Holy crap

Holy crap... That's the phrase of the day. It was a crazy, crazy day. I'll start at the beginning. My moto driver picks me up at 8 am (like he will everyday for the next two weeks). I sit on the back of his moto (side saddle, wearing a helmet) and cling on for dear life. It's actually a fun ride speeding through town on the back of a moto... but it does feel a bit life threatening (don't worry mom, its safe).

I'm student teaching at a school called the Railway school. It is a public school, but most of the teachers and students are muslim. A lot of the girls and all of the teachers wear scarves that cover their head. It's a nice school, although no air conditioning... I hope the kids don't judge me as a sweaty teacher. I'm teaching kids ages 6-13, randomly throughout the week. I don't repeat with the same kids again until next week, which means lots of lesson planning.

After today, with 6 year olds, I don't mind one bit that I won't see them again. It was C H A O S. They were actually quite bright. They understood a few commands, and we worked on numbers and animals. However, it is incredibly difficult to discipline, or even give detailed directions, to someone who speak limited english. Explaining games, organizing into teams, making sure the five boys in the class are sitting in their seats and not running around... very very difficult. So far I've learned one very important thing... i like older kids.

It's not all bad though. A lot of the kids were very sweet, quick to please me, and very competitive when the games did succeed. I do it all over again tomorrow. Teaching is exhausting.

I rode back on my moto, had lunch, and then we started thai class. The language of thai is hard to pronounce, but not very complicated. It's fun to learn and practice with the other newbie english teachers in the class. Val and I make fun of each other a lot.

After class, Val and I ventured down to the beach (we're about a 15 minute walk), into the crazy INSANE, scary, overwhelming, stimulating, surreal town of Pattaya. I could come up with many more adjectives. This town is weird. We took a baht bus (a funny taxi truck where you hop in and out of the back cab of a truck and pay 10 baht or 40 cents) to the mall there. The mall is HUGE. six floors. Escalators going in every direction. Designer shops, book stores, boutiques, fancy restaurants. Fancier than anything i've ever seen in colorado. a huge movie complex. A video arcade. A ridiculously large foodcourt serving dairy queen, burger king, KFC, and many more. Val and I were shocked, and spent a good hour just gawking at everyone and everything. Afterwards, we walked down to the beach and walked along beach road. It's along the beach but I did not see one pretty view. Mostly because it's blocked by the crowds of prostitutes and dirty old men flocking to them. Pattaya... where dirty old men go to indulge themselves. At least it's international... I saw men from all over the world taking part. Not so fun.

In spite of everything today was a great day. Val and I made a lot of jokes about the craziness of what we saw around us and experienced today. And it's all about the experience, right?