Hello everyone, sorry for the long delay in posting. I did actually make it to Thailand, I’m not stuck at the border somewhere in the jungles of Cambodia or anything so don’t worry.
I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I won’t be able to post regularly until the TEFL certificate is over and I’ve gotten a job somewhere. There’s just way too much to try and get done. It’s definitely a challenging certificate, which is good because I feel like I’m getting a decent amount of training. Even though I’ve been mostly babysitting three year olds. But more about that later.
So we crossed the border on Friday after a 6 hour bus ride. Then we had another 3 hour ride in a van and an hour ride on a ferry until we reached Koh Chang. Koh Chang was our island stop on the way to Pattaya (because everyone who comes to Thailand needs an island stop). It was literally the eye in the middle of the storm: our first two weeks of homework and classes and grades were behind us, and our two weeks of teaching were about to begin. I enjoyed the weekend, laid out in the sun, played in clear, crystal waters (have I made you jealous yet?), and it was amazing. It was one of the most relaxing weekends of my life. We went to a little village on the water for dinner and had the best seafood ever- I kept getting mussels because Thailand has the best mussels in the world, I don’t know what they do to them here but wow. The following day we hiked to this waterfall way back in the woods through these treacherous paths that would probably never exist in the States, got to play around in the falls for awhile, and then made our way back. We lunched on the best chicken I’ve ever had cooked rotisserie style over an open flame. Then we made our way to Pattaya.
There are no words to describe Pattaya. At least no words that exist in the English language. Let me just sum it up by saying that Pattaya is the sex capital of Thailand. And Thailand is known for being scandalous, so for Pattaya to be the sex capital, I think you understand the craziness that faced us. It seemed fairly tame when we moved into Green Vale, the guesthouse we’re staying in for the next two weeks. Our little street had a few stores and food places and a money exchange: pretty much all you need in life. Then we decided to venture out later in the week. And wow. I know that sex trafficking is a huge problem in southeast Asia, but it’s laid right out in the open for everyone to see in Pattaya. It’s everywhere, more so than in Bangkok, more so than in Cambodia. You can’t go downtown without seeing it everywhere. It’s like an open business. We tried to find a normal bar and gave up. I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot of early nights here.
Monday was the first day of teaching. Except that we went to Hilton, a little school that is part of Phoenix Kindergarten, and observed preschool for most of the day. Which was great because having a day to observe the Thai way of teaching is definitely good. And the preschoolers were wild. Monday afternoon we had Thai class for the first time. Thai class is slowly frying my brain. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have many brain cells left if I make it through the rest of the course, and I’m blaming it on Thai class. Thai is a tonal language. That means there aren’t nearly as many words as in English, but they’re all said in different ways. The most famous phrase in Thai for driving Thai learners crazy is “mai mai mai mai mai “ which means “new wood doesn’t burn, does it?”. The word mai is the most versatile word- it means so many different things depending on when it’s used and how you say it. I’ve never tried to learn a tonal language before, so this is definitely a struggle. And the first day was brutal. We learned how to introduce ourselves, ask where someone is from, say where we’re from, ask what someone’s job is, and say what our job is. You would think that would be fairly easy. For homework, we had to go out on to the street and ask five people those three questions. It was not easy. I confused five restaurant servers to the point where they got me a motorcycle driver because they thought I was trying to get home.
Anyway. Tuesday was day two. We didn’t student teach on Tuesday either- we stayed at Phoenix instead of going to Hilton. By this point, Holly and I were getting a little frustrated because everyone else had started teaching. It was nice to observe different teaching methods and we got a wealth of ideas for dealing with preschoolers, but it was difficult not to be getting that teaching practice since we both knew we’d need it for finding jobs. We couldn’t say anything at the school though because LanguageCorps very strictly warned us to just go along with whatever we’re told to do and if we have a problem, to talk to one of the LanguageCorps employees afterwards and they’ll deal with it. Which is probably good because the staff doesn’t exactly speak perfect English anyway and things could easily get misunderstood.
Wednesday we found out that we weren’t going to Hilton anymore because there was a hand foot and mouth disease outbreak and the school was closed. Which was just lovely news. We were quite relieved to be staying at Phoenix after that. We got placed with Kristina and Val, and I’m now teaching with Kristina. Which is also a relief.
Life at Phoenix is night and day from life in an American preschool class. In an American preschool class, kids have about a half hour of actual time spent learning the alphabet or how to count, they have recess like three times a day, they have naptime and dance time, etc. The whole day is play basically. In Thailand, the first three hours of the day until lunchtime, the kids are expected to sit at their desks and learn. Three year olds. Sit at their desks and learn. For three hours. And guess who teaches them? That’s right.
