I've made it into week three now (the letter C for those of you keeping score at home) and I suppose teaching is starting to feel a bit more routine. The first lesson of the week always follows a simple pattern of songs and games and then the introduction of the new letter and new vocab and then a worksheet and then more songs and games (or at least, that is how its supposed to go, sometimes things like vomit get in the way) And the second lesson of includes some review and new information (like body parts or numbers). I've learned that "5 Little Monkeys" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" are total crowd pleasers, but for some reason "Little Green Frog" absolutely fails to make a splash (ba dum!).

I love the moments when I can make the students laugh. Their happiness energizes me to keep going. But a lot of the time, they're distracted and not paying attention, and in those moments, it is really hard for me to care about what I'm saying too. How well the class goes seems to depend a lot on the time of day. I think the morning is easier. In the afternoon they've either just woken up from a nap, so they're still sleepy and disoriented, or they are ready to leave for the day so they are extra hyper and distracted. I count a lot on the help of the Thai homeroom teachers to make the lesson go at all smoothly. Pure chaos would rule without them in the room.

Right now, one of my life challenges is to figure out exciting ways to spend my time when I'm not at school. The nice thing about this job is that there is nothing to take home with me at the end of the day. When I leave, I'm done. So what to do with my evenings and weekends? Last weekend I spent with other friends in Bangkok, essentially just be silly and lazy together. This coming weekend is a holiday so I've got a long weekend and am hopefully going to travel somewhere fun and take a break from the highway and the malls that surround my life in Bangkok. A break would be much appreciated. I'd like to see a tree. And breathe some fresh air. That doesn't seem like too much to ask right?

After work, some nights I'm really lame and I just take a nap and hunt down dinner and then maybe write in my journal. But I am trying to do better than that, so tonight we are having a scrabble and movie night with the friends who are my neighbors. And I'm hoping for more company tomorrow night and maybe a nicer dinner out? By nice I mean sitting down and eating off a plate, not takeout back to my room in a plastic bag that I then eat out of a cup. (I am remarkably and tragically lacking in household goods right now. Though actually, I'm really not that bothered by it.)

So, that is pretty much how my life goes right now. I'm amused by the mundane moments of my "big adventure." And I'm hoping for more legitimately adventure-y moments. But it is all new and fascinating and I am quite sure I'm learning things that I won't recognize as learning and changing for many months. I'm hoping to take some pictures soon, of my apartment and the environment I'm living in. I'll post them when I have them.

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.

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.

Would you like the chance to become one of my favorite people ever?

It's easy! Send me mail!

Emily Prengaman
Bangyai Square 137/135
Talingehan-Suphanburi Road
Bangrakpattana, Bangbuathong
Nonthaburi 11110
Thailand

and hopefully such lovely things as you are sure to send me will speedily make their way to this side of the word and bring me immense amounts of joy!

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.

My training program is about halfway over at this point. And that is simply crazy.

Today, for the first time, we got to practice teaching in front of a classroom of real Thai students. It was incredible. Exhilerating. Nerve-wracking. Coming out of that half hour lesson was like coming down from a ridiculous adrenaline rush. But. I think it went pretty well. I taught a lesson about sports to a class of 20-25 (they kept coming in and out) 7 yr olds. I got to use lots of pretty coloured pictures and lots of very basic words. I sang a song. I did a dance. These are not activities I do well, but I did them. I wore a granny skirt, a classy long-sleeved shirt that buttoned up to my neck and practical shoes. My hair looked neat - not my normal attire. The kids spent a lot of the class wiggling in their seats, and we played a lot of games to keep their energy up, but maybe they learned a couple words? That is pretty much all I can hope for.

Tomorrow I'll teach again, this time a lesson to an older group of students, they'll probably do a better job of staying in their seats. They probably won't be quite as ridiculously adorable either, so I won't be at risk of wanting to just squeeze all the cuteness out of them (note. I did not squeeze any children today... but I wanted to)

The most incredible part is that my program has my teaching job all lined up, I will officially be a teacher in less than two weeks. Incredible. At a Catholic School with about 3000 students here in Bangkok. Crazy. This will not be the rural, primitive experience I may have been expecting... it will be... gasp! A job. Work. Eek.

