characters... until I was tipped off that Som-O had a huge crush on one of my M4 students and then the lessons became a lot more interesting. Its amazing how talkative the kids become in English when they want to drop one of their friends in it
Luckily, Som-O is a lovely girl with a great sense of humour and every time she found another way to deny it, she improved her speaking skills.
Otherwise Jam was the best student. Perfect pronunciation and very sweet girl. She's regularly stop me at school to tell me about her new puppies and this made me realise how good her English is. Unfortunately one of her puppies has become sick recently and upon hearing that news Teacher now fears the worse and is trying to avoid an awkward conversation with young Jam ("How is your puppy Jam?" "It died that morning"). **Touch Wood** that does not happen.
Which leads me to the 3 boys. They are past adolescence and in a class of 27 girls, yet they all sit their as timid as door mice. No obvious lady boys in the class.
....Man up guys... some of the girls in your class are gorgeous (in a non-pervy.... they will look good in 5 years time kind of way).
Future related posts might include "Oh my God, Why in Thai Music videos is the singer ALWAYS longing for a girl he's never had the courage to speak to?" and "The difference between Western and Thai concepts of attractiveness)".
The conclusion is that Thai boys are shy.... or that the boys with the hormones racing had the sense to request being dropped down a class for fear of not being able to concentrate in 5/1.
An awkward conclusion to this post is that sometimes I get the 'Indianna Jones 'love you' eyes' from a couple of the girls in the class and I'm embarrassed to say sometimes it is distracting. Those poor girls need to get out of North East Thailand and meet a few more farang. I'm really not 'it'.
(Unofficial in that I'm under no contractual obligation to do it, but the children deserve to know where they are. Although in truth, a lot of my grades are highly inflated, purely to give the kids the confidence and enthusiasm to advance their studies. I'll cover this in another post about 'English in North East Thailand'.)
It's very appropriate today to write an article on M5 as what happened today is typical of my experience teaching them.
Due to a last minute realisation that Scout camp, end of year exams and a school trip where going severely reduce the amount of time I had to test the students, I was left with the only option of having to get test 30 children, on conversational English, in 1 hour! (there will probably be a post later on entitled "No one tells Teacher Steve nuffin'"). Due to the timetable this was 0830 on a Thursday morning. I feared the worst.
M5's progress in English is victim to the school timetable (comedians will claim that its because they are taught by me 3 hours a week). Of the 3 hours I teach them, 2 of those lessons start at 0830...... just after assembly.
Sometimes, Thai school assembly is all over in 10 minutes (National Anthem, Buddhist prayer, Student's promise, School song, everyone 'Wais' each other. Job done). Unfortunately I teach M5 on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Wednesday's its English Assembly, meaning that sometimes I get pulled up to teach the children some key phrases. On other weeks Kru KhaoJao gets up on stage and teaches the children a few inappropriate phrases I taught her whilst watching the football on Sunday evening.
Assembly overruns by 10 minutes, the children disappear for breakfast and then by the time they are all in class I've got 20 minutes with them.
Thursday's are even worse. The assemblies can last for days. I have no idea why.
Today I turned up at school ready to test 30 students in 60 minutes, only to find out that the lesson had been replaced with a 'PR's Got Talent' show in the school hall, I kid you not. Buddha wept.
Bless, my lovely M5 students, but they were very happy to re-schedule the test out of hours.
M5 are probably my most conscientious class. No problem students. Lots of strong English speakers without any being exceptional. This probably boils down to the fact that out of 30 students, 27 of them are girls.
They were a great class that lacked a few characters... until I was tipped off that Som-O had a huge crush on one of my M4 students and then the lessons became a lot more interesting. Its amazing how talkative the kids become in English when they want to drop one of their friends in it
Luckily, Som-O is a lovely girl with a great sense of humour and every time she found another way to deny it, she improved her speaking skills.
Otherwise Jam was the best student. Perfect pronunciation and very sweet girl. She's regularly stop me at school to tell me about her new puppies and this made me realise how good her English is. Unfortunately one of her puppies has become sick recently and upon hearing that news Teacher now fears the worse and is trying to avoid an awkward conversation with young Jam ("How is your puppy Jam?" "It died that morning"). **Touch Wood** that does not happen.
Which leads me to the 3 boys. They are past adolescence and in a class of 27 girls, yet they all sit their as timid as door mice. No obvious lady boys in the class.
....Man up guys... some of the girls in your class are gorgeous (in a non-pervy.... they will look good in 5 years time kind of way).