The first full day I got to teach was Thursday. I was super excited. My lesson plans were as follows: the letters A-M, eight different colors, board scramble where I have them form teams and pick two to come up and erase a letter off the board, numbers 1-20, etc.
My lesson plans for day two after I muddled through day one were as follows: The letter A. The color blue. The numbers 1-5. That was it. Teaching three year olds English is like being the most boring babysitter ever. We try to jazz it up with lots of songs and some Barney and Bob the Builder mixed in, but it’s tricky because the kids get so wound up. I put on “Five Little Monkeys” the first day I taught class and the kids went nuts and started a mosh pit. We’ve been relying on calm activities like coloring a lot, needless to say.
Today was my second day of teaching, and I feel like I’m getting into the swing of it a little more. It’s nice having Kristina in the room because we can divvy up what we teach, and it gives the kids some variety since we have different teaching methods. I feel like there needs to be two people in that room anyway. We have Thai aides who come in and take care of the kids, and make sure that they’re all behaving and listening, but it’s still difficult because we don’t speak any Thai at all so if the kids need something, we aren’t much help. Some of the kids come from English backgrounds and can speak sentences in English, but most can’t even say their names. Every day is an adventure, let’s use a cliche and leave it at that.
I like teaching little kids, but I don’t feel like I’m using my full potential as a teacher by teaching at Phoenix. Right now I want to look for jobs in Bangkok- we’re all at the “work on resumes and cover letters” stage, and everyone is trying to figure out where to go. I think Bangkok is going to give me the best chance for getting a job right away. What we didn’t know before we got over here is that the Thai school year ends at the end of March, and then most of the schools have off until the beginning of May. So we might only be working for a month or two until we get a break. Which is both good and bad because I do want to travel, but I feel like it would be nice to earn a little money first. I’m going to try to teach third or fourth grade- somewhere in that range. I like working with kids, but working with preschool just makes me want to pull my hair out. Not to mention the fact that they cry. A lot.
Other than that, my week was fairly simple. I slept a lot- even though we’re only teaching four hours a day, it takes a lot out of you. And we had Thai class for two hours every day, which didn’t help my sanity much. But I bartered in Thai today for a dress and got the price down so I guess the Thai lessons are paying off. We’re also learning the language at an alarming rate since we’re learning it from a program that specializes in teaching languages. It’s very thorough language training.
Thursday night we went to see a movie. Which is quite the event in Thailand. We chose Couples Retreat (it was the only romantic comedy and Val and Susan had just seen The Road, which is extremely depressing). The movie theater was extremely nice, and movies were 120 baht, less than four dollars. The popcorn was less than two, and they have caramel popcorn- so exciting. We went into the theater and sat down, and enjoyed the previews which were all in Thai. Then everyone stood up. We were like, “What’s going on?” Apparently they play some kind of tribute to the King at the beginning of a movie in all the movie theaters around here. It’s really interesting. The movie itself was a nice break from the lesson planning and language journaling and homeworking that I had been doing all week, so I really enjoyed it. We also found this huge mall with six stories of designer stores, which was basically culture shock in and of itself.
Pattaya is a weird little town, I will say that. It’s right on the ocean, but the beach is kind of trashy, especially since we’ve been spoiled with Koh Chang and I’ve been to other islands as well. Even Bangkok is nicer. Though the conditions are cleaner than in Cambodia. We’re catching a ferry tomorrow (Saturday) to Koh Larn, an island about forty minutes away that is supposed to be much nicer than Pattaya. It will probably be fairly crowded. The crowds are really surprising me here. I keep forgetting that when I was in Thailand over the summer, it was rainy season and as far from tourist season as possible. This is cool season, or it’s supposed to be- it got up in the nineties today so who knows. But everywhere right now seems fairly overrun with tourists, and when I came during the summer it was a lot emptier. Nevertheless I’m excited to head to Koh Larn and lay on a beach all day. Just one day where I don’t come home with crayon and children’s tears and dirt all over me. It’s going to be glorious.
So that’s the update on my life. I’ll try to post again soon, and hopefully I’ll have some news at least about where I'm going to work even if I don’t know what job I’ll have yet. Hope everything is going well at home. I miss you all!
Love from Thailand,
Monica
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The King of Cambodia and Angkor Wat
Hello dear readers- sorry for the long delay in posting. LanguageCorps has basically turned into slave drivers and I haven’t had much free time this entire week.
So I didn’t do that much exciting stuff in the past week.
Though I saw the king of Cambodia.
And went to Angkor Wat.
Okay so I guess I have a few things to report.
I’ll start at the King of Cambodia. We were in a restaurant and happened to have a good view of the riverfront and were on the second floor sitting outside. The entire street was empty of cars and tuk tuks and motos, which was really strange because it was rush hour and there are usually too many vehicles to fit on the road. We were trying to figure out what was going on when one of the restaurant employees said, “The king.”
