a day of firsts and a la's...

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t281/beejay44/trangtrip178.jpgTues May 22nd

Got up. Feeling a little twitchy. Put on my new strides, new yellow shirt (colour of the King) and new boots and panties for my first day at Sikaoprachadaogungvit secondary school (the first test is spelling the name). Turned out I was fretting over nothing (although I haven’t taught yet).
Was shown around (with Mid West Shayla) by Sowapao a Director of the school. We met all the teachers and introduced ourselves and where we were from in Thai. I also introduced myself to a couple of classrooms in Thai (30+ pupils).
The kids are so respectful and genuinely pleased to see you. They laugh at your Thai pronunciation. This is good as if I can get a laugh its all the encouragement I need. To be fair the teaching will be more difficult but the people and the environment are conducive to getting the best out of you. We’ll see.

Had lunch with the Head and a couple of teachers. The male teacher next to me had his hand on my leg for most of the meal. I found it a little disconcerting but decided it was probably a Thai cultural thing. Although I must say he was sporting a moo-stash a la Freddie Mercury!

After lunch I sat in a cold A/C’ed room waiting for Sowapao to return from dropping Shayla off ½ a K down the road. This took an hour. Thais are severely flawed in the sense of urgency stakes a la Tim Fenn (getting a few a la’s in today). Anyway “mai pen rai” as they say here, always good to keep a “jai yen”
Had the best and most painful massage ever Thai style this PM, then went for the hottest and sweatiest (in the humidity) run ever. An afternoon of firsts.
Now going to sit and watch a movie with the girls (its like Bryony and her mates coming round with Ben and Jerrys and duvets everywhere. Plumped for Spiderman 3 purchased from a local market for a quid…. Quality OK – I lasted about ½ hour and decided doing this was more fun.
Meeting the Mayor of Trang tomorrow (he heard I was in town) then school in the afternoon. And finally just removed the biggest ever Cricket from the house.