But, I'll have a paycheck (thats a pretty crazy thought, eh?) and an apartment and I'll have weekends and holidays to explore more of Thailand.... Check out the beaches, the islands, the jungles.... and the great news is that some of the friends I'm making will end up in different parts of the country, so I'll have people to visit, and potentially couches to sleep on!

Speaking of couches, I will let the world know as soon as I have one of my own, I would love visitors. At the moment, I don't make the most capable cultural ambassador and tourguide, but I'm getting better at the language every day (I can count to ten!!!) so by the time you get here, I'll be pretty pro.

Sawadee kha!

So here goes.... my first blog entry from Thailand! It is my third day here, and today was my second day of teacher training. And well, so far so good. My initial impressions are that it is hot, most of the people are smaller than me, and that I am so ridiculously happy to be here.

The day before I left was a ridiculous and traumatic day in a lot of ways, that don't at all seem worth getting into, but suffice it to say, that I am very happy to even be here. The flight was fine. It only took about 32 hours from leaving home to get to my hotel in Bangkok. That seems... reasonable? Funny enough, for the flight from Chicago to Tokyo (the longest flight) I sat next to a guy who is in a masters program at CMU. Small world. But he was a nice guy, and it was good to have someone to laugh with as we entered jet-lag delirium together. When I arrived I made it through customs, found a taxi, got to the hotel, all easy-peasy like I'm good at this or something. And really, that easiness, that things-are-going-my-way feeling hasn't worn off yet. There is a good vibe in the air in Thailand. It feels good to be here.

My program is super-duper exciting. I have met incredible people in the past two days. We come from all different walks of life. I was expecting more people in my situation- the I can't find a real job, and I don't really want to variety - but instead there are those types and people who are twice my age or older, who are retiring or mid-life crisising. We come from the US, from the UK, Australia, Portugal, and lots of other places. I am hearing so many different Englishes, that in itself is exciting. My roomate is great. I want to talk to her all the time, which is challenging, because I want to talk to everyone else all the time, AND I want to talk to all the Thai people.... perhaps six months will not be enough time?? (sorry, parents......) The variety of life histories and experiences that have come together to do this is fascinating. There are people who haven't been in one place for more than a year in years and there are people who have never left their native countries. Incredible!!

And then... Thailand. My gosh. It is beautiful and it is welcoming and sometimes it smells really bad. There are bright pink taxis. There are pictures of the king everywhere. There is food everywhere. It is SPICY. It honestly feels really good to be back.

Bangkok is huge. And chaotic. It has a very different feel than the tiny little rural village I was in before. I think maybe all big cities have something in common, between the crush of people, the tall buildings, the opportunity for almost anything.... and yet, of course, it is special and it is unique and I am looking forward very much to the weekend so I can spend some time being touristy and taking pictures of everything I see (no pictures yet, I'm sorry, I haven't had time). There are so many places to go, just exploring the little alleyways around our hotel is interseting and exciting.

I feel like I'm absolutely blithering right now, this post is perhaps lacking in an overall theme other than "oh my god this! oh my god that!" but that is simply the state of my brain and my life right now, so, dear reader, you'll have to accept it.....

Classes have been really interesting so far. We are learning how to teach, learning bits and pieces of Thai language and Thai culture. It is both theoretical and practical and I feel like I will actually know what I'm doing when the three weeks are over. I am also quite sure the real teaching will be far more difficult and challenging than I can even imagine. So that is a bit of a contradiction. But it will all work out. Buddha says its all okay.

So that, in a nutshell, is everything and nothing about the past couple days. There was a lot of freaking out that happened inside my head the week before I left, and now? Actually there is a lot of peace and a lot of happiness. So I think that is a great sign.

Sawadee kha!

(it means hello and goodbye!!... sortof.)