And sure enough, a caravan of really expensive cars, most of them of the Lexus variety, drove through. The second one had Cambodian flags on the front of it and the king was just leaning out the window and waving. We shouted and waved, and he looked right up at us and laughed and waved back. That’s right- the king of Cambodia waved at me. My life is now complete.
Nothing else happened last week that can even compare to the king of Cambodia until we drove out to Siem Reap on Friday. Now I know this is my second time blogging about this so I’ll try to stick to the stuff that was new. Bus ride- long, stuffy, and old news. Hotel- extremely nice and a swimming pool that we took advantage of the second night. Siem Reap- still awesome. We got to the hotel at about 8:30, met for dinner and got pizza, and then crashed. Everyone just went straight to bed except for a few of the die hard guys- don’t know how they made it through the temples the next day.
We saw so many temples on Saturday my mind was blown. I mean when I was in Siem Reap this summer, we saw a good deal of temples, but we only went for like four hours. Ten hours straight on Saturday. Ten hours. I love temples, don’t get me wrong, but when my guide started talking about the intricate artwork on this one tiny wall of this huge temple called Bayon, I walked off and started exploring on my own.
I will say this about the temples in Siem Reap- they’re definitely unique. One because many of them are crumbling and the foundations are starting to come down. Two because despite that tourists are still allowed to walk around and touch everything. We walked straight through rocks that were basically about ready to come tumbling down on top of us, and thought nothing of it. We touched stone and gravel that was hundreds of years old. We climbed steps that were climbed by kings. And let me tell you we climbed. These people must have had tiny feet in the early centuries of A.D. because we had to basically mountain climb up the side of some of these things. I took a picture of some people coming down one of the temples- it’s pretty intense.
We went through the same basic temples I saw before with a lot of little ones thrown in. My favorite new temple was the last temple we went to. We hiked up a hill for fifteen minutes at sunset with about a thousand other tourists, mountain climbed our way up several steps and level s to the very top, and jockeyed for position to watch as the sky turned into molten reds, oranges, and purples. It was a glorious sight, one of my favorites in Cambodia. Watching the sun set and being able to see all around, to see Angkor Wat and the Mekong River and so much of the countryside was absolutely amazing.
Getting down was not so easy. It probably took me ten minutes to get down the steps. Granted I was wearing sandals. But let me back up a second and explain my shame because not everyone took ten minutes to get down. Our babysitter from LanguageCorps was Sophia, a Khmer woman who is really friendly and nice. Her mother decided to come along on the trip. Guess where this is going. That’s right. Her mother basically carried me down the side of this temple. She told me where to put my feet, held my hand, guided me down as much as possible, and did it all barefoot. She is my idol. When I’m her age, I want to be able to climb up and down temples. And as if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the face, once I finally made my way down to the bottom of the steps, I turned around and a Khmer woman with a cane was coming down. And she was making impressive progress.
Anyway I’m sure I’ll continue embarrassing myself throughout Cambodia and all of Southeast Asia as this trip continues. We went back to the hotel, showered because we were covered in dirt from scrambling all over temples all day, and went out for Mexican food for dinner. That’s right. Mexican food. And it was amazing. We visited a few of the bars, but called it an early night because of the bus ride the next morning.
Sunday we got to see the best temple ever. Okay maybe besides Angkor Wat, but it’s a close second. It was a temple grown over by trees like Ta Prohm, which is another temple close to Angkor Wat, but there were pathways built in everywhere. We got to walk through pathways in the trees to see this temple, down pathways beneath hidden tunnels, through woods and undergrowth and forest, and we felt like real explorers. The temple is very out of the way and not many tourists know about it, so we were the only ones there, which added to the exclusivity and the idea that we were discovering something entirely new. One of my favorites, though another terrible place to wear sandals. You’d think I would learn.
We endured the bus ride home and went straight to bed. At least I did. I hope no one tried to go out because we were all dead on our feet.
The next morning it was up early and off to class. We all had homework due, of course even though we had a LanguageCorps sponsored field trip, so we begrudgingly worked on that (most of us during lunch right before it was due). The whole week we’ve been doing teaching assignments. We’ve put together different lessons, like communicative or listening, etc. and had to split into groups and perform them for each other and be graded. It hasn’t been too intense, but it’s been difficult enough that I’ve been spending lots of time preparing.
