Tuesday

Interesting first day at school. Keen tomake a good impression, I was up at 6 and all smartly dressed and ready to go by 7am. It takes about 30 minutes easy ride to the school and i figured i should try and get there for 7.30 first day and all. Boon , who was coming with me to help with translation, was surprisingly(hmmm!) not ready. Leaving here at 7.15, refusing to wait any longer I got there just before 7.45.

In the end, Boons reassurances that I needn’t rush turned out to be right. Must remember this is Thailand after all. Cha Cha. He turned up just before 9.

The head teacher turned up a little after 8. And it soon became clear that although the school was opening, it will be a few days before they are ready for me to actually start teaching. They are still waiting for the course books and childrens activity books to arrive.

Still the Head was keen to introduce me to all the children and had them all assemble outside his office where I introduced myself and he let them know that I will be teaching P4-P6 for the whole year, which brought a few gasps.

It was then agreed that I would spend this week researching the curriculum they are following and start teaching proper next week. It was also agreed that Somboon will act as my classroom assistant for a while, to help with translation.

So later in the morning me and Boon went into Chiang Mai, to DK books where I bought the full set of Zoom books, from P1-P6.

You can find DK on Moon Muang Rd, just down from Loi Kroh Rd. It is set back with a huge car park in front of it and a petrol station next door.

With time to take it easy we spent a while at Chiang Mai Coffee, a very nice coffee shop in the courtyard outside DK Books. Had some excellent banana cake there(35 baht). And Boon assures me that the chocolate brownie was equally lush(25baht).

Then it was back home to start going through the course books and start work on lesson plans for next week.