On The First Day...

We made it!!  I'm happy to say that our entire group arrived in Thailand in one piece, and with all of our luggage. 

The trip started as a fiasco, compliments of Air Canada, as our flight from Beijing to Bangkok was overbooked so we had to repurchase our tickets at a discounted rate so that our whole crew could fly together through Tokyo.  This only took... 1.5 hours - thank god we got there 2 hours early for a domestic flight to Vancouver.  Once on our way it was clear sailing - I wouldn't know if there had been a problem during the flights as I slept through all of them (including the 10 hour flight between Vancouver and Tokyo).  What I can attest to is that the blankets on the Thai Air flight were way better than the ones that Air Canada provided.  You may not find this surprising.  As for customs in the Bangkok airport, it was funny how lax it was - we just had to walk through the lane labeled 'nothing to claim'.

Because I was such a sleepy-head on the plane, I was not tired when we got to our apartment so I spent a few hours nesting followed by at least an hour of reading.  The apartment is not very large but I don't think we'll be spending much time there so that's fine by me.  The bed is a double - around the same size as mine at home - but unlike my well worn mattress this one is a rock.  Luckily I can sleep anywhere.  Also, I've now gotten the cleaning supplies and alarm clock from the storage room so I will not experience a wake up like today - I thought that I had slept in!

We are at the school now.  We were supposed to be here for orientation at 8am originally but we did not start until 9:30am and our group only needed to be there for about 15 minutes, so we were then given the tour of the school and assigned desks in the staff room (you don't necessarily have a desk in the classroom, or if you do, the room is typically in use when you are not teaching in there so you won't have access to it).  We've got all of today to plan along with some time over the next two weeks.  The students don't come back until the 18th and regular classes don't start (we think) until the 23rd of May.

As I look at all of the curriculum and the swimming aspect of the phys. ed. curriculum, I'm feeling overwhelmed.  Furthermore, I am also responsible for teaching a 'conversation' class that I don't know much about and did not count on so that's a little scary and I'm feeling underprepared for that.  Oh well, the Thai's have a saying - Mai Ben Rai, similar to Hakuna Matata.  At least the students aren't already here - that would be chaos.

That's all for now.  Much love.  Amanda