I’m starting to get a little nervous because I start student teaching on Monday. Kindergarten. Lord save me. LanguageCorps has mostly been preparing us to work with older students so I feel like working with little ones will be interesting. We have no idea what they’re learning and no way to know before we go into class on the first day, so it’s basically sink or swim. I’m going to bring a few games and hope that I’m well prepared. It’s not as easy to prepare lessons here- it’s hard to find resources. Kids books and classroom materials do exist but not in massive quantities and they’re hidden throughout the city. Plus my Khmer is limited to “How are you?” and “Bathroom” so I’m kind of at a loss. I have lesson plans due throughout my teaching, and we have yet to talk about how to prepare lessons for LanguageCorps so I’m not sure that I’m going to have much help on that. I have a feeling my lessons will revolve around the alphabet anyway so it shouldn’t be too difficult, but we’re getting observed and graded so that will be nerve-wracking.
To get back on track and report the rest of my week… I visited the orphanage this week! Twice. I showed up on Monday and four kids were there. Everyone else had gone to a restaurant. Which happens once a month. And I happened to pick the day it happened. So I talked to Srey Mom, whom I love, for awhile and then left and came back on Tuesday. Everyone was there on Tuesday. I was about knocked over. I didn’t expect the kids to recognize me, let alone remember my name, but wow they really did. They were so excited. I also got to see Mike, who I volunteered with this summer, and Jen, the volunteer coordinator for Palm Tree, so that was pretty awesome. Then I got stolen away to help with homework. Let me tell you, these kids have some homework that is impossible for a native English speaker to do. Can someone please tell me what part of speech the word ‘likewise’ is? I’d appreciate it. Srey Mom’s class had to find words they didn’t know in an article, define them four times, give them synonyms, tell the part of speech, find prefixes, roots, and suffixes, and use them in sentences. I was ready to give up halfway through. It also didn’t help that I was recruited to help the little kids with alphabet flashcards at the same time. It was a pretty crazy night but it was exciting to see everyone again. It’s amazing how much the orphanage became a home to me. It felt so right going back.
Anyway that has been my week so far. I’m leaving for Thailand on Friday, and we’re stopping at a beach on the way till Sunday (my life is so difficult right?) and then heading to Pattaya. And then it’s student teaching on Monday with the kindergarteners, so you will all hear about that. I hope everyone back home is doing well and I miss you all!
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
So I didn’t do that much exciting stuff in the past week.
Though I saw the king of Cambodia.
And went to Angkor Wat.
Okay so I guess I have a few things to report.
I’ll start at the King of Cambodia. We were in a restaurant and happened to have a good view of the riverfront and were on the second floor sitting outside. The entire street was empty of cars and tuk tuks and motos, which was really strange because it was rush hour and there are usually too many vehicles to fit on the road. We were trying to figure out what was going on when one of the restaurant employees said, “The king.”
And sure enough, a caravan of really expensive cars, most of them of the Lexus variety, drove through. The second one had Cambodian flags on the front of it and the king was just leaning out the window and waving. We shouted and waved, and he looked right up at us and laughed and waved back. That’s right- the king of Cambodia waved at me. My life is now complete.
Nothing else happened last week that can even compare to the king of Cambodia until we drove out to Siem Reap on Friday. Now I know this is my second time blogging about this so I’ll try to stick to the stuff that was new. Bus ride- long, stuffy, and old news. Hotel- extremely nice and a swimming pool that we took advantage of the second night. Siem Reap- still awesome. We got to the hotel at about 8:30, met for dinner and got pizza, and then crashed. Everyone just went straight to bed except for a few of the die hard guys- don’t know how they made it through the temples the next day.
We saw so many temples on Saturday my mind was blown. I mean when I was in Siem Reap this summer, we saw a good deal of temples, but we only went for like four hours. Ten hours straight on Saturday. Ten hours. I love temples, don’t get me wrong, but when my guide started talking about the intricate artwork on this one tiny wall of this huge temple called Bayon, I walked off and started exploring on my own.
I will say this about the temples in Siem Reap- they’re definitely unique. One because many of them are crumbling and the foundations are starting to come down. Two because despite that tourists are still allowed to walk around and touch everything. We walked straight through rocks that were basically about ready to come tumbling down on top of us, and thought nothing of it. We touched stone and gravel that was hundreds of years old. We climbed steps that were climbed by kings. And let me tell you we climbed. These people must have had tiny feet in the early centuries of A.D. because we had to basically mountain climb up the side of some of these things. I took a picture of some people coming down one of the temples- it’s pretty intense.
We went through the same basic temples I saw before with a lot of little ones thrown in. My favorite new temple was the last temple we went to. We hiked up a hill for fifteen minutes at sunset with about a thousand other tourists, mountain climbed our way up several steps and level s to the very top, and jockeyed for position to watch as the sky turned into molten reds, oranges, and purples. It was a glorious sight, one of my favorites in Cambodia. Watching the sun set and being able to see all around, to see Angkor Wat and the Mekong River and so much of the countryside was absolutely amazing.
