Teacher! Teacher!

Mr. John! Mr. John! TOILET! Mr. Jooohnn! TOILET!

His hands firmly grasping his crotch, he shuffles toward the door with a sheepish, embarrassed, hurried and pleading look. He needs to the use the restroom right now.

::sigh:: I’m mid-sentence.

“Yes, you may use the restroom.”

He releases his grip on himself and rushes to the door, his wood-soled shoes sliding the last three feet or so against the polished-stone tile. The door swings open and before he closes it I hear a whisper from the ranks in my class. My eyes dart from the source to the doorway.

The gesture is universal, and communicates only one action…

…I’m gonna go have a smoke… he gestures to his friend, bringing the familiar V-sign up to his mouth.

“Get back in your seat! What are you thinking? I can see you…!”

My head hangs… Another sigh.

I exhale, look up and point to him, and then I point to his seat. His gesture was clear, and so is mine.

Get your ass back in your seat, communicates my gesture.

These are my students. And this gentleman, the crotch-grabber, is deep in his thirties. It’s the thirteenth week of school and I don’t know what his name is. He’s come to class a handful of times.

With another sheepish grin, he sulks back to his seat, unable to make eye-contact with me.

We’re in my English III class, and the day’s lesson is the second conditional clause, using the base + modal form.

Ninety percent of my students can not ask to use the restroom in English. One hundred percent have no clue what I’m talking about.

That’s pretty much how it goes for me everyday. Some lessons sink in, but the gaps are too wide to do any good. They’re supposed to be learning the nuances of conversational English grammar, advanced for many secondary-school-aged native English speakers and my students don’t have the grammar capacity to learn through context by reading around the problem. They’ve forgotten  basic sentence structure but I’m trying to teach them when to use an infinitive and when to use a gerund, and when either is acceptable.

My boss, Joe, tells me it may be the first time in their academic careers they were actually presented a challenge from a course, and they’re unable to cope with what that means. The deeply-ingrained culture of group-harmony  here has produced the ultimate no-student-left-behind phenomenon.  Homework? Four whole pages of multiple choice based on reading a 100-hundred-word article? And I only have one week to do it? Come on! You’re killing us!

Exasperation.

I’m a new teacher, and I haven’t found out the best way to deliver a lesson suited to their learning habits. Our language barrier is miles tall and meters thick. They signed up (they were given clearance to sign up) for a class they were wholly unprepared for, but I slog on. There are only a few more weeks left, and then I’ll regroup and re-arm. Maybe this time I’ll get a say in what books are taught. Student advisers? Course prerequisites? I’m just as clueless to their educational system as they are to the course material, and my understanding of the system is vital for lesson planning and delivery…

I’m learning on the job, and at least I get to laugh, joke and have fun with my students in between these futile gestures of actual pedagogy.

Deep in it.

I haven’t been writing as much lately because, frankly, I haven’t been doing much other than teaching. I’ve decided to stay for another term beginning in October and I’ll have a few weeks off then. I’m planning on traveling then, but to where, I’m not sure yet…

I’m thinking about seeing more of Thailand, but I’m also interested in checking out some other countries… maybe southern China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia or even the Philipines or Indonesia… not sure yet, but until then, I have to shutter myself in and save money.

To that end, I’m just sticking to teaching, water polo and occasionally basketball on Sundays at my school.

But who knows what’ll happen in the mean time. I’ll keep you updated when something goes down!

An afternoon in Bangkok.

__________

Right now I’m laying on my bed, writing. It’s just after six in the afternoon. I opened the panes of glass facing out and I rolled back the small window to the hall, and now a nice breeze drifts though.

From eight floors up I smell the cooking from the street. While the fragrant smell of frying oil, garlic and the aromatic sweetness of stir-fried fish oil and lime juice drift up, so too do the shrieks of laughter and adventure from the dozens of Thai children playing below.  Just as many dogs are barking and everything’s punctuated by bells on carts and the bits and pieces of a conversation between two Thai ladies washing dishes and clothes on their porches, sometimes they laugh and it’s one of the most beautiful things you can hear.

It’s a perfect afternoon and my belly’s full. I ate some five-spice pork from a local vendor and I love flirting with her. I usually eat alone and I prefer it, I think. I chew on a raw, fresh spring onion stalk, ladle sweet chile paste over the perfectly braised pork and ponder this beautiful community I’m priviledged to be a part of.

Buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, carts and pedestrians race or drift along. The current is complex but there’s a place for everyone and everyone’s happy. No one yells, everyone smiles and patience and compassion are as abundant as the afternoon rain showers.

and I’m falling in love with this place.

__________

Kanchanaburi: end of the trip…for now.

I’m definitely coming back to Kanchanaburi when I have extended time off in October. I’m not sure exactly how long yet, but I will be coming back to just sit on this magnificent porch and fish, read, write, and maybe do a few oil pastel drawings too.

Kanchanaburi: Falls, Elephants, Rafts and the Death Railway.

We got up early and caught the tour bus out to Erawan Falls, a national park about 60 km outside of Kanchanaburi.

The national park features a seven-tiered waterfall that you can swim around, jump off of or just lounge around in, plus the hiking trail used to access the different tiers:

 

Kanchanaburi: “Old Florida” Sanctuary.

Later that night, following the amazing banquet at my school, I met up with Ryan and Ian, who were all ready on the streets around Khao San Road. After we got together, we had ourselves a good ‘ol fashion KSR bloodbath and turned in for the night around three the next morning. 

With plans to catch the 9 a.m. bus to Kanchanaburi from the Southern Bus Terminal, I’m surprised and pleased to report that we did, indeed, make it to the bus on time.

Welcome freshmen!

This past Friday I met up with my friends Ian and Ryan, two teachers from Phuket, and we hit Bangkok hard. It was their first night in town.

I ended up drinking too much and almost missed my first of three three-hour classes, but I made it on time with one minute to spare.

Day to Day.

I’ve more or less settled into a nice routine here in Bangkok and I thought I’d share with you guys who were curious about the rote day-to-day experiences I have.

6:00 a.m. -the alarm on my phone goes off. At this point, when looking at the snooze ‘menu’ on my phone, should I select the up-and-at-’em 5 minute snooze? The semi-responsible 10 minute snooze? The slightly gluttenous 15 minute snooze or the I-might-get-fired-if-I-select-this 1 hour snooze?

Change of pace.

I’ve really enjoyed writing a sort of serial account of my first experiences in Bangkok and beyond, but I’d like to move into shorter and more frequent accounts of my day-to-day activities. From this post on, I’ll try and update as close to daily as I can. For this post though, I’ll give you a little pictorial narrative of my Nai Harn Beach experience and then just fast forward to ‘now’.

Since I arrived in Phuket and settled in at the All Season’s Resort…

Phuket, via Surat Thani.

Naturally I dozed off maybe half an hour before we arrived at the bus transfer.

Still, I didn’t know there was going to be a bus transfer…

Our urban leviathan pulled off the freeway and wound through what turned out to be the outskirts of Surat Thani, a coastal town on the western side of the “brain stem” peninsula. It’s here that many people take ferries to Ko Samui, Ko Phangan (home of the legendary full-moon parties) and Kao Tao.