Future related posts might include "Oh my God, Why in Thai Music videos is the singer ALWAYS longing for a girl he's never had the courage to speak to?" and "The difference between Western and Thai concepts of attractiveness)".
The conclusion is that Thai boys are shy.... or that the boys with the hormones racing had the sense to request being dropped down a class for fear of not being able to concentrate in 5/1.
An awkward conclusion to this post is that sometimes I get the 'Indianna Jones 'love you' eyes' from a couple of the girls in the class and I'm embarrassed to say sometimes it is distracting. Those poor girls need to get out of North East Thailand and meet a few more farang. I'm really not 'it'.
Monday 18 February 2013
Where we're going we don't need roads. 3/1's vision of the future.
“I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention . . . arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.” Agatha Christie, An Autobiography
Agatha, you say that like its a bad thing?! So it followed that, after a weekend away in Pha Taem National Park and much too'ing and fro'ing in between Phibun Mangsahan and Ubon Ratchithani to retrieve my apartment and scooter keys, I didn't have much time to plan lessons for some of my classes.
Therefore my 3rd years were given a lesson I'd previously prepared for my 4/1 class based on talking about what they think will happen in the future. I bet some of you thought that the lesson plan was merely just a covert excuse to introduce the children to one of my favourite films of all time by showing them clips such as this:
and even this:
Anyway, back to 'the Future tense', the original theme of this post. We have no time to waste.
After we'd cleared the popcorn away, I asked the class what they think we will have in the year 2030. I put them into groups and gave them a couple of sheets of paper and asked them to design an invention for 2030.
Previously, when I had run this lesson with my 4th years the answers were pretty unimaginative.
A hat with propellers that makes you fly, shoes with wings that make you fly, a magic door that lets you go anywhere*. Nothing that they haven't seen in a film or cartoon already.
I was expecting the same from my 3/1 class, but Whoah. These guys really went to town.
Anyway: Let's take a look at the gallery. For the full Tony Hart Vision On experience please click here..
I start with a submission from Zack. The strongest English speaker out of all the lads in the class.
.Credit to Zack. He sure knows how it suck up to teacher. Zack has obviously picked up on Teacher's concern that Everton will lose Maroune Fellaini at the end of the football season and has suggested that should we lose our midfield engine we should simply build a replacement using parts of old washing machine.It looks like the game may lose it human touch, but never fear. Zack seems to have kept some of the traditional football ideals by programming his players to swear (Zack regularly likes to try and drop the word 'retard' into his conversations, knowing its naughty without actually understanding its meaning).
His classmate, Nam Wahn, seems to be behind the decision to introduce a new living breathing ball that complains vigorously every time it is kicked, much like Luis Suarez.
The main difference being that if this invention ever came to pass I'd feel guilty about kicking the ball.
The super rocket shoes are a nice touch. I want some.
Overall a decent effort: 7/10
Zack's friend Dew takes an all together different and bleaker view of the future. Perhaps Dew is more aware of the times of austerity in Western economies? The phone 'boasts' a massive 20 pixels (obviously) perfect for taking pictures should we wish to imagine what we might look like as Lego characters. All of the other features show no improvement from ancient 2012 models.
Am I slagging Dew off for his effort? Well, no. Eagle eyed pedants will notice that the pictured screen shot shows the camera to have least 21 apps on it. One more than the amount of pixels he claims it can handle. It's tongue in cheek.
THIS NEW iPHONE IS ORANGE FOR CHRISAKES! Where can I get my hands on 30,000 baths by 2030? At the moment I only have a shower. I MUST HAVE IT!
Dew is going to go far.
7/10
The USP of this train line is that the tracks can actually fly, presumably at close to the speed of light.
As well as there being serious question marks over the financial viability of the project (A single journey costing just 100 baht (£2)) the children have clearly never experienced a journey with South Eastern railways yet. I don't think they appreciate that 75% of the project journey time will be spent between East Croydon and Norwood Junction and what happens when a rainbow gets in the way? The station announcers will veritably wet their pants with excitement at the prospect of adding another excuse to their already substantial repertoire.
This invention scores points as they told me that it would enable me to continue teaching at the school after I returned to live in the UK. Arrr, bless! I've had more painful commutes, at least its a job I enjoy.
8/10
The premise behind it is that in 2030 buildings will be able to move around on wheels, so that you can live anywhere*. presumably the wheels will be able to adapted to travel on the international flying rail.
In addition the building has a face through which through its mouth can eat garbage. No more stinky Bangkok!