Getting down was not so easy. It probably took me ten minutes to get down the steps. Granted I was wearing sandals. But let me back up a second and explain my shame because not everyone took ten minutes to get down. Our babysitter from LanguageCorps was Sophia, a Khmer woman who is really friendly and nice. Her mother decided to come along on the trip. Guess where this is going. That’s right. Her mother basically carried me down the side of this temple. She told me where to put my feet, held my hand, guided me down as much as possible, and did it all barefoot. She is my idol. When I’m her age, I want to be able to climb up and down temples. And as if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the face, once I finally made my way down to the bottom of the steps, I turned around and a Khmer woman with a cane was coming down. And she was making impressive progress.
Anyway I’m sure I’ll continue embarrassing myself throughout Cambodia and all of Southeast Asia as this trip continues. We went back to the hotel, showered because we were covered in dirt from scrambling all over temples all day, and went out for Mexican food for dinner. That’s right. Mexican food. And it was amazing. We visited a few of the bars, but called it an early night because of the bus ride the next morning.
Sunday we got to see the best temple ever. Okay maybe besides Angkor Wat, but it’s a close second. It was a temple grown over by trees like Ta Prohm, which is another temple close to Angkor Wat, but there were pathways built in everywhere. We got to walk through pathways in the trees to see this temple, down pathways beneath hidden tunnels, through woods and undergrowth and forest, and we felt like real explorers. The temple is very out of the way and not many tourists know about it, so we were the only ones there, which added to the exclusivity and the idea that we were discovering something entirely new. One of my favorites, though another terrible place to wear sandals. You’d think I would learn.
We endured the bus ride home and went straight to bed. At least I did. I hope no one tried to go out because we were all dead on our feet.
The next morning it was up early and off to class. We all had homework due, of course even though we had a LanguageCorps sponsored field trip, so we begrudgingly worked on that (most of us during lunch right before it was due). The whole week we’ve been doing teaching assignments. We’ve put together different lessons, like communicative or listening, etc. and had to split into groups and perform them for each other and be graded. It hasn’t been too intense, but it’s been difficult enough that I’ve been spending lots of time preparing.
I’m starting to get a little nervous because I start student teaching on Monday. Kindergarten. Lord save me. LanguageCorps has mostly been preparing us to work with older students so I feel like working with little ones will be interesting. We have no idea what they’re learning and no way to know before we go into class on the first day, so it’s basically sink or swim. I’m going to bring a few games and hope that I’m well prepared. It’s not as easy to prepare lessons here- it’s hard to find resources. Kids books and classroom materials do exist but not in massive quantities and they’re hidden throughout the city. Plus my Khmer is limited to “How are you?” and “Bathroom” so I’m kind of at a loss. I have lesson plans due throughout my teaching, and we have yet to talk about how to prepare lessons for LanguageCorps so I’m not sure that I’m going to have much help on that. I have a feeling my lessons will revolve around the alphabet anyway so it shouldn’t be too difficult, but we’re getting observed and graded so that will be nerve-wracking.
To get back on track and report the rest of my week… I visited the orphanage this week! Twice. I showed up on Monday and four kids were there. Everyone else had gone to a restaurant. Which happens once a month. And I happened to pick the day it happened. So I talked to Srey Mom, whom I love, for awhile and then left and came back on Tuesday. Everyone was there on Tuesday. I was about knocked over. I didn’t expect the kids to recognize me, let alone remember my name, but wow they really did. They were so excited. I also got to see Mike, who I volunteered with this summer, and Jen, the volunteer coordinator for Palm Tree, so that was pretty awesome. Then I got stolen away to help with homework. Let me tell you, these kids have some homework that is impossible for a native English speaker to do. Can someone please tell me what part of speech the word ‘likewise’ is? I’d appreciate it. Srey Mom’s class had to find words they didn’t know in an article, define them four times, give them synonyms, tell the part of speech, find prefixes, roots, and suffixes, and use them in sentences. I was ready to give up halfway through. It also didn’t help that I was recruited to help the little kids with alphabet flashcards at the same time. It was a pretty crazy night but it was exciting to see everyone again. It’s amazing how much the orphanage became a home to me. It felt so right going back.
Anyway that has been my week so far. I’m leaving for Thailand on Friday, and we’re stopping at a beach on the way till Sunday (my life is so difficult right?) and then heading to Pattaya. And then it’s student teaching on Monday with the kindergarteners, so you will all hear about that. I hope everyone back home is doing well and I miss you all!
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
First week in Cambodia... No wait, I did this already.
Hey everyone- sorry it’s taken me a bit to get started with posting here. As you may have guessed, I made it safely. I’ve been busy and exhausted the past few days getting settled in and starting class.
