24 June, 2005

Well, hello at last.

I said I'd send you a big fat email, but the one I did write and then save on a CD won't let itself be emailed. So I shall now write the whole story of our jobs............... and other news..........

So. We went to the weekend Chatuchak Market 4 weeks ago. Rob and I went off separately to explore, and he lost the camera (or it was stolen - we don't know). So the next day, we headed down to Khao San (where that big water fight happened) to download an insurance claim form and use a fax machine. It was the only place we knew where we could do what we needed to do.
Having done that, we were walking along looking for some food, when I saw a sign asking for English-speaking people to do teaching work. Rob and I had been talking about maybe looking for work, so we asked the woman who was recruiting.
And within the next half hour, after loads of questions about our school-teaching experience (i.e. none, but we didn't put it quite as honestly as that!!!!!), Tik (the recruiting woman) took us off in her car to see the 2 schools in question. One was a government school in a poor community, and they were looking for someone to teach basic conversation and pronunciation. The other was Hogwarts!!!!! Looking for a computer studies teacher. So I would potentially teach at the poor school, and Rob at the posh one.
Into the bargain, we were offered an apartment as well, in the same building as Tik, very near to my school, and it was lovely. So the whole deal was there for the taking - ours if we wanted it.
We thought for a day, and then were taken back to the schools to meet the relevant people and talk about the jobs and what they would entail. Both sounded like interesting challenges, and it was all there on a plate.
We went off for a talk and a think, and wondered whether this mission (should we choose to accept it) was a good and viable one. And we decided, as you now know, to take the opportunity! It was a really huge decision at the time, but now I'm really glad we decided to give it a go. My job is indeed challenging. The level of English at the school varies from "hardly any" to some top students, and, as I teach all years from 1 to 6 (age 11-18), I deal with it all. I have no set curriculum, so I have complete freedom in deciding what topics we cover, and I think I've got off to a good start - as of yesterday I have been teaching for 4 weeks, and it's all going quite well really. I have some real fans among the kids, and almost every student who I see or who sees me in the corridor says "Hello, teacher", or some kind of greeting. it's a lovely school, I have a very challenging job, but the cons are MASSIVELY outweighed by the upliftingness of it. Some lessons are just a joy. I have so much fun with years 1 and 2, they're so full of energy that I wish I had them for the last lesson every day. They're SO enthusiastic! We just play games all lesson, and I've invented one in particular that just raises the roof every time. I've named it "Rolf Harris", as it's all based on "can you tell what it is yet"?!! (NOTE TO JOY & LUKE, VAL & KEN, AND JENN: Rolf Harris is an Aussie fella who used to have a kids' TV programme where he would make massive paintings and you had to try and guess what it was as he painted.) I have since realised that it's actually called Pictionary!! - anyway, it works a treat, and the kids have an endless appetite for it. Anagrams are also excellent - i write various vocabulary on the board in anagram form, and they solve them. Again, endlessly entertaining!
Rob's school is very posh, a private boys' school, all the kids are RICH, and get driven to school in such things as Mercedes Benz with the windows blacked out. Bizarre. He has a set curriculum. One of the lessons he taught was about things that have a computer in them, such as a calculator, a TV..........so he asked the kids what else they could think of that had a computer in them, and one boy said "a limousine".........to which Rob replied, "Do you have a limousine?" and the boy said yes.........
Ouch.
Anything you want to ask me about my job and school, I'd be happy to answer - otherwise I'll be here for hours!
Well, today (Friday) I found out that next Monday and Tuesday the school is closed for a staff conference! So I don't have to go! (It will all be in Thai.) So that's great!
I'll probably be down at the gym for some of that time - we've joined a big gym down the road from our apartment, and have been members for a couple of weeks now. It's super-swanky and has all sorts of facilities, and we've both got personal trainers! (Can you believe I just said that?!!) Mine is great, he's teaching me bits of Thai too. So we go there 4 or 5 times a week, and it's actually really good fun, not a chore (yet)!
Other than that, Rob has to be at school at 7.45, and me at 8.30, so no drunken nights out or staying up till 2 a.m.! Weekends are fun, though - there's so much to do here, and there's no real centre of Bangkok - it's all just sort of big suburbs - we can do everything near to where we live. Getting into the main downtown shopping area takes an hour or more, so we don't really bother with that - but public transport is really plentiful and efficient and cheap, so we can get around easily.
Our apartment is lovely, nice and cool and quite spacious, and we've bought a few things to make it more homely - a fridge, kettle, laptop, rice cooker, a little electric camping hob, some speakers to play our iPod and minidisc through, and some lamps and fairy lights. It's really lovely, so handy, and nice and comfortable. We're on the 8th floor, and we have a great view over the city! Thunderstorms are quite a common occurrence in the early evening, and watching them come in is pretty exciting. There's a bridge that looks like the Eiffel Tower from the angle our window is at, so sometimes I imagine I'm in Paris. And a green construction crane that has the definite look of the Statue of Liberty from a certain viewpoint..........!
Anyway, the long and short of it is, we're settled and happy in our unexpected new life in Bangkok. Rob's contract is for a year, and mine's for 10 months, so we have a little time ahead of us yet.....!

As for other news.............on 24th March, up at Bhagsu waterfall in the Himalayas, Rob, er, ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was all very romantic and unexpected, and i said yes............so we'll get married when we live in England again. We were going to wait and tell everyone when we got home from travelling, which we thought would probably be in December or something, but no, we're finally letting the cat out of the bag.