Journey to the Land of Smiles

          So I taught my first class today completely unprepared and ended up being the staff of what I kind of think may be some type of assisted living. Me and two other friends were each supposed to teach a hour and a half, but when we got there they said they wanted  us to all just teach the first class. We thought it went really well and were all super excited when we got out and then we asked our observer how she thought we did she goes "yah, it was not good" literally did not say another word. Now I really understand losing face because she took face from all of us when she did that. So that completely changed the mood of all of us and we were just kind of pissed at her for the next 3 hours until we asked her what was not good at which point she just said our warmer took too long, but that we did good. Now I'm even more confused, but I will have a smaller class tomorrow and I have an idea of what my students know, who they are and what they want to know. The students are awesome they are 20-40s and they are mostly women, super chatty, really fun. Tomorrow we're teaching markets, then food on Wednesday, then recipes and cooking Thursday, then restaurants on Friday. So I get to talk about food ALL week, which is fucking awesome. Thai people are OBSESSED with food...which is also awesome.

           My apartment in Pattaya is large. I have a bathroom, AC, an electric stove stop, a microwave, and a fridge with a freezer (which now has Twix in it). There's ants everywhere here, including my room, but they are nearly microscopic and I have to force myself not to think about them. I thought the days here would be easier than the 9 hour straight days of training, but they aren't. We leave at 9:20 start teaching at 10 and we teach 90 minutes, ( separately tomorrow...or so we think). We have a break for lunch which did not exist today and then  we have Thai language lessons for two hours and an other ninety minutes of class for lesson planning. The days are long and exhausting, but hopefully they get better and I'm already teaching business English since I am teaching the staff...kind of. Spent the previous weekend at the beach in Sihanoukville and the last days in Phnom Penh were pretty crazy. I drunkenly ate an entire frog while handed to me on a skewer at a beer garden. Just to be clear it was not a bullfrog or anything it was probably 3/4 the size of my pinky finger in length. When at the beach, we went to seafood BBQ which included prawns, squid, and Barracuda, which was phenomenal. It came with garlic bread and a baked potato. That and 3 pina coladas and a sex on the beach cost $10 USD. All the restaurants had seating on the beach. When we left the group split up into our destination countries it was really sad because we've all become friends, but the plus is we'll all have places to stay in those other countries.

   
 The trip to Thailand probably took somewhere around 8 hours total, but we all slept. Infrastructure here is way better. Roads are smooth and there are much less animals in the street that can be as easily assumed dead as they can be assumed sleeping. Much more finished buildings, and less beggars.Also a lot less street kids. Apparently the Thai government gives money to the public schools to hire foreign teachers so they pay fairly close to what the private school pays. I'm going to Bangkok this weekend to try and get an interview for this company that supplies teachers to private companies to train their employees in English. I hadn't seen myself living in Bangkok, but I really want this job so we'll see what happens. Wish me luck, and I will keep you updated on my losing face blunders and whatever else may come my way.