The job actually started yesterday. There I was, dressed in all my boring and professional glory, epic amounts of sweat dripping down my back, standing in front of 36 miniature people with teeny tiny hands and no sense of personal boundaries with two cards in my hand, one of the letter A, and one a picture of an apple. These were my tools. With them and a whole lot of loudly and poorly sung songs I made it through the day. I taught four classes for an hour each. The first three pretty much went by as a blur, it was incredible how long an hour could be when I only have the letter A to fill it with, and, lets be honest, the letter A is really not that thrillling but that is what the Thai curriculum wants from me (my ability to say "A. A. A. AAAAA. A.")

But at least Day 1 is over. And none of the other days will be as bad, because I won't ever be that nervous again, and hopefully, I'll learn some of how to do this as I do it.

The students were good, really. I feel rather bad for them that they have to try and listen to me teach them things for a straight hour (though, they have figured out, that really, they don't have to listen to me and at any given time at least 2/3 of them are totally off in their own little worlds). An hour is a really long time for me to concentrate on things! So it must be harder for them. They do get chocolate milk. And nap time. That would help. But they play along. They like to clap and jump and yell. Some of them do try to repeat after me like they're supposed to.

This teaching gig is going to be exhausting. I already find myself tired all the time and I don't know if that is because of the heat, or because life in another culture can be overwhelming, or because my main form of sustenance is white rice, but add to that needing to stay high energy all day long to clap and jump and run around. Wow. I will be tired. I wish they had real coffee here.