"Summer"

well, summer vacation is coming to an end. the school year starts up in just a few days. i am both excited and anxious to be working again.

summer school was an interesting limbo period of time, and a great way to ease into work at a new school. everything went really well, and i'm really looking forward to spending the school year as part of this team. the english program operates like a school within a school. the entire primary school houses over 3,000 students. the english program includes about 600 of those students. there are about 30 faculty members in the english program. starting in Grade 4, they have different teachers for each subject, much like what happens in middle school back home. the main difference is that the students don't change classrooms, instead the teachers come to them. as the math teacher, i will be teaching math to the four Grade 4 classes and all 100 students. surprisingly, though summer school is optional, we had about half of the incoming Grade 4 students. the students were split into just two groups, so it was pretty much the same size of the classes during the school year. i was team teaching with gary. gary is also one of the few americans in the faculty. he teaches PE to grades 3, 4, and 5. he has a Grade 4 homeroom though, so he is officially part of the Grade 4 team. it was great to work with him during summer school. we spent the four weeks of summer school primarily using worksheets to review math topics covered in Grade 3.

the last few weeks of vacation went by in a blur. aside from a short trip down to koh tao, i spent the time settling into my life in bangkok. koh tao was wonderful- i enjoyed my first scuba diving experience. our scuba instructor was great and the dive was incredible. the underwater world was so beautiful and multivalent. it took a little while to get the hang of moving around underwater. i'm not going to lie, i did bump into a couple coral formations. oops, so not on purpose. i also need to work on not breathing through my nose- my mask kept getting fogged up, which kind of takes away from the vibrancy of the colors underwater. in addition to the diving, we found a restaurant with a delicious and cheap steak meal. it was a great, though short, trip with some good friends.

in bangkok, i used my new paycheck to register for a preparation course at the Alliance Française. it is preparation for the DELF exam, and meets once a week in the evening. i am glad to be using my french again- i am a little embarrassed how much of the official grammar i have forgotten in the years since i studied it formally in school. so much to review. i am also enjoying being a student again, even if it is only part time.

well, i better get some rest before i return to the daily grind of full time work. tomorrow is like at teacher work day for us to prepare our classrooms and get in some professional training. wednesday is when the kids return to school. one of the most exciting things to happen tomorrow, is i will finally get my schedule. the kids only have math four times a week, and i am teaching all four classes- so i'm not quite sure how that is going to break down to how much i teach each day. all that will become clear tomorrow.