I'm a bit worried that if this invention comes to pass, in years to come this drawing will be held up as a chilling premonition, should the terrorists of the day decide to crash their UFOs or a Massive Flying Shark into one of the showpiece moving buildings. That's if they aren't destroyed accidentally when someone tries to take them under a low bridge in East Sussex.
I love this picture. It has pride of place on my fridge door.
10/10 (don't ask about the brain with the flower growing out of it.
* = 'anywhere' to a Thai student in Pathum Ratwongsa usually means Big C Supermarket in Amnat Charoen.
Apparently its the number one choice for shopping, first dates, hanging out with friends, holidays, you name it. I prefer to put this response down to the children's lack of confidence in their narrow vocabulary, rather than any lack of imagination. In the authors opinion Big C is handy for buying overpriced Coco Pops but offers little else in terms of excitement.
Saturday 2 February 2013
Charming Broken English
As a Tefl teacher its my job to correct children's grammatical errors (and their job to correct mine), but sometimes they are so charming you don't want to put them right.
Here's an example that happened to me today when I was waiting for a take-away at one of the town's food stalls.
Situation : A young boy (not one of my students) arrives at the stall on his bicycle. He looks delighted to see me.
YB: "Teacher, I speak good English."
Steve: "Excellent! What class are you in?"
YB: (looks confused)
....... there follows a clumsy exchange involving hand waving and writing down of numbers to establish which class he is in.
Steve: "Oh, you are in Teacher Sang-ub's class!"
YB: "Yes"
Steve: "Do you like English?"
TB: "I play footban".
Steve: "Where do you play football?"
YB: "11 o'clock."
Steve: "Do you play football at the school?"
YB: Yes, I play footaban at sa-cool" (Looks delighted).
Steve: Which football team do you like?
YB: (Blank face)
Steve: "Teacher likes EV-ER-TON. Do you like Everton?"
YB: (Adopts the default blank face of every Thai person I speak to when I say the word 'Everton').
Steve: "Do you like Manchester United?..... Do you like Barcelona?...... Chelsea?
YB: (Enthusiastically) "Arsenal"
Steve: (reluctantly) "Excellent! Which player do you like?"
YB: "Theo Walcott"
Steve: "Why do you like Theo Walcott?"
YB: "He has Top Speed"
The phrase 'He has Top Speed" made me laugh. I realised that alot of the students learn their English from the internet and computer games. Maybe even from an old addition of Top Trumps? The Rubik's cube its certainly huge amongst my first years at the moment. They loved Guess Who! The 1980's were a golden age for educating children.
To his credit the student involved in the exchange above did very well. Primarily as he had the confidence to approach me and introduce himself (most of the student's I don't teach run away embarassed when I ask them anything more complex than "How are you?). He also stuck with the conversation when I clearly didn't understand some of his responses (not included in the above dialouge).
Regardless of this, Theo Walcott having 'Top Speed' reminded me of this clip from a film set in Thailand:
Here's an example that happened to me today when I was waiting for a take-away at one of the town's food stalls.
Situation : A young boy (not one of my students) arrives at the stall on his bicycle. He looks delighted to see me.
YB: "Teacher, I speak good English."
Steve: "Excellent! What class are you in?"
YB: (looks confused)
....... there follows a clumsy exchange involving hand waving and writing down of numbers to establish which class he is in.
Steve: "Oh, you are in Teacher Sang-ub's class!"
YB: "Yes"
Steve: "Do you like English?"
TB: "I play footban".
Steve: "Where do you play football?"
YB: "11 o'clock."
Steve: "Do you play football at the school?"
YB: Yes, I play footaban at sa-cool" (Looks delighted).
Steve: Which football team do you like?
YB: (Blank face)
Steve: "Teacher likes EV-ER-TON. Do you like Everton?"
YB: (Adopts the default blank face of every Thai person I speak to when I say the word 'Everton').
Steve: "Do you like Manchester United?..... Do you like Barcelona?...... Chelsea?
YB: (Enthusiastically) "Arsenal"
Steve: (reluctantly) "Excellent! Which player do you like?"
YB: "Theo Walcott"
Steve: "Why do you like Theo Walcott?"
YB: "He has Top Speed"
The phrase 'He has Top Speed" made me laugh. I realised that alot of the students learn their English from the internet and computer games. Maybe even from an old addition of Top Trumps? The Rubik's cube its certainly huge amongst my first years at the moment. They loved Guess Who! The 1980's were a golden age for educating children.
