Elephants loves Bananas!

Over the weekend we went to a place called Palio which is unfortunately only 7km away from where we live as this is apparently the place which is more popular than the National Park and the Elephant Conservation Centre which is directly next door. When you arrive you see coach loads of people going round what seems to be like a fake Disney like little Italy village with shops that sell nothing useful or anything that has any taste. The Thai's would just arrive and to take some outrageously posy selfies of themselves and then leave. We sat in the main square with some ice cream to people watch like we normally do and it proved to be very entertaining. What does not make sense is that they are extending this place when half of the shops are currently empty. It is a shame to see that developments are being made on something like this rather than money spent on improving the National Forest and the Elephant Conservation Centre. We only went to go for ice cream and we saw the elephants again. 

We bought some bananas to feed them and we were surprised to see two more elephants. I wish I could spend more time with these magnificent creatures, we would of stayed longer but it threatened to rain as we heard a storm coming in from a distance. This was Olly's first visit to see them and I have a feeling that this will not be the last time we come to visit. 

Haew Suwat Waterfall

I took a trip to Khao Yai National Park accompanying a tour with Tony showing a teacher (Jeff) from BIS Phukhet for a future visiting group to go on a course in January. I thought I should use this opportunity to be familiar with the park myself and its always good to get out of the office. The aim of the this trip was to see some of the sites, and to know where we would do certain activities and to view for potential activities that the students could take part in.

We went for a small hike in the forest wearing some anti leech socks because it is currently rainy season and apparently there are a lot of them this time of year. As this years rainy season has not been too bad, we did not come across any leeches which was good. 

We lost our sense of direction pretty quickly so it is always a good idea to have a GPS navigational device on you. The trails are small as they are often made by the animals in the forest. As we walked deeper into the forest (or so we thought we were) we ended up making a loop back to the car without realising. 

Further into the National Park we stopped at the Haew Suwat Waterfall, which you can view from the top and the bottom. You might think that this is just a waterfall and there is nothing that special about it. Well seeing a waterfall is quite nice as I don't really get to see them in the UK. We were also told that Haew Suwat Waterfall was featured in the film The Beach starring Leonardo Dicaprio, where the characters had to jump off the top of the waterfall in order to get to the other side of the island (Obviously not an island and now you can see why we were surprised to see this was the waterfall they used in the film). Famously the characters Richard (Dicaprio) and Etienne were having a fight about if they should or should not jump but Franciose just showed them how its done and ran through their argument and jumped off the ledge as shown in the photograph. Whether they actually did the jump in real life or not I don't really know because they could have used a stunt double. Having been there and looked down....I was not so sure myself.

My new role in Thailand

The biggest change in my life is not only that we have moved to Thailand but also my entire lifestyle due to my surroundings and what is available to me. Back in the day we would hang out at bars and clubs, shop and go to the cinema and eat at restaurants. Now our life is consumed by the school. We would now spend our free time taking part in sport events, swim as we have access to a 25 metre pool, play to touch rugby, badminton, football and of course ultimate frisbee. Our typical day in the week starts with leaving our hut at 7:35/40 and arrive at school 07:45. With 7 periods including lunch and breaks would end at 15:35. Then the students are assigned to clubs which each teacher runs once a week from 16:00 til 17:00 after snack time. Usually my Primary Art club runs on Mondays so I would go for a 40 length swim afterwards and then I would get home around 18:30 (only because I take my time doing my lengths and spend the other time chatting in the pool). 

I have not been asked to do this yet but each teacher is assigned to do study hall once a week. This would mean that dinner would be provided for from 17:45. Study hall would only be an hour from 18:30 till 19:30. When you have study hall duty you would not be home until about 20:00. The students have very long days here and this can be tiring for the teachers too. Not everyday is like this but when we don't have duties we would normally fill our free time with sport. So our days are already quite long and then when we get home, we just collapse from work and from sport.

Not that I am making excuses but this has been the reason why I have not been posting that frequently as I thought I would especially wi my photos as I have so many already to go through. The biggest change is not only to adapt to a new country but also to adapt to my job. For quite some time I've been working part time so I had to get use to full time again. Which is a big jump because this is not a typical 9-5 job.

When it comes to teaching I have been thrown into the deep end and I am often out of my comfort zone, at times I feel like I am the student as I am continuously learning about teaching. I had never taught before or even entertained the idea of teaching until this amazing opportunity presented itself to me to do just that. What is so great about the school are the students, they are very well behaved and they want to learn. They are such a far cry away from the typical students that we get at home in the UK. I definitely would not have it easy if the same happened there. What is also great about this school is the number of students in each class. The classes would have between 14-16 students, even though it is a small it is also considered a large class in this school, making it a manageable number for me to teach, anymore would probably be overwhelming especially at an age between 5-8 years old.

