A bit of R&R before finals

Since I’ve got some free time on my hands (as I have my entire time here) I figured I would post another update.  Classes ended over a week ago now and I have passed my time by running away to Phuket for a few days and then coming home and causing some problems at school!  

First off, Phuket.  I had a great time there when I went the first time back in September, although it’s hard to believe that it was all part of the same venture abroad.  This time, Lizzy and I met up with a friend of hers from college and some of his friends who, after doing their TEFOL training in Barcelona, decided to move to Phuket to teach.  I can’t say I’m not a bit jealous of them all.  Not only did they get to live in Barcelona for a few months and then backpack across Western Europe and Morocco, they now get to live on a tropical island.  Yeah, I know I could have too, but I feel like I would have been even more bored than I am sometimes in Bangkok.  Plus, I would definitely have skin cancer or something since I enjoy lying out a little too much.

Fun with Glow Paint!

Anyway, we got to Suvarnabhumi airport at 7am, flew an hour to Phuket, hopped on motos, met back up with Kenny’s roommates in the southern part of the island,  got in a van to take us to the pier before embarking on a two-hour ferry ride to Koh Phi Phi.  We didn’t get to the island until around 4:30pm and were drinking by 5:00.  Not only did I not know we were headed there for the weekend, I also wasn’t prepared for how crazy a Saturday night could be on this island after having traveled all day.  

The night started pretty chill, with a couple of beers and progressed from there.  The night is a blur of climbing on a wrecked boat stranded in the low tide, watching fire dancers twirl and toss flaming batons high in the air, sharing buckets with the group, finding glow-in-the-dark paint and decorating my face and arms (and clothes) and thinking I lost Lizzy’s camera.  I stumbled back to the hostel around 3am.  Most of the group was planning on heading back already the second day since they had to teach the next day, but those of us planning to stay decided we couldn’t handle another night on Phi Phi and boarded the ferry with the rest of the group.

Big Buddha

View of Chalong Bay from Big Buddha

Back in Phuket, we spent the next couple of days motoring around the island to check out various beaches and lookout points, getting some serious sun and paying a visit to the Big Buddha watching out over the island from its highest peak.  I ate my first sandwich in months (yum!), had a few great panang curries and snuck into a 5-star resort to enjoy the infinity pool, comfy lounge chairs and waiters bring around fresh lemon water and fruit kabobs.  Suffice to say, it was tough to leave, but after 5 days and one last sunset, Lizzy and I had to make out way back to Bangkok, and back to work L  Thankfully we got a great deal on tickets and paid as much for a one hour flight as we would have for a 16-hour bus ride

Vijitt Resort

Back in Bangkok, we reported to school on Thursday even though there was no school and most of the teachers left after just an hour or two.  We took this time to get some serious grading in, but after just 4 hours I, too, was ready to go.

Thursday, Lizzy and I met up with some more friends of hers that were passing through Bangkok.  This time it was two guys she went to high school with, T.J. and Jason.  We went out a little harder than we had planned and come 6:30am when it was time to get up and go to work, one of us wasn’t able to make it in.  Thinking that we didn’t have anything to do again, we decided that I would sign Lizzy in so she wouldn’t get docked pay for not being there.  Unfortunately, no one had told us we had to proctor all day, so when they went to tell Lizzy which class she was supposed to be in, she was no where to be found.  It didn’t help that I was in the dark as well about where I was supposed to be, so I was just sitting in my office having a great time chatting with friends on Skype.  After they finally told me what was up, I raced off to my assigned classroom and tried frantically to get a hold of Lizzy’s phone to get her to come in.  As our luck would have it, her phone decided not to take any of the twenty or so calls I tried, nor the countless others from the school’s office AND our agency.

Just before lunch, I was called out of the room, fessed up to signing Lizzy in, and came up with a decent enough story to keep her from getting fired on the spot.  Just after that, I finally got through to her, but since there was less than 90 minutes left of the day, we worked out a more thorough story and planned to get a nice long talking to from the office come Monday.  It was a bit stressful, but we brought it on ourselves.  Thankfully, things had pretty much calmed down by Monday and we are both employed and still counting down the days until we are completely done with the semester…or on our plane back home.

Last thing… Less than 20 days until I’m headed back home…that is if Expedia helps me figure everything out since 2/3 of my flights home have been canceled by Korea Air.   So if everyone who reads this could just keep their fingers crossed that they can find me a replacement flight, I’d greatly appreciate it.  Until then, I’ll try to get out and enjoy the last of my time here so I have more great stories to share when I finally get home!

