New life starting Monday

On monday I begin my teaching certificate class. It will be from 12-3 and 5-8 which menas no more fun time for me. I also got a job for the weekends teaching at Wat suan dok. It pays a little bit which will help with transportation expenses and food.

This week has been a busy week getting ready for the class, handling school junk, and getting settled for next week. I started teaching English yesterday which started out a little awkward....

Apparently they had hired someone who never came to teach then they found a substitute. She was a Thai girl who spoke English but was a little bit crazy and came from a mental hospital or something like that...thats what I got out of it.

Well in Thai culture there it is very important to always "save face" or not be embarrassed in front of others. This means students not asking questions of the prof when they don't understand because then the prof would lose face. Its something along those lines.

Anyways she was going to teach for the first hour on saturday and then I would take over for good. At first I was going to observe what she taught in the class so I could pick up from where she left off. However, she was so nervous seeing me sitting there that I had to leave. It was also awkward because a the man who runs the program had to come upstairs and tell her to stop teaching so I could take over basically making the point that she was fired. SHe had very sifty eyes and a nervous laugh and I never want to do that again because it was soooo awkward.

Today was alot better. I teach intermediate English and lucky for the students I already know how to do lesson plans and this is not my first time teaching so it was a decent day.