A quiet weekend

Saturday afternoon, and I am worried on the lesson planning front. Whatever happened to my procrastinator instincts? The worries are fueled by the fact that I have no real idea as to my responsibilities (Examinations? Grading? When does the semester end?) and still a hard time grasping where my students' levels are. I am teaching nine classes a week and my students aren't classified with the Matayom levels, but rather according to their area of study. I have three computer classes, two accounting classes, one auto-mechanic class, one marketing, one electronics, and one information technologies class. Quite the spread of classes and levels, I'm told. I sat in on Maew's English class the other day. She spent most of it going over the written exercises of the numbers. One through fifty. She had asked me to come in and be a pronunciation person. I was to give the students a number in Thai and they would tell me in English. Most of them could not do this. A few in the class would supply the answers to the others. I was silently astounded. I remember being shocked that Maew was an English teacher as I have trouble even holding a conversation with her sometimes, but now that I see the English level that she is teaching, I understand a bit better. The level is abysmally low, and makes me worried how I will address this in my classes.

Sitting in on Maew's class (and trying told one of my own afterwards) also gave me the opportunity to observe first hand the contradictory levels of respect a teacher is given. I can try to carry a package across campus (my diplomatic pouch arrived!) and at least three students will run up and try to carry it for me. Other teachers make similar attempts. Have a dirty classroom? Just tell one of the students to sweep it out. I have a pink sheet that needs to have names written in them—I'm still not sure what else I am supposed to do with it—and I just ask a student to do it. When I pass the students, I am wai-ed by them (the hands in a prayer position and the head bowing) and sometimes greeted with "Hello teacher!" I generally try to get them to respond to "How are you?" which has been met with varying degrees of success. My presence is noticed everywhere, but in a very respectful, if behind the back giggly, sort of way.

Step into a classroom, however, and things change. Students show up late, if at all, then ask to leave early. They hardly pay attention, are chatting back and forth, sometimes they are even on the phone. Classroom management scares me a bit. I find this so confusing when compared to how I am treated outside of the classroom and am trying to figure out how to reconcile these two. If I can just get kids to come to class and semi-pay attention, I guess I'll be doing well.

Until then, I am doing general housekeeping things. The silence and solitude is a nice change and, for the moment, I am perfectly content for my weekend to be filled with music, writing, and lesson planning. Simple things like sweeping my room and washing my dishes make me feel accomplished. I am slowly accepting that everyday will be an odd mix of triumph and failure, all moments that I feel like crying for reasons that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. I rid my bathroom of creatures excepting geckoes but then had to try and beat a roach out of my door with a broom. I had students finally come to class, but they were 45 minutes late and wanted to leave early. It was a three hour class, so secretly, I was okay with it. They are an average age of 19 and don't really want to learn anything, especially not at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon. Feeling only mildly defeated, I came home, cleaned up the carnage of the ant battle that ended with the borrowed bug spray. Then, I cautiously took the first shower that made me actually feel clean. I think I've figured out how to best this cold shower—I just have to think of it as swimming. I do find it hard to trust my bathroom, though, and I am a bit skittish when the curtains rustle. Feeling generally pleased with myself, I worked up the courage to cross the street and go eat all by my lonesome. Turns out the two restaurant places were closed. I think. But there are worse things than eating some weird potato chip fries and bananas for supper.

I woke up this morning decently early and ready to conquer this trip to the store on a borrowed bike. Hopping on to a too-tall bicycle, I took off, excited about purchases like yogurt and bugspray. Then, after a while, I realized I didn't know which little side dirt road was the shortcut to the Tesco, meaning I would be going along the main drag…and attempting to deal with a pretty large intersection on a bike that doesn't allow my feet to touch the pedals when they are all the way down. The fact that I am still not too comfortable with this whole driving on the left side thing pushed me over the edge—I was not going to fight that intersection. Instead, I headed on over to the other side of the road, hopped off the bike and decided walking the rest of the way would be the safer option. The second I dismounted, two very mean looking German shepherds came at me, yelling for me to get off of their territory, which I assume encompasses part of the street. Terrified, I wavered between running and playing dead, making for a very awkward attempt at escape. Some kind soul called them off and I walked on, trying to remember to breathe.

The store was further than I thought. And it was hot. And I was trying to walk a bike along a sidewalk that is hardly close to level. All the while, people are staring at me. A monk said something to me in passing, but I couldn't quite hear him and didn't dare lean in closer lest I accidentally touch him. In trying to beat the heat (fail), I ended up getting to the store before it opened (double fail). Like those old people who get to Walmart well in advance of the doors opening to beat the crowds, I found myself a bench on which to wait out the 20 minutes. I watched as most of those around stole looks in my direction. School children peeked from behind their friends, giggling. Little kids were a bit more direct, actually stopping what they were doing to just stare. The idea of being a spectacle was made more apparent by the fact that the benches on either side of me were overflowing…yet no move was made to sit down next to me.

Tesco opened it's air-conditioned premises and we all piled in. I bought my necessities, made mental notes to budget some of the larger purchases, as well as those that should not be attempted to be balanced on a bike. A desk. Mattress pad. A crap ton of water. A bike of my own. After wandering around the entire store for an hour, I treated myself to a cha yen and repacked my bags to where every purchase was strapped to me in some form or fashion. The ride home was brutal. I haven't been riding in over a month, let alone in eleven o'clock heat on a bike that didn't fit me with groceries on my back. I felt it. Getting back into shape starts now.

I arrived home to find that Ajarn Bpranee had left some food tied to my door. I had managed to mention in conversation that I liked eggs, so this particular dish was all egg based. (TUSEF warned us against mentioning foods we liked—we'd never be able to get a dish without them! Why oh why didn't I say something like vegetables). Cold shower. Eating on my bed. Then a GLORIOUS nap. And here I am, musing a bit, lesson planning a bit. I have found that the sunset is beautiful from the top of the soccer field bleachers… so I will probably head that direction. A good weekend to all.