Since leaving Koh Chang everything has been totally crazy, in kind of a stressful way more than a fun way though. We left koh Chang island on Saturday morning at 9 am, and didnt arrive until 5pm. Then we had one night in Bangkok, which just consisted of another trip to a mall and kao San road, and a stay in the same hostel we were in 3 weeks before- then the few of us going down south had to get an overnight train on sunday afternoon, which was quite exciting but not the best place to catch up on sleep. It was pretty comfortable, but the train is also loud and shaky so not the best nights sleep. Then in Hat Yai we were whisked off to the offices of Teacha-language school to find out about our placements, where I found out that the departure card that I'd ripped out my passport, coz I thought it was unimportant, was actually very important so I had to go down to the Malaysian border to get a new one. It was only about 45 mins from Hat Yai but it was pretty confusing at the border and I had to get on the back of a woman's moped to be taken around the 4 passport control points, but I didn't know that there were 4 so I had no idea where this crazy lady was taking me on her bike. Then the next day we were put in a minibus to be taken to our placements, but the first stop was my friend kristen's town where she was placed with 2 other girls from the other course, and it took nearly all day to find them a place to live so I had to stay the night with them, with 3 of us on a mattress on the floor.
So yesterday I came here to my placement, which is in Wiengsa town, in surathanni province, which is about an hour from krabi and the place where you get the boats to koh phangan. It's a pretty small town but on a very busy main crossroads motorway thing. So there's not much going on it seems but it's very noisy with cars. Anyway, there is one person from the other TEFL course who has been placed at a different school but in the same town as me, 59 year old jane. So when we arrived we were shown a house that had 2 rooms, but then the deposit they were asking for was way too high so we couldn't get it. But luckily there is a group of other foreign teachers living in the same apartment block who apparently have a spare room so they said we could stay until we get ourselves sorted. Theyre all away at the moment but one girl gets back tomoro so we have had to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights, which is nice coz they have good Internet and lovely rooms, and I got another Thai massage too. But last night we went out for some food and Jane started trying to ask some people if they knew of somewhere we could rent, and barely anyone speaks english so everyone got really confused and then this one guy understood and was calling people on his phone, and then other people kept showing up and talking to each other in Thai while we just sat there with no idea what was going on! then he told the both of us to get on the back of his moped, and drove us about 30 metres down the road where he spoke to one guy who showed us what can only be described as a garage in a petrol station car park, so we said no and that we were looking for 2 rooms, so he took us back and then for some reason called his friend who was a teacher at my school who spoke to me on the phone and then showed up and drove us around town to meet another teacher at my school, before taking us back to our hotel. Basically we didn't have a clue what was going on but kept being taken around different places, and all I wanted was to go out for some food! in the end the only place left open was a cafe that did a tuna salad, but when it came it was more of a salad cream soup, there was so much salad cream!
So today I had to go to my school to meet someone who I think is the head of my department, but there was just a lot more sitting around while people speak in Thai and I have no idea what's going on. But basically now I'm not just teaching English, I'm also teaching maths in English! Which in a way i am pleased about, but the guy who organises placements told me it would be very very basic maths, just getting them used to doing it in English, but after speaking to the man at school it seems like the maths is a bit more complex! I know I can do it, but I have had no teacher training whatsoever so I'm not feeling too confident about teaching it! They gave me some textbooks but no real information on what and how exactly I'm supposed to teach, but I think I'm going in on Monday to prepare it with some of the other teachers. Luckily there was another foreign teacher there, Henry from south Africa, who was very helpful and friendly and basically told me not to worry.
So tomorrow we meet with this girl Estelle who we are going to be staying with, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that she let's me stay permanently! Who knows what could happen. Then hopefully tomorrow after we've moved our stuff in I am going to meet up with kristen and some of the others from the TEFL course and we're gonna go to the beach in krabi for relaxing weekend before i start at my school on monday.
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