To his credit the student involved in the exchange above did very well. Primarily as he had the confidence to approach me and introduce himself (most of the student's I don't teach run away embarassed when I ask them anything more complex than "How are you?). He also stuck with the conversation when I clearly didn't understand some of his responses (not included in the above dialouge).
Regardless of this, Theo Walcott having 'Top Speed' reminded me of this clip from a film set in Thailand:
 |
"Theo Walcott: He has Top Speed" - Por M2/3 |
Friday 1 February 2013
Mid-term report M6
I ended the introduction to my blog with:
Well 3 weeks on and I'm completely in the home straight of my first teaching contract. Please find below a rundown of my opinions of each class I teach.
Currently I'm teaching at Pathum Ratchwongsa School, situated in the town of the same name in the province of Amnat Charoen. It really is in the arse end of nowhere, but lets leave that until another post.
Today I will be concentrating on the kids. All of whom I adore..
There's about 1,300 kids in the school, of which I teach just over 200. As I'm the only 'farang' teacher at the school my sole concentration is on the top set of each year. A collection of the brightest kids in the district and those who have parents willing to pay the fees. Very much like Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys (but substitute fees, for sly backhander to the council to 'bump up' little Johnnie's 11+ results so that he can wear a nice uniform whilst he's eating his crayons).
It seems in Thailand parents are a lot more willing to invest in their daughter's education, or it might just be a case of the boys being undervalued or lazy. Either way, you will notice that the majority of my students are girls, with a high representation amongst the boys being of the lady variety (again saved for another post).
So here goes, in ascending order, let me introduce:
M6 (Ages 17-18)
When I was told I was going to be teaching top grade 6th years I thought I'd be way out of my depth.
On my first day I was introduced to David. He asked me about my views on the First World War, the Cold War and the War of the Roses.
Luckily it turns out David, although being.... by quite some distance... the brightest 'English' student in the school, owns a certain amount of bravado and is fond of asking foreign teachers difficult questions..... without being able to follow them up.
Instead of floundering badly and using phrases such as "you might want to look this up",
Episodes of Blackadder as factual evidence and "that's just my prespective from a western point of view" to defend my own ignornace, I should have just come out with something like:
"Well, the War of the Roses was between the the Cadbury family and some invaders from Mars. The Mars invaders were hoping to be victorious resulting in many Celebrations. However, Cadbury's had a lot more....eeeer cadbury's..... so they sent in some Heroes. This left Mars beTWIXt a rock and a hard place. Their Snickers were in a Twixt, much to the opposition's Turkish Delight. The Cadburys had put Mars in a Fudge.
Mars repsonded by putting out a Bounty......"
and so on and so forth (please feel free to send in your suggestions. I will happily edit them in).
Back to the subject matter:
M6 are a difficult class to make progess with. Mainly because, over half of them are never there. Out of 36 students on the register, I only ever seem to have 12-15 students in front of me... only 8 of which I can recognise on a regular basis.
The reasons are justified as they are busy studying for their finals or attending university interviews. English with some 'first-time job in teaching chancer' isn't top of their priorities. In addition. their dependance on David as a translator completely defeats the purpose of having a native speaking teacher at all.......In his defence he is only trying to help his friends.
I was dreading the mid-terms with M6, but to their credit that took my cheat sheets and learned the hell out of them... apart from 'Q' a legend in anyone's life.
She turned up with a list of her own questions for teacher. Her pronouciation is horrific but her ability to engage people is amazing.
A well deserved 'A'.
M6 will be my first class released into the wild. I'm worried how some of them might make the transition from sleepy PR to the 'plain fcuking scary' world of BKK (or university life in general).
Good luck kids :-)
" It's mid-term week here in Thailand, meaning that I have no lessons and plenty of time on my hands. I'm half way through my placement so what better way could there be to begin than to publish a mid-term report?"
Well 3 weeks on and I'm completely in the home straight of my first teaching contract. Please find below a rundown of my opinions of each class I teach.
Currently I'm teaching at Pathum Ratchwongsa School, situated in the town of the same name in the province of Amnat Charoen. It really is in the arse end of nowhere, but lets leave that until another post.
Today I will be concentrating on the kids. All of whom I adore..
There's about 1,300 kids in the school, of which I teach just over 200. As I'm the only 'farang' teacher at the school my sole concentration is on the top set of each year. A collection of the brightest kids in the district and those who have parents willing to pay the fees. Very much like Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys (but substitute fees, for sly backhander to the council to 'bump up' little Johnnie's 11+ results so that he can wear a nice uniform whilst he's eating his crayons).
