Halfway Home

I am halfway through my service… or at least, PC tells me so. I just came home from a week of medical and mid-service meetings to discover that I am frustrated once again with my community. This sucks for 2 reasons:

-I had just started to really enjoy being at home when I had to leave for the mid-service conference
-It’s hard to bounce back from the low point once you’re there
I walked in on my co-teacher at the small school and she had this sentence written on the board:
"Is the bird has 4 legs?"

Now, I understand if this came from one of the students, but it was the school’s main English teacher, and we had been working on this for at least a month. It didn’t really help my comfort in leaving her to teach alone. Sigh. Baby steps, right?

So the mid-service conference was alright. The good part was seeing all my PC friends again and spending a week with Alec. We also celebrated Alex and Cameron’s birthdays, got more shots (I don’t know what they were for- I’ve stopped questioning), and got our teeth cleaned. We also sat through a few meetings, several of which could have been done through e-mail. BUT, we did get put up in a nice hotel in Bangkok and had our breakfasts and lunches paid for. I was also able to buy a new laptop (It’s red), and seasons 3 and 4 of Prison Break. We also had a mullet competition (I was a judge), got banned from a bar (not my fault), and a couple of the boys tried out their new Thai girlfriends. Interesting week overall.

Catherine's mullet

Pocket's mullet (it looks better from the side)











Me presenting the "Most Offensive to Your Community Mullet" award to Alex. The award: A Bacardi Breezer.








So now I’m home to weeks of test prep (BORING) and looking forward to leaving for Ko Phi Phi next week to meet up with Alec and his family (who are incredibly nice, generous, and interesting people). I am looking for a way to get out of teaching at my small school right now, mainly because I don’t feel like the school is benefitting from me being there (there is no retention – students or teachers), and I feel very isolated when I am there. I am currently working on other projects (after school English clubs, a literacy program, world map murals, teacher trainings) that would be a better use of my time. I love my big school and feel very supported and integrated there.


Here are some things that made me laugh this week:
-My assistant principal explaining "fertilization" in dogs to me. Some words he knows in English: ovary, sperm, egg, test tube, spiral.
-One of my students had drawn a picture of a goat and wrote that the goat’s name is Uterus. Where did she get that word? I never taught her that!
-Finding open tampons in my bathroom after one of my students had come over to use it. I’m assuming she was curious, since Thai ladies don’t normally use them – they’re very hard to find in Thailand.
-Mating season for dogs has begun again
-Me walking into the corner of a fruit cart at night and cutting up my eyebrow ( I laughed after I cried)
-Telling my co-teacher that I think she forgot English and having her agree with me.
-Reading a letter from one of my students: "Dear Kelly, What is that noise?"


And something that did not make me laugh:
-Another broom stolen from my house when I left for a week.
-Two geckos had chewed their way through a bag with cookies. I found them in there. 1 was dead.
-The money I had to spend to get a new computer.

And things that I love:
Letters and packages – I came home to letters from my mom, the Glaser family, and Val. And then I got packages from Louise and Hollie (who have both sent several packages now). Thank you for supporting and encouraging this crazy experience.