Finally Finals

It’s down to the final week.  Yesterday (Tuesday) was my last day actually having to teach anything in class, if you can call what I did all semester teaching, and today I start with finals.  Technically, I started with oral exams with my M.3’s on Monday, but still have to give them the listening portion.  My M.4’s are doing debates.  It’s been a struggle, to say the least, to get them to prepare over the past week.  They know it’s almost the end of the semester, I know it’s almost the end and it has been ridiculously humid which makes me not want to be at school even more.  I have no idea what to expect out of these debates, especially since one group chose to debate over which is more important: A pretty face or a rockin’ body.  Should be riveting.  Haha  Don’t get me wrong though, there is one, maybe two groups out of the eight that actually seem prepared and eager to present.  Well, maybe not eager, but they do want a good grade so they’ve put a bit more effort in.  Not surprisingly, they’re also the kids with the highest grades at the moment and really don’t have much to worry about.

The main thing getting me through this week, though, is the fact that I leave Saturday morning for a few days back in Phuket.  I can’t imagine anything better than going down to a tropical island and spending my days lying out and reading or exploring the nearby beaches and mountains by moto.  We were originally supposed to have next week Monday and Tuesday off for study days and with Wednesday being a religious holiday, classes were canceled as well.  Key words being were.

When we started the semester, we were told that finals would be the last week of February 27 through March 2.  Then they got pushed up a week so they ended on this past Monday.  Next, they were pushed back to March 8-15 with the week before being a reading week with Mon-Wed off.  It’s been temporarily moved back and forth from all these dates, but in a meeting in January, it was confirmed that they would be that second week of March…until two days ago.

Now, at this point, Lizzy and I had already booked a flight to Phuket over those three days of vacation we were supposed to have and don’t have the desire to cancel, nor can we justify not using these tickets we paid close to $100 for.  It’s not that big of a deal for us, as we had planned on finishing up with finals this week anyway and just getting a sub to have an end of the semester party with our classes on Monday and Tuesday.  However, it kept getting better!

While giving our final review in our last class with any of the M.3’s last week we found out that they have standardized exams scheduled for the Tuesday and Wednesday we planned to give half of their finals.  We freaked out for a bit, but decided just to give up our lunch periods the remaining 3 days and having them come to us.  Great, right?  Not so great when we walked into one of the four classes on Monday to give the oral portion and they told us that class was canceled for a tutor session for the next day’s exams.  We then went back down to our office and someone came to tell us that the tutor session was pushed back an hour and we still had class.  We trudged back up the steps only to see two more teachers clearing out the classroom again and marching the students upstairs.  Back in our office they told us that, yes, they did have tutor, and didn’t see how it was a problem that they took this period even though this is the only time we can give them their finals.  Thankfully, it was the only class we see twice this week so we could afford not having class, but it still makes things a bit more stressful since we now have half the time to go through just as many students.

On top of all of that, we were told that we only needed a speaking portion for the finals where we would create situations based on the workbook and have one-on-one conversations with each student to test their skills.  Friday, 7^th period we were told that we also needed a listening portion.  That left us with one class period for each class to give a listening exam and test each of their speaking abilities.  At forty students a class, this would take two full classes anyway, especially since they want each student to be tested for at least 3 minutes apiece.  I freaked out a bit, but now I’m too the point where I’m just happy to fit all the kids in and grade them based on how they did in what little time we have.  Less work for me, more fair to them since our original schedule we told them about changed so much and they’re all going to pass anyway since that’s how they do it in Thailand.

In other news, I come home in 32 days!!  I’m hoping that March flies by since I have a few trips planned before I hop on that plane back home.  First there is next week’s trip to Phuket, a week of sitting around doing nothing at work, a weekend English camp with GIE, a few more days of nothingness at work, 4 days in Chiang mai and one last week of sitting around getting paid to do nothing before I pack up all my stuff and say goodbye to Bangkok! 

Yes, I'm still alive

I’ve been severely lacking on posts for over two months now, but here is an update on teaching. Midterms have come and gone, I’m still waiting on my username so I can submit grades electronically and half of my students have now started on their final projects. There are just over three weeks left of teaching followed by a week off and then finals week, the second week of March.

