I have been in the Land of Smiles for 14 days now and am loving it! My first week here was full of orientations (to the city and the school), new teacher socials and lots and lots of information overload. The new teachers to ISB this year are amazing. There lots of Aussies and Kiwis, some South Africans, Brits, Japanese, Americans and a surprisingly high number of Canucks (woo woo!!). They are some of the most interesting people I have ever talked to. They are coming from teaching contracts all over the world...Saudi, Malaysia, Phillipines, China, Japan, Poland, Russia, Spain, Singapore...and the list goes on. It is so neat to hear stories about all of these foreign countries and get a global perspective on education.
ISB is a great school with an absolutely beautiful campus. The pictures do it no justice....but they give you an idea. I have never seen such amazing science labs (will take pics soon) and am so excited to use all of the technology. SMART board in every classroom, computers with probes in the physics lab rooms...and a person who mixes all chemicals for you and preps your labs!! Unreal! The staff in the science department work as a team to develop lessons and assessments, and have all of the courses on CD with interactive and online computer components. I am going to walk away with a ton of resources this year! The cafeteria is pretty good, they offer lots of different food choices...and none of my lunches have cost over $3 CDN.
Samakee Gardens (my apartment complex) is also really nice but in need of some renovations. It is an older building and kitchens and bathrooms are being re-done when possible. I have a two bedroom, two bathroom (and two balcony!) apartment with a great view of the pool. It is pretty bare since I don't have a shipment coming with furniture from home, but I am trying to pick up a few things to make it feel more home-y. I have a mae baan (maid) who comes in on Wednesdays to clean, do my laundry, grocery shop and cook me dinner. It is extremely nice to come home and have dinner on the table and have more time poolside (I know...it's a tough life). The annual subs and I have devised a dinner rotation, where we eat at whoever had their mae baan that day. They make enough food to feed the five of us, and we never have to buy too many extra groceries (which are actually fairly expensive here).
During the first week I was really frustrated that I didn't get out of Nichada Thani (the large community I live in) and downtown into BKK. It's very "western" here with Starbucks and such, and I felt like I didn't even know Bangkok at all. Luckily, one of the annual subs (who was just promoted to Kindergarten teacher due to increased enrollment) went to ISB for high school and was able to show us how to get a taxi downtown (which is quite the process) and how to get cell phones and sim cards. It was extremely helpful, and it made me way more confident that I can get into and out of the city on my own. I also got my first $4 pedicure...nice and relaxing.
ISB took us on a day trip to The Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha on our first Saturday here. The temple and grounds were amazing, and I always find it so interesting to watch other religious customs and learn about their beliefs. After the guided tour, a bunch of us went to the Siam Square area to grab lunch at Food Loft (which I will have to take you guys too) and then went and checked out Batman in IMAX! Very cool. There were a bunch of staff dinners and staff parties that weekend, and I have very satisfied that I have explored a little bit more of downtown. We also went on a dinner cruise on the river....very fun!
School started on Wednesday August 6th, and I spent the day rotating through a variety of different science classes and teachers to see how they start the school year. The school is pretty intense with the IB curriculum and a lot of the classes are actually university level courses....so this should be interesting teaching. My second day I had just pulled into school on my new silver bike (which I had to get because it was the only one where the seat would go high enough...haha) and I was called in to sub for the middle school vocal music teacher who was sick with an emergency and had left no lesson plans. Sweet. It was an interesting day of pulling activities out of my ass to keep the grade 6-8's busy and focused. Thank god for drama games! The second day I was still covering music, but decided to show a musical (Hairspray) which was a way easier (but much more boring) day. I may be subbing elementary PE tomorrow which should also be quite funny.
Friday night was our "ISB Welcome Back" party for the whole staff. It was a bad combination of booze, exhaustion, heat and bad food that led to quite an interesting night. I ended up going downtown with some teachers to a hotel bar after the party and then insisted upon a 2:30am swim...which Megan had to supervise. Haha.
My friend Jess has a couple of friends from home who were here visiting from Cambodia this weekend...so we decided to show them around. Tricky thing to do when you don't know where you are going yourself. Headed downtown Saturday afternoon to wander around and ended up at Lumphini park. We were all pretty hot and cranky, and some of us decided to head to a Roadhouse for some Western food and AC. After lunch we did what we always do...went back to teacher housing a floated in the pool. Then, after much recommendation from different teachers, we went to a Thai restaurant called River Tree House for dinner. It was absolutely amazing and I will definitely be going there a lot this year (since it is way cheaper to eat out than cook). It is located in Nonthaburi (the province where we live) so it was only a short cab ride to the restaurant. The cab dropped us off by the river, then a motorcycle with 4 side seats came to pick us up. The motorcycle takes us down this sketchy alleyway...right to the restaurant which was paradise. It is open-air, "tree-house" like venue with tables over looking the Chao Phraya river. Twinkle lights and thai-style dining, with amazing ambiance. We ordered a bunch of different thai dishes (with help from our french host) and dinner with drinks cost about $6CDN per person. Delicious. I can't wait to go back.
Today we woke up early to go to the weekend market - Chattuchuk. It is this HUGE market with over 8000 stalls that sells everything and anything. We didn't buy a map so we wandered up and down the rows finding ourselves in the exotic pets, the clothing, the household goods, then handicrafts....amazing. I bought two silk pillow covers, a wood carved vase, two handmade wooden picture frames and a nice pashmina for under $20. It was quite the experience, and probably my favourite thing I have done in Thailand so far. We got lost on our cab ride home, but it was still a great day. After another afternoon by the pool, a bunch of us ordered pizza (my comfort food of choice) for dinner and had a nice chat. I am off to bed soon (so early here) because I am at school by 6:50 every morning.
Ann Marie (the other HS Sub) and I have to supervise academic lab (sort of like study hall) after school four nights a week, along with our thai lessons (which the school pays for) tutoring, coaching three nights a week, and community service duty on friday after school....I am going to be quite a busy girl.
Miss you all and hope you enjoyed this small glimpse into my life in Thailand! xo
ps...sorry about the randomness of the pics...don't know what happened and too tired to fix it
