CELTA-first week done!

I've completed the first week of my CELTA course. I was warned that it would be too time consuming for a temporary job/sight-seeing, and it has lived up to its claim. So that's why I don't have too many pictures of Bangkok at the moment. But I have accomplished a few things, like....

My First Lesson!
           Taught my first lesson on Wednesday, day three of the course. It went pretty terribly, but I did manage to "pass". I was teaching a reading lesson, but as most of the learners are taking the course to improve their speaking skills, I was supposed to get them talking about the material. We do that by staging a "lead in" story/anecdote/question, etc. So, I asked, "Who has a job?" as my first question of the lesson. It took me about two seconds after the fact to remember that on Monday, when we'd interviewed our students, I'd learned none of them had jobs. As I watched all of them become uncomfortable because of the question, a small voice inside me muttered, "None of them have jobs because they are all refugees or asylum seekers, you idiot." Clearly, I had not thought through my questions when planning the lesson. It was hard to recover from that gaff, but despite the students not speaking much at all, the lesson went over all right. I stumbled over giving clear, short directions for the activities, but they understood.


Taking Pictures of Food

Sweet potato patties and paneer (middle)

pumpkin soup

Bean noodles (boonsen) with phanang curry (Thai)

Building Rapport with My Learners
       I have an interesting mix of students. Though I'm learning to teach in Bangkok, only one of my students is Thai. Four of my students are Pakistani, two are Japanese, one is Somali, one is Sri Lankan, and one is Chinese. This makes the class special, because the students are less likely to speak in their L1 (native language). Managed to crack a few lame jokes, and made a point of using their names and smiling more while I taught.

Upset stomach and homesickness....
    Solution? Coconut milk (settles the stomach) and making pizza! Bf's Dad recently traveled to Europe for business, and brought back some delicious cheeses. The pizza didn't taste like American pizza at all, but it did help. As did the glass of wine we had with it ;)

Guess this cheese?

Fresh!

Initial Impressions-Welcome to Bangkok!

 
I've been in Bangkok for 3 days. To be honest, I haven't explored much at all. Been working on my pre-class CELTA task, which takes about 20 hours to complete. But I have managed to explore a little.


Location:

       I'm currently living in the Lumphini region of Bangkok. If you want to find it in the image, follow the bottom of the blue line to the right four squares. It's easily accessible by the Mass Rapid Transit Authority (MRTA). To get to my CELTA course at the International House, I take the MRTA one stop west to Si Lom.  I'll be moving to a different region after I finish my CELTA course and get hired for my first teaching job (sometime in November).
      

Lumphini seems to be a pretty well-off area. A few embassies are near-by, and I've seen a number of farangs/ex-pats walking the narrow sidewalks. There is a huge park nearby (Lumphini Park), but I haven't been to it yet. Went to a smaller one yesterday. I'm staying in an apartment complex which is about 5 minutes from the MRTA. It has a nice pool, but I haven't had any time to swim, yet.

Food
       In a bit of an interesting situation, because so far, I've only had one Thai meal. Today, I went with bf and his friend to Central Lat Phrao mall (on the MRTA) and we had some Thai food there. I was told not to order anything that had the word "spicy" in it, which was a good call. The non-spicy food made me tear-up. I'm trying to gradually build up my spicy food tolerance. Anyway, it contained seafood (shrimp, octopus, identified squishy things) and pork and rice noodles, and it was delicious. I'll try to take photos next time. When we went to the local park, bf's Mum was really nice and bought us all young-coconuts to drink and eat. About 10 baht each, which is about 40cents US. 
Otherwise have been eating bf's mum's (South) Indian cooking. Also failed to take photos of that. Woops. Morning glory (spinach) and snake gourd, and round gourd, lentil soup, Thai tom kha (spicy mushroom soup).


Adjusting
       I was really worried about the horrendous time change difference (11 hours), but I seem to be doing pretty well with it. I made sure to try to sleep on Bangkok time on my two 9 hour flights and 6 hour layover from New York to Moscow to Bangkok.  I've been waking up around 4-6 AM and passing out by 7pm. Which is actually pretty nice, because by 8 AM it is knarly humid outside. That said, I ran a slight fever yesterday [no worries, Mum :) ], so it seems the heat/humidity combo is getting to me a bit.