Now that this is my 5th week in teaching I am starting to find my feet. I am starting to get to know the students and also the secondary students, even though I do jot teach them I often would end up playing sport with them. I normally join Olly's Ultimate Frisbee club on Thursdays and a lot more of the students are joining each week. At the beginning of term the club started with 6 members now the majority of Year 10 and 11's have joined so we are able to have 7 in each team. They all need to work on towing and catching but have a good grip of the game. 

What is so great about my job is that I get to teach what I love doing the most which is Art. Art was always my favourite lesson and one that I looked forward to when I was in school. Now that I get to teach it I get to inspire the students and have fun whilst in class. I think the most challenging aspect of my job is to ensure that the students task that I set them is engaging enough and to manage the classroom behaviour. Striking the balance of having fun and to control the classroom is a fine line, I don't want to be too firm but I also want them to have lots of fun. (That is of course what art is all about especially in primary school which is something I should not forget). 

Another aspect of my job is to work for the Big Mountain Outdoor Education Activity Centre with Tony the Outdoor Activity Coordinator. Tony works with other schools to organise courses of outdoor activities, my role is to assist him with the programs, costings and to assist the trips. This role was first assigned to me as my main role but my teaching role has taken the majority of my week. So I work with Tony on Thursdays and Fridays. So far it has been fun as I've been kayaking and I went to the Elephant sanctuary. Nothing much has happened as it is the rainy season and not many schools have booked for the time being. However we should enjoy this quiet period because it will get very busy soon enough. This has given me the chance to focus on my teaching with this quiet period then when it all picks up I will be ready. 

This role is also very exciting as I get to work with the children and do the activities with them. Not exactly a normal day at the office. 

A Bus full of Monks

Today I went on a trip with Mike the Secondary Art Teacher to the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre with the Year 10 and 11's. I was asked to go because it is ideal for a male and a female teacher to go on any school trip so I was asked to join them.

The journey is very long as it takes round about 2 hours to get to Bangkok but what they don't tell you that as soon as you get there, it will take you about an hour to get through what I would call a parking lot traffic. We were stationary for about half an hour at Central World and I managed to draw this in that space of time. I only draw if he bus is stationary. 

Bangkok is crazy when it comes to traffic, you have buses, coaches (some are double decker coaches), trucks (some have trailers), vans, mini buses, cars (they call it a car but they are more like 4 wheel gas guzzling people carriers), taxis, taxi mopeds, mopeds, songthaew and Tuk tuks. And when you see all these vehicles together in one one chaotic mess you will not be surprised to see an entire family on one moped, typically the dad drives with a baby in between mum and their teenage kid. And of course no helmets and that is without a sidecar. So when the traffic is at a standstill and the family of four on a moped weaves their way through and don't be surprised to see that the dad is smoking or the mum texting on the phone at the back or even an iPad. 

You will see fully grown adult sized trees on the back of a lorries or just vans, eight cows squashed on a van not a truck or lorry. Hay bales stacked higher than a typical lorry on just a van, so high you would not believe it is a van because from behind as you are over taking it looks like a lorry. 

Whilst trying to get over that you will see workers on the back of trucks amongst supplies or stock travelling to and from work, some just sitting and some would take the trouble of making it a comfortable ride by lying there if it's hay bales or planks of wood or even sacks of rices, but some even have hammocks just tottering along. 

What I cannot get use to are the U-turns on major motorways with three lanes on both sides, there are some U-turns bridges dotted here and there but a lot of the time you will find trucks making a U-turn not only trying to get onto the fastest lane on the other side but to go directly across taking up all three lanes including the hard shoulder. That is just crazy and when you are in a car trying to make the same manoeuvre it is terrifying. In the UK if someone flashes you that means they will give way but in Thailand if they flash it means "I will not give way and don't even think about pulling out because I am not slowing down", so you are just waiting there trying to pull out on a major motorway in the fast lane what is essential like the M25 where it would be unlikely to see a break In the traffic. That's why trucks just pull out and go across all the lanes and you are forced to stop. 

The "Do whatever you want lane", that is the hard shoulder and you will find them on any type of road where mostly mopeds will be. We call it the "Do whatever you want lane" because it would appear to not have many rules, they may have rules but they are not enforced. We have seen parked cars and trucks, stalls selling vegetables, roadwork signs placed, cyclists, cars driving down them and also driving down them the wrong way.

What I found amusing was stopping at a Seven Eleven (the place to be) on the way back from Bangkok and I witnessed a bus full of Monks. That's Thailand.

                          

St Stephen's Ice Bucket Challenge in aid for ALS

Yesterday the students in Year 9 took it upon themselves to organise a mass Ice Bucket Challenge following the trends on social media and to challenge St Stephen's in Bangkok to do the same. 

Each participant were asked to donate 50 THB (£1) and this included some of the teachers. This was a success as the girls who organised this event managed to raise quite a lot of money and also raised awareness of ALS throughout the school whilst having fun. 

I know that this is no longer trending online but it just took a bit of time to organise this through the school. As you might find in the video below that it was all worth the wait. Teachers and students both used this opportunity to drench each other in cold icy water.