I have now made it through my first week of official teaching. Looking back on it, it possibly went ok, and it went by faster than it felt like at the time (but isn't that always how time works?)

I said "A" a lot. Many many times, and I did some math to figure out that I flapped my arms about a hundred times a day and probably jumped up and down the same amount. If nothing else, being a kindergarten teacher may turn out to be an excellent form of exercise. Except that, to recover from the week, I ate a lot of ice cream and then went out and had quite the night on the town..... so.... maybe not as healthy a life as it could be. I am hoping that this coming week will be better, I'll be introducing the letter B and the words balloon, bird, and banana and I think I've learned at least a couple things not to do in the past week. This coming week, I've got fun worksheets prepared that wil give my students some writing/drawing practice and allow teacher Emily to conserve her voice for a couple more minutes every lesson, and I am very much looking forward to using them.

The weekend has been pretty nice. I met up with friends from my training program both nights and we ventured out to the super backpacker touristy part of the city where we could eat non-thai food. It is a good road to be on, because I got to eat non-thai food (mmmm hummus) and I got to judge all the super-touristy looking folks for being more touristy than I am, as I am actually employed in this country! haha!

It is an interesting little part of Bangkok, this super touristy street (Khao san Road) where all sorts of things exist that I don't see in my everyday life of home and school. There are things like: lots of white people, signage in English, Indian food, overpriced everything, and all the hippy-dippy clothes that I love but am working hard at not buying - at least not until payday!

As far as the political situation goes, it does maybe seem to be escalating (a red shirt general was shot the other day while being interveiwed by a new york times reporter and the red shirts continue to demonstrate in the section of town they've taken over), but my daily life is happening out in the burbs, way far away from the actual action. So don't worry, I feel perfectly safe where I am right now.