Thailand Day In the Life: School Edition
My apologies - this post has been in draft for months. Because I'm nosy, one of my favorite bloggers posts are "day in the life" posts. So I decided to put one together here and show you a typical teaching day in Thailand.
5:20 Alarm goes off. (Really only about 1/3 of the time do I get up to go to the gym before work, but today was one of those days) Go lay on the couch and browse the internet for a few minutes before getting up. *This is harder than it sounds, because most of life in the US happens when I'm asleep and it's easy to get lost in the timesucks of Facebook and Instagram
5:50 Short half mile job to our swanky hotel gym. Cross my fingers that the other early raisers haven't taken all the equipment, even though the gym technically doesn't open until 6.
6:30 Finish running or whatever I'm doing at the gym. Promise myself tomorrow I'll go after school so I'll have more time. (Spoiler: I probably won't)
6:40 Arrive home. Shower. Gabber away at Dan.
7:10 Hop on the back of the bike and ride to school. Check out what fruits are at Warorot market. Watch out for lettuce ladies blocking the road. The ushe.
7:20 Finger scan in at work. Eat school breakfast. Usually rice with some vegetable and meat combo. This was rice, stir-fried cucumber, ground chicken, dried seaweed and spicy sauce.
7:45 Time for the morning assembly! Music plays throughout the entire school, the kids manically run from all directions in grade-specific lines and we sing the Thai national anthem and recite characteristics of a good student (some days in Thai,some in English)
8:00 Homeroom. Kids do Thai or English vocabulary. Snoozeville.
8:20 - 11:35 The first four lessons of the day. There are eight lessons in a school day and the first four are before lunch. Usually I teach between 2-4 of these lessons. It's easy and it's fun. Sometimes too many kids shake their whiteout pens at the same time. That's about as rough as it gets.<3 teaching here
11:40 LUNCH We get a sweet, sweet school-provided midday meal and it is awesome. You choose 3-4 out of 12 options, plus salad and fruit or dessert. I didn't take a picture of my lunch today but it was a delectable pumpkin and egg stir-fry, weird asian mushrooms, broccoli with mini shrimps and a sweet black rice and coconut milk dessert. I regularly eat too much. Also, I never eat rice at lunch. I want the other items more and, I mean, #riceeverydamnday already happens, but the students and Thai teachers think I am INSANE. It is practically a daily conversation. "Teacher, no rice?!" Rice = food (as in, literally the same word) So I guess I'm basically having a giant snack, or something.
11:40-16:00 Final four lessons. Usually I teach 1-3 of these. Some days I even teach 4 year olds or 7 year olds. The rest of the time is spent grading (easy), lesson planning (easy), meetings and playing on the internet. It's a very sustainable teaching job. I never leave overwhelmed or overworked. Not to mention, there are breaks built into the day for the kids to play and eat snacks.
16:00-17:00 "Extra class" Even though the kids have been in school for 9 hours already, many stay for an additional hour of homework help. A lot of times this is just playing and reading.
17:00 Time to go home. FINALLY. Despite the relative easy of the day, it's still a long time to be at school. Finger scan out and ride home.
17:15 Occasionally I go to the gym with Dan if I haven't gone in the morning. Usually I do not. Instead I play around on the internet and/or read.
18:30 Eat some amazing Thai food. Yes, we always eat out. Yes, it's always amazing. And yes, it's cheap. Most often under two dollars.
20:00 Whatever the heck we want. Sometimes it's trivia at the pub. Sometimes watching TV series. Sometimes it's just some exploring. It's wonderful to live obligation-free.
22:30 or before zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz