Term 2

Yet again my students have melted my stone heart. 

My desk facing unrelenting blue skies

All Thai’s have long first names and go by their nicknames their whole lives, and boy do they have amazing nicknames; Beer, Porn, Ice, Cookie, Champ, Top, Say, Golf, Mang, Mook, Pla, Poo-pe, Benz, Palm, Pam.  It almost catches me off guard when they want to be “Ann” or “Cindy” instead of the more common, “Ooo, Aom, Ache, Aaat.”  Oh and if you don’t say Ooo with a rising tone at the end she will not know you are talking to her.  Luckily my weekday classes are small I might be able to remember some of them this time, good for me, bad for my school.

Wan in the administration area

I also have a blind student named “Doom.”  She is super bright and thinks about language in a way the other students don't.  She writes by punching holes in paper with a pointy stick, and fast.  She has the book we use, in brail, but I did a reading and writing exercise this morning and frankly I’m not sure what she did during it.  While coming up with pronouns though she did use  “Damara” for “she.”

Some strange clay activity set up on a table in the teachers area minus the teachers

There was a survey of my performance on the last class of last semester and I was quite surprised to receive 94% on my “likeable personality.”  Good thing I made that last class fun.  I also got good marks on punctuality which must mean punctuality on “Thai time” because I start class about 10 minutes late and take long breaks in the middle.  Us teachers claim this is so students don’t keep trickling in during the first 10 minutes but starting late might be a cause of them coming late, chicken or egg?

My school is also in the Korat Chamber of Commerce building

Teaching has gotten a whole lot easier and I would like to thank my manager for letting me teach Level 2 again it will be a well-oiled machine this semester.  I would say learning to tell time is easy but every single hour of the day in Thai has a different way to say it so there are 24 hours different hours to remember and that all changes when you add minutes.  I’m getting nowhere on time.

 My students come up with awesome new phrases like “familyship” and “Before, I couldn’t swim, not I can’t swim.”  I like it when they include me in their writing although my name is always "tea-chur."