It seems in Thailand parents are a lot more willing to invest in their daughter's education, or it might just be a case of the boys being undervalued or lazy. Either way, you will notice that the majority of my students are girls, with a high representation amongst the boys being of the lady variety (again saved for another post).
So here goes, in ascending order, let me introduce:
M6 (Ages 17-18)
When I was told I was going to be teaching top grade 6th years I thought I'd be way out of my depth.
On my first day I was introduced to David. He asked me about my views on the First World War, the Cold War and the War of the Roses.
Luckily it turns out David, although being.... by quite some distance... the brightest 'English' student in the school, owns a certain amount of bravado and is fond of asking foreign teachers difficult questions..... without being able to follow them up.
Instead of floundering badly and using phrases such as "you might want to look this up",
Episodes of Blackadder as factual evidence and "that's just my prespective from a western point of view" to defend my own ignornace, I should have just come out with something like:
"Well, the War of the Roses was between the the Cadbury family and some invaders from Mars. The Mars invaders were hoping to be victorious resulting in many Celebrations. However, Cadbury's had a lot more....eeeer cadbury's..... so they sent in some Heroes. This left Mars beTWIXt a rock and a hard place. Their Snickers were in a Twixt, much to the opposition's Turkish Delight. The Cadburys had put Mars in a Fudge.
Mars repsonded by putting out a Bounty......"
and so on and so forth (please feel free to send in your suggestions. I will happily edit them in).
Back to the subject matter:
M6 are a difficult class to make progess with. Mainly because, over half of them are never there. Out of 36 students on the register, I only ever seem to have 12-15 students in front of me... only 8 of which I can recognise on a regular basis.
The reasons are justified as they are busy studying for their finals or attending university interviews. English with some 'first-time job in teaching chancer' isn't top of their priorities. In addition. their dependance on David as a translator completely defeats the purpose of having a native speaking teacher at all.......In his defence he is only trying to help his friends.
I was dreading the mid-terms with M6, but to their credit that took my cheat sheets and learned the hell out of them... apart from 'Q' a legend in anyone's life.
She turned up with a list of her own questions for teacher. Her pronouciation is horrific but her ability to engage people is amazing.
A well deserved 'A'.
M6 will be my first class released into the wild. I'm worried how some of them might make the transition from sleepy PR to the 'plain fcuking scary' world of BKK (or university life in general).
Good luck kids :-)
Wednesday 16 January 2013
Introduction
I've been promising a post in this blog for what seems like ages. Its time to play catch-up.
How do I start a blog after 4 months in Thailand?
Do I go back and try and remember everything, I've done, list it and come across as some smug 'There was this one time' travel blogger?
Am I going to go all hippy and tell you how I'm on some kind of spiritual journey and how rewarding teaching is?
Will this blog patronise you with 'insights' into Thai culture as I try and educate your ignorant western minds?
Will it be a 'Brit' abroad gallery of loads of drunken pictures of 'hilarious nights out?
The answer is; probably a bit of everything. I don't know.
What I can promise that there is unlikely to be any chronological order to the posts, many events will be grossly exaggerated or completely made up (solely for my own amusement) and I will ocassionally change a few names to avoid upsetting people (at the same time as making it completely obvious who they actually are, sometimes with photographic evidence, just to make it extremely clear).
It's mid-term week here in Thailand, meaning that I have no lessons and plenty of time on my hands.
I'm half way through my placement so what better way could there be to begin than to publish a mid-term report?
How do I start a blog after 4 months in Thailand?
Do I go back and try and remember everything, I've done, list it and come across as some smug 'There was this one time' travel blogger?
Am I going to go all hippy and tell you how I'm on some kind of spiritual journey and how rewarding teaching is?
Will this blog patronise you with 'insights' into Thai culture as I try and educate your ignorant western minds?
Will it be a 'Brit' abroad gallery of loads of drunken pictures of 'hilarious nights out?
The answer is; probably a bit of everything. I don't know.
What I can promise that there is unlikely to be any chronological order to the posts, many events will be grossly exaggerated or completely made up (solely for my own amusement) and I will ocassionally change a few names to avoid upsetting people (at the same time as making it completely obvious who they actually are, sometimes with photographic evidence, just to make it extremely clear).
It's mid-term week here in Thailand, meaning that I have no lessons and plenty of time on my hands.
I'm half way through my placement so what better way could there be to begin than to publish a mid-term report?
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