So let’s start with the beginning (I know that’s boring and overdone but that’s all I’ve got). My flight got in at about 11:30 on Friday night (11:30 am your time). The flight itself could have been worse- we had lots of movies and way too much food. It was like midnight my time and they just kept trying to feed me every two hours. So I didn’t have to worry about that. I started in Newark and flew to Seattle, and from there flew to Seoul. We were a half hour late in Seoul, and that meant I only had a half hour to make it to my connecting flight to Phnom Penh. We had to go through security again in Seoul. A guy who worked at the airport was standing at the end of the security line and he asked me where I was headed. I told him Gate 50. Phnom Penh. He looked at me and said, “Oh that gate is boarding, you better run.” So I sprinted through basically the entire airport till I finally found the gate and made it with like five minutes to spare.
By the time I got to Phnom Penh, I was exhausted. Thank God it was nighttime. I tried to sleep but jet lag hasn’t let that happen much the past few days. Saturday I just basically tried to sleep and started meeting other people who live here. Everyone so far seems nice and has extensively traveled so it’s been really interesting talking to these people.
Sunday we went on a tour of Phnom Penh. And by tour, I mean they took us to Wat Phnom and the Parliament building. I mean they’re both really cool but I’ve seen them both and there are a lot of other things in the city that I would include if I were planning a tour of all of Phnom Penh. Regardless it was cool to visit those places again, especially Parliament because it’s beautiful. It’s a strange contrast though because all of the buildings are the traditional gorgeous Cambodian architecture, and then there’s this French section built right into the middle. It’s a pretty random sight.
After the tour, we had a welcome dinner. Everyone rushed home and showered because we were covered in sweat (I know my life is so glamorous), and then we went to a fancy restaurant along Sisowath Quay, the main street by the Mekong River. The second we walked in we knew it was fancy. Mostly because it was indoor, air conditioned, and the chairs and tables were elegant. There was a dancer in the back corner performing the slow, fluid motions of Khmer dance routines beside a man playing a xylophone. We got a chance to meet the teachers for the first time. One of them (I will not mention names because who knows who reads my blog) is slightly odd and asked extremely personal questions, one of them is cool and entertaining, one of them is really sweet, and one of them looks perpetually hungover and his features resemble a turtle. It’s quite the crew.
I ordered lemongrass beef, mostly because I always order anything involving lemongrass, but I still haven’t been able to eat a whole lot since the time difference is messing me up so that was all I ate. It was amazing- which considering we were in probably the best restaurant in Phnom Penh wasn’t that surprising. Still, I enjoyed it.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, mostly because I was exhausted and everyone around me was exhausted from the tour earlier, and all we wanted to do was go to bed.
The next morning (Monday) we started classes. Wow. We have class from 9:00-5:30. It’s been a long time since I’ve had class for that long. I’m used to having a few classes here and there, but not straight like that. It’s tiring. And I shouldn’t say 9:-5:30 straight because we do have a 1 and a half hour lunch break. So it’s technically only seven hours that we have class. But still.
The first day we got our notebooks and our papers and went around and introduced ourselves. It was basically preschool all over again. Then we started into the good stuff. Warm ups (or warmers). Lesson structure. Resume writing. All of that fun stuff that everyone loves. We were eager for our lunch break and found a little place around the corner that was slightly overwhelmed by the 18 of us (we like to stick together). We also got homework. I guess I can’t complain too much, I escaped a whole six months without having to do homework. We had to create a few warmers to show the class. Mine involved “first, second, third,” etc and pretending that everyone had just finished a marathon. It was fun but we were all a bit nervous because we’re being graded on basically every breath we take.
Last night we went to a bar called Three Rivers, which is owned by one of Dave’s friends. Dave is one of the other students and hails from Galway. We all hung out there for awhile and enjoyed the mix of Cambodian and Western influences (no ceiling but nice furniture, Khmer and Western food, etc.) I ordered pizza and beer. I’m not ashamed. I have plenty of time to eat Khmer and Thai food, don't worry.
Today we all woke up bright eyed and ready to go… okay some of us were hungover, and some hadn’t quite made it home last night, and one of us was pick-pocketed so he had a really bad night. I had called it an early night so I don't fit into any of those categories but I felt bad for the people who did. Nevertheless we made our way to class at 9:00 and sat through an hour and a half of grammar. I’m not going to sugarcoat it- I was in physical pain by the end of it, and I had almost fallen out of my chair from falling asleep. Not that our teacher isn’t entertaining, she’s a sweetheart, but there’s not much you can do to make grammar interesting. Mostly I just learned how very little I know about the vocabulary behind grammar. And that if you know how to use words in the English language, it really doesn’t matter what they’re called.
