Today was my first day of work. I went to my school, met some of my fellow teachers, ate lunch in the cafeteria, etc. Best of all, I did not yet have to teach any children! This is a good thing, because I was feeling entirely unprepared to just jump in to the wonderful world of teaching without the time or direction to plan out a lesson. As it turns out, the students don't start school until next week, so I do actually have some time to steel myself for the challenge that lies ahead.

The challenge being..... that I will be teaching students who are 3 years old. THREE. Seriously, three? In what world do you send your 3 year old child off to school for the entire day and entrust their care to an utterly unqualified farang? Oh. Oh ok, right. That world is Thailand.

So here it is that I, Emily Prengaman, the newest English teacher at Kasintorn St. Peter School in Bangkok will be teaching English to multiple classes of (of maybe about 30 per class) 3 year old Thai children everyday. This could be insanity.

Here is a question for all you early childhood education folks out there, all you education-in-general folks out there, and hell, any of you that have had a kid... what on earth can I teach a 3 year old? Especially when I will have 30 of their fellow students running crazily throughout my classroom?! The next six months of my life are going to be filled with tears and snot and naptimes and songs and art and maybe the alphabet if we get around to it. Today's news has simply left me feeling utterly overwhelmed.

I suppose I'm still looking forward to it. It shall still be a grand adventure! Just one with more diapers than I was expecting.

In other news, I do now have my own little apartment. (so if you have any interest in sending me exciting mail, I can email you my address!) It is a tiny little efficiency place that as of right now does not have any electricity, but does have a very shiny new television that I dream of turning on. It is on the side of a freeway, but also next to 3 giant malls, a million vendors lining the streets, and the handy little internet cafe that I am sitting in RIGHT NOW. It is certainly not the prettiest location, but looks aren't everything and the price is right and I'm quite close to school.

Basically, in the past 3 days, my life has gone through immense changes. I have a job and an apartment on the other side of the world. I have a couple friends here, I'm hoping to make some new ones. I'd forgotten how intense a city Bangkok is, it is so hot, so humid, so smelly, so busy, so chaotic. The traffic is terrifying. The number of people that live and work here is massive. I forgot what it feels like to be surrounded by a language I do not speak.

The past couple days have not been easy. I don't quite feel like I'm living my actual life yet, it is all quite surreal. I feel exhilerated one moment, exhausted another, and exasperated the next. I think what I am coming to realize is that teaching (or glorified babysitting?) is simply going to be so much more work than I was expecting.