Rough Start

It's been a rough start this year. I have a lot of challenges that I knew would make it difficult, but I don't think I realized how difficult it would be and how it would affect me so much. I find that I work ALL the time and have very little time for anything else, and if I do have time for anything else, all I want to do is sleep.
Part of this is the stress and uniqueness of my job, but I've realized that part of it is also me. I've never had a job that wasn't my life. At Disney, I lived there, ate there, worked there,and everything else I did was centered around that job. Sometimes I put in 16 hour days. Here I feel like I work from 7:30-11 some days and still don't get everything done.
Yes there is a lot to do, but there's got to be a balance. I'm trying to find it. That's the me part. Part of it is my job, I knew it was going to be hard and I was up for the challenge, but the other part is me... I guess I just don't know when to quit or how to be okay with doing less. Some things HAVE to get done... I have to know what I'm teaching and have the materials ready. But trying to always be on top of things and grade every scrap they turn in and make everything SUPER exciting has really just exhausted me, which in turn doesn't really help the school day.
I'm trying to get things worked out, and at least I'm at a point where I know something has to change or I'm going to burn out fast.
Another big factor that has played into making this a rough start is the fact that my remaining grandparents... my dad's mom and my mom's dad, both passed away within a month from each other. I knew it was probably going to happen while I was gone, but it was really hard to deal with and be so far away. I wish I could have gone home for just a little while.
So that's been this year so far. Lots of loss and busyness... lots of students and figuring out how to teach them and make things understandable. But I love my class and things are getting better. Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I feel like nothing is that exciting and i don't really have that much to tell you, so these posts are probably going to be few and far between.
Here is a link to my sister's blog... she wrote a really cool blog entry about my grandma.

Luckily I got to spend some time with them both before I came back. Here are some recent and some not so recent pictures:

Koh Tao

So we had a long weekend a few weeks ago, so me an my roommates (both who happened to be named Sarah... that gets a little crazy sometimes) decided to go to Koh Tao, which means turtle island :) Apparently sea turtles used it as a mating island, but since people began inhabiting it, they all went away, so we were hoping to see some, but didn't. Although it turned out to be a wonderful weekend.
It all starting in a bit of a hurry. Sarah G and I had gone to get the tickets earlier that week, and one of the ladies who worked in the office had arranged it to have a taxi come pick us up on Thursday at 7. Well... of course it would have to start to rain! Rain here stops EVERYTHING. You would think they would have a plan, since rainy season is an annual thing, but no, traffic STOPS. So our taxi drive was stuck and wouldn't make it on time, and due to what would now be an hour or more of extra travel time, the lady from the office called at 6:30 and said we needed to leave right away. Of course I wasn't dressed yet or done packing, but it was quite a scramble. We were out by the sidewalk a few minutes later attempting to hail a taxi in the rain. 5 taxis probably passed us by before we finally found someone who would take us. It ended up taking about an hour to get to the bus station, but it was a VERY eventful ride. Our young taxi driver was very entertaining. He was teaching us Thai and telling jokes and telling us about his life.



We got to the bus station with some time to spare, and of course had to stop by 7-eleven to get snacks. We finally loaded our bus (which pulled into the wrong terminal #... thankfully a nice Thai woman was there to help us out) and got ready for the long 6-7 hour drive. I of course slept without any real trouble, I just bundled up and dozed off. My roommates didn't fare as well. We arrived at the bus station in the south around 4am and had to wait there until 5 to catch our shuttle to the pier. Once we got to the pier and boarded the ferry, it was a 3 hour trip out to the island! In all it ended up being a 15 hour journey to get there, but it was SO worth it!!
We checked into our cute little hotel, and then set off to explore.



We walked all over the island. We saw some whale bones! and then hiked up to an overlook point. NEVER have I ever hiked something so steep! One nice woman let us come into her house halfway up for a break and a look at the view! Then we continued on. We got to the top and saw an overlook of a beautiful island next door that we were bound to get to the next day.







We went back to our hotel and swam for awhile before venturing out to find dinner. Being teachers, and having worked so hard the month before, we decided to go to bed at 9 :) We got up early the next day for a full day of snorkeling! A car came and picked us up and took us to the docks. We were supposed to leave at 9, but being Thailand, this company didn't have any way of capping the number of customers, so they had 300 people to accommodate. We ended up waiting for an hour before we could board a boat. There were some Thai people there who wanted to take pictures with us (we get this request a lot). So we took a few jumping pictures and talked to them for awhile.
We finally boarded the boat and it took us all around the island. We stopped at about 5 coves to snorkel. The fish were beautiful, but I have seen a lot of them before in Hawaii and Koh Phi Phi. What amazed me the most was the coral, and the amount of it! It was SO colorful and abundant. I wish I had an underwater camera so that I could show you! We had lunch on the boat, and then our last stop was the island we had seen the day before at the overlook. It was GORGEOUS! We hiked up to an overlook and then around a boardwalk that wrapped almost all the way around the island. Of course there were more Thai women up at the overlook wanting pictures. We were really sad to leave this island. And then of course being so tired, we went to bed early again that night.