Anyway, after that happy lesson we had materials with the teacher I mentioned before who asks personal questions. He made several inappropriate statements throughout class and some people were offended- I was mostly entertained but they weren’t directed at me so I can’t really judge. He taught us how to put together classroom materials basically from trash- old yogurt cans, sticks, pieces of wood, toilet paper rolls, etc. It was actually a fairly entertaining lesson but that might just be because it was coming after grammar.
After a lovely lunch, we had to demonstrate our warmers. Mine went fairly well I suppose- I got about the same grade as everyone else, and there wasn’t anyone who did terribly. It was mostly just embarrassing being up in front of everyone and pretending that they are little kids, but it was good practice to see what warmers everyone came up with.
After that and our last lesson of the day, where we got assigned more homework (yay), we came home. And that brings me to right now because I haven’t eaten dinner yet. We’re going to Trea’s bar tonight because they’re having a party and there’s free food and first drink is on the house. All she had to say was the word free to get us there.
So far I like being back in Phnom Penh, enough that I’m wondering if I should stay here. But then I would have to change the name of the blog. So nevermind. Just kidding. In reality I do really want to at least give Thailand a try and see how it goes. If I don’t like it or can’t find a job I want, I’ll come back to Phnom Penh. Most of the other students I’ve made friends with are staying here anyway. The one thing I like about this program (okay one of many it’s really a good program) is that they’re very flexible. If we decide to change locations, they give us what help they can and we can switch our schedules around in the program or they’ll help us relocate afterwards, etc. It’s fairly easy to change your mind if need be.
Living accommodations are fabulous for Phnom Penh. Mosquitoes and cockroaches are minimal (though the two gigantic cockroaches in my bathroom are slightly problematic when I use the bathroom at 3 am). I’m staying in a room by myself- most of us are, there are only two rooms in the villa with two beds. I like the living arrangements but kind of wish I had a roommate, I feel like it would be easier to settle in that way. A lot of people came here with someone they knew and part of me wishes I would have convinced somebody I know to come with me – you’re all thinking I’d have tried to convince you, I know :) But I’ve met a lot of really cool people and everything has been going well overall.
I miss all of you! We’re headed to Siem Reap this weekend so unless something drastic happens in the next week, my next post with be after that.
Love from Cambodia (again),
Monica
So let’s start with the beginning (I know that’s boring and overdone but that’s all I’ve got). My flight got in at about 11:30 on Friday night (11:30 am your time). The flight itself could have been worse- we had lots of movies and way too much food. It was like midnight my time and they just kept trying to feed me every two hours. So I didn’t have to worry about that. I started in Newark and flew to Seattle, and from there flew to Seoul. We were a half hour late in Seoul, and that meant I only had a half hour to make it to my connecting flight to Phnom Penh. We had to go through security again in Seoul. A guy who worked at the airport was standing at the end of the security line and he asked me where I was headed. I told him Gate 50. Phnom Penh. He looked at me and said, “Oh that gate is boarding, you better run.” So I sprinted through basically the entire airport till I finally found the gate and made it with like five minutes to spare.
By the time I got to Phnom Penh, I was exhausted. Thank God it was nighttime. I tried to sleep but jet lag hasn’t let that happen much the past few days. Saturday I just basically tried to sleep and started meeting other people who live here. Everyone so far seems nice and has extensively traveled so it’s been really interesting talking to these people.
Sunday we went on a tour of Phnom Penh. And by tour, I mean they took us to Wat Phnom and the Parliament building. I mean they’re both really cool but I’ve seen them both and there are a lot of other things in the city that I would include if I were planning a tour of all of Phnom Penh. Regardless it was cool to visit those places again, especially Parliament because it’s beautiful. It’s a strange contrast though because all of the buildings are the traditional gorgeous Cambodian architecture, and then there’s this French section built right into the middle. It’s a pretty random sight.
After the tour, we had a welcome dinner. Everyone rushed home and showered because we were covered in sweat (I know my life is so glamorous), and then we went to a fancy restaurant along Sisowath Quay, the main street by the Mekong River. The second we walked in we knew it was fancy. Mostly because it was indoor, air conditioned, and the chairs and tables were elegant. There was a dancer in the back corner performing the slow, fluid motions of Khmer dance routines beside a man playing a xylophone. We got a chance to meet the teachers for the first time. One of them (I will not mention names because who knows who reads my blog) is slightly odd and asked extremely personal questions, one of them is cool and entertaining, one of them is really sweet, and one of them looks perpetually hungover and his features resemble a turtle. It’s quite the crew.
I ordered lemongrass beef, mostly because I always order anything involving lemongrass, but I still haven’t been able to eat a whole lot since the time difference is messing me up so that was all I ate. It was amazing- which considering we were in probably the best restaurant in Phnom Penh wasn’t that surprising. Still, I enjoyed it.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur, mostly because I was exhausted and everyone around me was exhausted from the tour earlier, and all we wanted to do was go to bed.
