Teacher Stephanie

Quote of the day: "When things go wrong, don't go with them"

Just finished my first week as Teacher Stephanie at what is described as a prestigious all boys high school in the city of Korat. I'm not sure if prestigious is the right word, but for the most part my kids are respectful and polite. but they are boys and boys will be boys. My biggest struggle so far is definitely getting the few rowdy classes that I have to calm down and listen but I have been enjoying it. I teach 19 different classes per week which makes it hard to really get to know my students, but I already have some favorites. I gave out candy for Halloween, but instead of buying their love, I spent 10 minutes after class cleaning up the leftover wrappers. Not smart ha. However, one boy came up to me after class and handed me a kit kat and said "happy Halloween teacher". My heart was warmed.
Honestly, I've been having a pretty rough time since training ended 2 weeks ago. I had to have a minor procedure and have been to the hospital everyday for over a week now (hospitals here are lovely though and Zach loves coming because the nurses dress like they are going as a sexy nurse for Halloween). As if that hasn't been stressful enough, we also didn't have a placement or any guidance really of what to do. I ended up finding my current job on my own, and couldn't be happier with it. To top it off, the morning of my first day of school, I received news that my grandmom passed. I have no idea how I went in and taught, but she brought me strength and somehow I got through the day,
Getting to this point has been a struggle, but I'm finally starting to feel settled and happy. We have a great apartment (for Thai standards) and school.
The agency I'm with is pretty classy too, they provide PowerPoint lesson plans and books for me each day. I couldn't have asked for a better intro to teaching. I'm the only female English teacher at my school. The other teachers are really nice. They are mostly older men who all have Thai wives or girlfriends. It's a funny thing. The only Falang (Thai word for foreigner) I have seen in Korat so far have been white men, mostly older and not very good looking, and they are always with Thai women. Zach and I love relaxing with a beer and just people watching. Our apartment is in walking distance to Saveone market, one of the largest markets in Thailand and it's open everyday. I could literally eat something different there everyday for a year. The food is insanely good and cheap. Everything around here is written in Thai only, and most people speak zero to minimal English. I'm scrambling to refresh myself on basic Thai, I feel disrespectful living here and not speaking the language. Or at least attempting to speak the language. I have a lot of down time in between classes at school so I'm really going to try and learn.
Now that we are finally settled I'm gonna really work on my Thai goal list as well as hopefully update this thing more as a blog. Pictures to come as well.

Classroom

Young gentlemen