The next day we did some shopping until it was time to board the ferry again for the long journey back. We were shuttled back to the bus station only to have to wait 2 hours to board our bus. We decided to go next to to Splinter's for some dinner. It was a really awesome restaurant. They assured us they were open, eventhough there wasn't another soul to be seen besides the workers. We sat down anyway, only to find out that EVERYTHING was in Thai. Of course we can't read Thai, and there were no pictures. Luckily we knew a few dishes in Thai and were able to order them. I'm not sure if they actually had them on the menu or not, but they made them for us. It was SO good!!!
Then another 6 hour bus ride and an hour taxi ride, and we were back at school. It was a wonderful vacation, but I wish it could have been longer!! We have another 3 day weekend coming up in two weeks, and I think the plan is to just stay at home. I need some rest, and I REALLY need some time to get my room clean and get things organized.

Year 2

Well, I've been back now for about a month and a half. It's gone by so fast! This year is quite intense for me. Last year I co-taught grade 4 with Jill, who was amazing! It was a great way to start, because she taught all of the science, and I taught all of the math. We were also able to level the English classes. It was great, but now I find myself at a bit of a loss. Teaching math isn't too bad, I've done it before, and although not all of the kids understand it, I feel like I really know the material and it's easier for me to help them. Science and English on the other hand are quite a struggle. There's so much more that comes with teaching science... it's such an abstract thing to teach sometimes. The students don't know English very well, and so a lot of the science vocabulary is totally new for them. I've been trying to use a lot of pictures and videos, and I also am not using the book aside from looking at pictures, because it's just full of words that are overwhelming to them. So I take a lot of time to really learn the material, and then I just teach it, as opposed to them reading it out of the book. But this takes a lot of extra time! There are also a lot of experiments that we do. But these books are designed to be taught in America, so some of the materials are difficult to find, and I don't know where everything is because I've never had to use it before. English is just as challenging. I have students who can't read, and students who are on grade level, so it's hard to know what to teach and how to teach it when the ability levels are so vast.
Not to mention all of that, I have 25 students! It doesn't sound like much, I know they get about 30 in the states, but when it's a bilingual classroom, 25 is a lot! It's actually the maximum number of students they will put in a classroom. There are also a few students with special circumstances that need to be considered. It's hard to stay on top of everything.
But it's been good so far. I've worked some days from 7:30am-10:00pm, but you do what you have to do I guess. I don't really know how to not work hard :P But after this year things should get easier (if I stay). I will be familiar with all of the curriculum and will have a better idea of what I'm teaching and how to teach it.
The students are great and I really enjoy them. They are funny and very talkative (which also means I am a very strict teacher!) but we have a good time! Here are few pictures, I don't have many, but I will get more soon.






I just got back from a great 4 day weekend vacation and I will post pictures of that soon.

Construction

So, things are pretty upside down around here. Offices have been shuffled and furniture has been moved and who knows where half of the stuff ended up! But it's definitely going to be beautiful when it's all said and done! I can't wait to see the finished product... they are saying the end of July, which probably really means around September, or at least that's my guess.
To cover up the construction, they have posted HUGE posters of us teaching. They just choose random pictures from throughout the year and post them up, sometimes around the school, and sometimes randomly on billboards around the city. I made it on one this year :) And it's actually a decent picture.
Here's a bit of what the construction looks like right now... I wish I had before and after pictures, but you'll just have to go with the in-between pictures.

So, we're just going to skip the being at home part... I pretty much just did what I did before I came here... I hung out with friends and family. Not much to report there, but you can see pictures on facebook.
I'm now back in Thailand, and it feels like I never left. Except for the fact that they tore up half of the school and there are some new teachers and some that didn't return. But it's good to be back. I have two awesome roommates, both happen to be named Sarah, and there is also another Sarah who lives across campus. There are 4 new female teachers and one new couple. There are a lot of returning teachers which is unusual, but really awesome.
I've been here for 3 days now and still haven't unpacked, pretty typical. I need to go get coat hangers but I just haven't felt like walking to the store, so things have just stayed in my bags. I'm okay with that for now. I have an awesome new wardrobe that's really big and a nice new desk where I can sit and grade papers into the night. I'm probably going to be doing that often now that I have a class of 25! That's as big as classes get here, and I'm definitely going to have my hands full for the year!
We had our first day of orientation today and went over all of the changes and the new rules. We are blessed to have some awesome administrators that really want to help make things go well for us. With all of the construction going on and having to move offices and the staff room and so on, they've been great about trying to keep things as normal and un-hectic as they can. But that's what living overseas is all about, at least in the countries that I've been to. You just have to learn to expect the unexpected, be flexible, and go with the flow. It's not always easy, but you make it work.
After orientation my roommates and I cleaned out the entire kitchen and re-arranged the living room. It feels good to have things in working order. Now if I could just get my room that way.... of course we all know that's probably never going to happen, but we can hold out hope...
Here are a few pictures of the construction going on... they were taken a while ago... since these they have torn down pretty much all of it.. no walls or floors or anything. It's going to be a few months before it's done.