The first half of the semester went relatively well. My M.3’s did hours of mindless bookwork and listening activities just to prove to their parents that the money spent on workbooks is put to good use. Instead, we all suffer from listening activity after listening activity on topics that don’t really interest 13 year olds: leaving phone messages (that’s what texts are for these days, right?) and how to go about conducting a business meeting. On top of that, we have assigned a Current Events report that turned into us sitting through many lunch periods listening to our students read back to us, word for word, the news we read online and in the paper each day. They also did a News Report segment, of which some were actually enjoyable, others painful to sit through, if we could hear them over the chatter of their classmates that is. We are just finishing a product invention/commercial presentation and Lizzy and I have no idea what to do with them after since there is so little time and they are getting rowdier by the day.

With my M.4’s we’ve done a few major presentations this semester and not a whole lot more. First, there was an oral history/interview project. In the end, I realized I was way too lenient with the grades I gave, since most of my students just stood up front and read me what they learned in their interviews and failing to use proper introductions and conclusions. I had a couple that were really good and funny, including one kid who approached me three weeks after it was due and gave the best presentation of all four classes even though he hasn’t come to class since week two or three of the semester. He was also the only one to give the entire thing without any notes. Next, we were supposed to cover interviews again, not really sure why, but Diane and I went with Celebrity Interviews. Once again, I had a few pairs in each of my classes who went all out, as I had asked, and came in with props and costumes and actually acted like the celebrity they chose to be. The best was probably a Lady Gaga interview by some of my students in M.4/1. She got up there with high heels, a leather jacket, crazy glasses and hair, sparkly shirt and had watched several interviews with the actual Lady Gaga to get her personality down. She even dropped the F-bomb. It was great to see that even though some were pretty lame, the information they had researched was spot on since it was a topic they all enjoyed. Several groups brought in guitars and performed and another boy showed up in a leopard print mini-dress, painted nails and heavy eyeliner on just one eye and did a choreographed dance to a Lady Gaga song. We just finished watched Slumdog Millionaire, which is leading into a discussion on social issues to set them up for their final project, a debate. Not sure how it will go, but after starting the lesson with one class I’m feeling a bit more optimistic.  I also went on a day trip with M.4 to the nearby province of Ratchaburi.  We went to a floating market, a sheep farm and Candle world or something like that where we made our own small candles on a stick and looked at wax sculptures.

I also just got back from my final visa run! My last trip to Laos (which I failed to ever post about) was back in November and was for a double-entry visa. This time, I cashed in on that second entry by spending 5 hours traveling to the Cambodian border just to wait in two separate lines for just about half an hour, getting all the necessary stamps and having a huge nasty bug crawl over my foot, before getting back on a bus headed back to BKK. Overall, it was nearly a 12-hour day just for one stamp…thankfully nothing more since I don’t have room in my passport for any more visas!

My weekends in January were pretty booked. The first weekend (New Years), I was in Koh Samui with Lizzy and our friends Andy, Liz and Joeri. We got back on a Wednesday and Lizzy left already that Friday to go to Chiang mai. Oddly enough, she went with our M.3’s for an English Camp with the same company that we used to work with, AYC. The camp director pretended to not remember her at first and the rest of our ex-coworkers gave her the cold shoulder. We like to think it’s because we actually went out and were able to get real teaching jobs since most of them lack a college degree…others didn’t even finish high school. I went out with Liz, Joeri and Andy that weekend and drank way too much Sangsom, a cheap local whiskey. That following week one of our friends from TESOL training, Gordan, was back in town for a few days before catching his flight back to the states. It was great to catch up with him and have him meet all our Bangkok friends. He also joined Lizzy and I at our work holiday party that Friday night. We decided to leave school a bit early to meet up with Gordo and grab some (okay, four) margaritas before heading all the way back across town on motos and were almost late for the start of the party. Although we weren’t the last to arrive, I had forgotten to wrap my gift and ended up finding a piece of newspaper outside and a worker who had some tape…oops. After a mediocre dinner and two hours of drawn out name calling for the gift exchange (with several karaoke intermissions) I was called to give out my gift (a planner and two very nice pens) and receive one from the next person. I got my gift and we took off before we fell asleep. Once we got to the parking lot, I opened my present only to see that I had been given 100% Essence of Chicken. According to Liz, it works wonder for a hangover, but I didn’t even get the best brand. Not sure if I’m going to try it, though, since I can’t imagine being able to stomach chicken essence after consuming a few too many drinks any given Saturday.