flexibility

Hey all,
So this past Monday was my first day of work here in Bangkok. There were 5 of us from my training program who got lined up to work at the same school. Arriving at the school on monday was a trip. All 5,000 students were out on the quad. The school was holding a series of announcements because it was the first day of the semester. As we were the only non-Asian people at the school we attracted a bit of attention. It is quite weird to have 5,000 pairs of eyes looking at you, and 5,000 mouths talking about you. After arriving at the school we were quickly brought into the 1970's chic office where we sat alone for a couple hours. We were then picked up by the private company that contracted us to the school (Siam Computer and Language School) and told that the very same day we signed our contracts (last saturday) the school had given the jobs to another company, quite possibly one who had bribed the headmaster of the school. I had already heard that contracts frequently don't mean very much here in Thailand.
My actual contract is with the company Siam comp/language school. As an organization they have two branches which they call external and internal. We originally worked for External, which places workers in government run schools. Internal runs a variety of private schools ranging from vocational to week long language camps for corporations. In Thailand, school is only really mandatory until like age 14 or 15 (not sure about this, I will check and report back). Most students then go to a private vocational school and from there some go on to University. On monday, after learning that we would not be working at the public school, the 5 of us visited two of Siam's vocational schools and by the end of the day had been divided up, 2 at one school and 3 of the other. The school which took two people was quite far from our apartments so no one in our group of 5 wanted to work there. After learning that I would be working in a private school and not a public school, I began to consider going back to the town I trained in and doing teaching online classes. While I really didn't want to teach online, I also didn't really want to teach a school full of exceptionally privileged students. Because of how unsure I was that I would stay in Bangkok I volunteered to be considered for the far school. After learning that this school was actually for middle class students (about the same population that I would have had in a public school) I agreed to give it a try. After my first day of work I was in for sure.
There are a lot of benefits to working in a private school. Firstly for me, they are air-conditioned. Seeing as this place is giving me heat-rash I was definitely happy to hear/feel that. All of the staff is really nice and for the most part my department (foreign languages) is really young and fun. The students are all really fun and many of them quite talented. The school has a music club, a breakdance team, a football (translation: soccer) team, and several different dance squads and cheerleader teams. Education in Thailand works on a no-fail policy. There is this idea of "saving face," which means that people are not confrontational, it is very hard to get feedback on anything, and students don't fail. This last policy is not as big at our school as others but it is still a very prominent theme in the classroom. I say this because the lack of fear of failure gives students license to come in late and not pay attention. I am still a little cautious of using the discipline thing too much cause I am still learning the school culture and I don't want to rock the boat. Over the course of the first week I came down more and more heavily on the discipline but more than that I am learning how I can make my lessons fun and interesting. I strongly feel that in any system that is the best form of discipline. If the students are engaged they don't really cause problems. Working at the school as been really fun. There is actually one weird thing with the school. My friend Johnny and I are the only non Asians at the school (and I don't think the school has had any for a while). This has produced a large amount of celebrity for us. The Thai culture is very infatuated with the west, almost all of the lotions and beauty creams have bleach in them and are advertised as helping people get "healthy white skin." It is so weird to see how this infatuation plays out in a school. We walk onto campus and we get immediate attention. Small groups of students will nervously walk up to us and talk a little bit, then run away giggling. Even the teachers here dig us way too much! This week the school held a ceremony and invited the Thai minister of education and all sorts of important people. In this big long ceremony pretty much all of the students were involved in some way and Johnny and I were dressed up in native Thai gear and marched around with some students playing these cool drums! Sweet! I think I ended up on Thai news!! There are two teachers that have been assigned to us to help us get acclimated. Students walk up to them and will speak in hyper Thai to them and then the teachers will turn to us and sigh "the students want to know if they can talk to you..." It is weird. I fully expect this celebrity to fade and I hope it does soon. Although I will admit (somewhat shamefully), that it has made leading an engaging classroom somewhat easier haha. The teachers that were assigned to us have been amazing. At school they make sure that we know what is going on and after school this week they took us apartment shopping (this new school was so far from our apartment that johnny and I had to move). They found us another amazing apartment that is walking distance from the school. I think the Thai teachers efforts are much more out of an amazing sense of hospitality verses this celebrity thing, at least I hope so. They have been soo nice. On friday night most of our department went out for Korean BBQ (a buffet or raw meat that you cook on grills at your table!) and then some of us went to a club afterward. The club was a lot of fun. For a while a live band played. It had a lot of rotating singers and one of them was a lady-boy (translation: male to female transgender) who was hilarious! She only sang a few songs but had a stand-up routine in between them. Her main bit was bringing up a young Thai guy up on stage and essentially molesting him to make him uncomfortable. It was quite funny!
Yesterday I went to one of the biggest malls I have ever seen. It is a tourist attraction here called MBK. I hope I never go back haha.
Ok, this post is getting long and i have a very important schedule today of playing guitar in a park near my house! very very important haha!
i will try to post pics tonight!

--jON