Home

Hello!!!
I'm so sorry I have been so slack in updating this. I am back in the states now! I have been home since April 1st and will be here until June 2nd.
Between finishing up the semester, packing up classrooms, cleaning the apartment, having my sister visit Thailand, and packing to come back... there wasn't much time to blog. And since I've been home, well... I've just been lazy.
I will post a more thorough update soon with pictures and everything that you've missed over the last month or so.
Thanks for being patient!

Thinking back...

Today was graduation. We actually had 4... one for kindergarten, one for sixth grade, one for ninth grade, and one for twelfth grade. I was fascinated by the fact that graduation here really isn't a very big deal, in fact, most of the parents didn't even come. Students and teachers spoke and every grade had a slide show and remembered the good times they had together. They even played the Vitamin C Graduation song :P And it just got me thinking back to my graduation 7 years ago, I can't believe it was that long ago!! It was so scary leaving the only school and the only people I'd ever known (even though most of them I didn't even know that well, I was pretty shy in high school!). Back then, I never would have guessed I would be where I am today. It's crazy how things work out and how much people change. It's been a little over 2 years since I've been out of college, and time has just flown by. The experiences that I've had and the things that I've gotten to do are just amazing, and I'm only 25! There's still so much more of that to come.
I am very thankful for where I am today and for the experiences that I've had that have taught me so much. I'm thankful for this year (but also soooo ready for it to be over, haha, I'm ready to go home for a bit), and I'm excited to see what's to come.
God has definitely brought me a long way, but there's still a long way to go.
Congratulations to everyone at home who will be graduating soon!

Mae Sot

This past weekend we had Friday off for a Buddhist holiday. I had the opportunity to go with a few people from my church to Mae Sot. Mae Sot is a city right on the border of Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. There are about 100,000 or more Burmese refugees that live here. A good number of them are children whose parents have sent them across the border to try and give them a better life. So there are tons of kids who need a lot of help. They live in schools that have been set up. They sleep on the floor and pretty much only have the clothes they are wearing and maybe a few school supplies. The schools are lacking in materials and curriculum and are struggling to get by. And most of these refugees are illegal immigrants... right now there are supports set up for them, but as soon as that changes, they will have to go. They never know when or if that might happen.
SO, I had the opportunity to go visit one of these schools. There is an organization called Imagine Thailand that has built relationships with these schools and so we are able to go in through them. Because it's about 7-8 hours away, we didn't have a whole lot of time. Some of the girls got supplies for the school and played games and did crafts with the kids. I helped paint the girls dorm. The walls were terribly dirty, so we gave it a few good coats of white paint, and then painted flowers, butterflies, and bees all over the walls. It turned out really pretty! The kids are so adorable and loving. It amazes me how easy it is to be with kids and have fun, even though we speak different languages.
One day after we had finished lunch, there were a lot of people painting, so I took a break to go outside and hang out with the kids. They had gotten into our trash and were cutting up the orange peels and the Styrofoam containers and mixing it with dirt so that they could play "chef" and make food for each other, and we would pretend to eat it. They stored this "food" mixture in an empty potato chip bag. I'm sure most of us have played "make a meal and pretend to eat it" when we were younger, but I highly doubt it was with someone else's trash. They have that little that they have to play with trash. It's really sad, but at the same time, we had a great time making "food" and pretending it was delicious.
It's just such a different life. It reminds me a lot of India. My life here is very comfortable. I have a nice apartment, I get paid, I live in the city where I can find almost anything I want, and my kids come from fairly well off families. I know I'm supposed to be here right now, these kids need Jesus as much as anyone, but I can't help but think... how long will I stay here? At least another year, but then what? Part of me is ready to move on and go live in the slums and the refugee camps, where there seems to be a bigger need. We'll see where life takes me. Until then, here are very few pictures from the trip... we didn't take a whole lot, sorry!