The next morning (Monday) we started classes. Wow. We have class from 9:00-5:30. It’s been a long time since I’ve had class for that long. I’m used to having a few classes here and there, but not straight like that. It’s tiring. And I shouldn’t say 9:-5:30 straight because we do have a 1 and a half hour lunch break. So it’s technically only seven hours that we have class. But still.
The first day we got our notebooks and our papers and went around and introduced ourselves. It was basically preschool all over again. Then we started into the good stuff. Warm ups (or warmers). Lesson structure. Resume writing. All of that fun stuff that everyone loves. We were eager for our lunch break and found a little place around the corner that was slightly overwhelmed by the 18 of us (we like to stick together). We also got homework. I guess I can’t complain too much, I escaped a whole six months without having to do homework. We had to create a few warmers to show the class. Mine involved “first, second, third,” etc and pretending that everyone had just finished a marathon. It was fun but we were all a bit nervous because we’re being graded on basically every breath we take.
Last night we went to a bar called Three Rivers, which is owned by one of Dave’s friends. Dave is one of the other students and hails from Galway. We all hung out there for awhile and enjoyed the mix of Cambodian and Western influences (no ceiling but nice furniture, Khmer and Western food, etc.) I ordered pizza and beer. I’m not ashamed. I have plenty of time to eat Khmer and Thai food, don't worry.
Today we all woke up bright eyed and ready to go… okay some of us were hungover, and some hadn’t quite made it home last night, and one of us was pick-pocketed so he had a really bad night. I had called it an early night so I don't fit into any of those categories but I felt bad for the people who did. Nevertheless we made our way to class at 9:00 and sat through an hour and a half of grammar. I’m not going to sugarcoat it- I was in physical pain by the end of it, and I had almost fallen out of my chair from falling asleep. Not that our teacher isn’t entertaining, she’s a sweetheart, but there’s not much you can do to make grammar interesting. Mostly I just learned how very little I know about the vocabulary behind grammar. And that if you know how to use words in the English language, it really doesn’t matter what they’re called.
Anyway, after that happy lesson we had materials with the teacher I mentioned before who asks personal questions. He made several inappropriate statements throughout class and some people were offended- I was mostly entertained but they weren’t directed at me so I can’t really judge. He taught us how to put together classroom materials basically from trash- old yogurt cans, sticks, pieces of wood, toilet paper rolls, etc. It was actually a fairly entertaining lesson but that might just be because it was coming after grammar.
After a lovely lunch, we had to demonstrate our warmers. Mine went fairly well I suppose- I got about the same grade as everyone else, and there wasn’t anyone who did terribly. It was mostly just embarrassing being up in front of everyone and pretending that they are little kids, but it was good practice to see what warmers everyone came up with.
After that and our last lesson of the day, where we got assigned more homework (yay), we came home. And that brings me to right now because I haven’t eaten dinner yet. We’re going to Trea’s bar tonight because they’re having a party and there’s free food and first drink is on the house. All she had to say was the word free to get us there.
So far I like being back in Phnom Penh, enough that I’m wondering if I should stay here. But then I would have to change the name of the blog. So nevermind. Just kidding. In reality I do really want to at least give Thailand a try and see how it goes. If I don’t like it or can’t find a job I want, I’ll come back to Phnom Penh. Most of the other students I’ve made friends with are staying here anyway. The one thing I like about this program (okay one of many it’s really a good program) is that they’re very flexible. If we decide to change locations, they give us what help they can and we can switch our schedules around in the program or they’ll help us relocate afterwards, etc. It’s fairly easy to change your mind if need be.
Living accommodations are fabulous for Phnom Penh. Mosquitoes and cockroaches are minimal (though the two gigantic cockroaches in my bathroom are slightly problematic when I use the bathroom at 3 am). I’m staying in a room by myself- most of us are, there are only two rooms in the villa with two beds. I like the living arrangements but kind of wish I had a roommate, I feel like it would be easier to settle in that way. A lot of people came here with someone they knew and part of me wishes I would have convinced somebody I know to come with me – you’re all thinking I’d have tried to convince you, I know :) But I’ve met a lot of really cool people and everything has been going well overall.
I miss all of you! We’re headed to Siem Reap this weekend so unless something drastic happens in the next week, my next post with be after that.
Love from Cambodia (again),
Monica
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Leaving for Cambodia and Thailand
It's 4 hours before I leave. Am I packed? Don't worry, I'm getting there.
I'll be using this blog to talk about my time spent during the four week TEFL training program (two weeks in Cambodia, two in Thailand), and teaching in Thailand.
Enjoy! :)
I'll be using this blog to talk about my time spent during the four week TEFL training program (two weeks in Cambodia, two in Thailand), and teaching in Thailand.
Enjoy! :)
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