So, it was just an ordinary Wednesday, nothing exciting, or extraordinary about it, just another day. I woke up at 6:30 am like any other day when I am too lazy to go for a run, (on the days I go for a run I wake up at 5:45 am), and I walked down stairs for my shower. I was about to jump in the shower, when I realized I left the new bottle of shampoo on the table, so I had to redress and go out and grab it. As I was exiting the bathroom, my host mom saw me and told me my councillor had called. She said we could talk about it after I got out of the shower.
My first thought was yes they called and talked about a) me meeting up with my councillor for lunch sometime to discuss host families, b) dance lessons, or c) my third potential host family. I have emailed my councillor and talked to my mom about these things but never get answers, so I thought, I would finally get some answers.
I showered as quickly as I could and threw on my uniform and ate breakfast. Then I packed my bag and sat on the couch until it was time to go. Just like every other morning. My host mom comes over and says, “oh there is a family in town, (potential host family maybe:D), who recently moved here from Bangkok, (with a connection to Bangkok :D), The husband is the top policeman in our area and the wife is a university professor at the top school in Bangkok, they are very rich, ( a rich host family :D) they want you to teach their child English. (OhhhhL)”
Then my host mom starts telling me how, the child is scared of guys but likes girls and how I would start today at 10 am. WAIT A MINUTE! Today, at 10 am you want me to teach some random kids ENGLISH! So of course I said, “Today? At 10 am?”
My host mom said, “yeah you are ok with it right? I mean we already said you would do it.”
Well, then I guess I will do it, given my apparent choice. Then my host mom asks me what lessons I have prepared. Oh well in the past millisecond, I prepared a multimedia presentation, four work sheets, two colouring pages, a short story and a song introducing the basic conversation skills of English. Nothing obviously, because technically, it’s against Rotary’s rules for me to work. I came here to be an exchange student not an English teacher, but in Thailand they forget that. So she gave me a work book from her desk and told me to just find games online.
So that morning, in my hour and half prep time, I found a few games online. Then something amazing happened, my best friend, Holly and I happened to be on Skype at the same time. It was so great to talk to her, I miss her like crazy and I love catching up on her life back home. Unfortunately, she had math homework and I had an English lesson to prepare, so our talk was short but very sweet. After that I watched a few videos describing teaching English. My friend, Sara from Italy, came and found me and we sat in the English room talking for a bit.
We discussed how we really missed weird things from home. Things you would never think to miss. For example, I miss my bathroom across the hall from my bedroom that I only have to share with my NINE year old brother, (sharing a bathroom with a nine year old brother is easy considering he rarely uses it.) I miss having a kitchen with a stove with for burners and an oven. I miss have ingredients that I know how to use. I miss my bed and bedside trunk filled with old Polaroid’s, vintage clothing and records. I miss my brother coming and knocking on my bedroom door every night telling me to turn my music down. I miss being able to shut the blinds and sleep to noon. I miss my family and my friends. Sarah misses similar things and it’s funny because you never expect to miss those things.
During our conversation, a policeman showed up with my host mom, to take me to the children’s house. I would later find out that policeman wasn’t even the father. My host mom asked Sarah if she wanted to join me but she was smart and said, no. So I get in the fanciest car I have seen here and we drive, down one block and turn into the police station, then we drive to the back to a house. As we get out, I see two girls playing with a lady, so I assumed it was the mother; at this time I was still under the impression the guy who drove me was the father. Then we went inside and I realized the lady was too young to be the mother for she was hardly out of high school, so I assumed it was an older sister. Then another man walked in and handed me a cell phone. The lady on the other end, who I assume to be the mother spoke perfect English and told me about the girls and what to teach them.
So, I set up my laptop and tried to get on the internet but of course it did not work. So I pulled up paint and started playing guesses what I am drawing. That went along well, until I ran out of things to draw. So I pulled out the workbook and we started going through just basically reading it and playing find the object. It went along great until the girls started getting tired around 12:10pm. Which figures because I had been teaching them for two hours, but I continued teaching until 12:30, then we went and ate lunch. That was when everything finally made sense to me.
There were two tables set up, one in the middle and one off to the side. The old lady, I had assumed to be the grandmother went and sat at the table off to the side and so did the girl, I assumed to be the sister. Then I and the two girls sat at the main table. Then two ladies, who were in the kitchen brought us dinner and the father, the second man I met, who handed me the phone, came and sat with us. Basically, the family appeared to have a nanny, three maids, and one of the police officers, working for them. This was so strange to me, having never been around families that have a staff. Now, add me as the family English tutor. After lunch, I asked to go back to school because, they girls were done with learning English and I was done teaching. The police officer drove me back to school.
When I arrived back at school my host mother asked me how it went, good I told her. She told me she wants me to teach there every day until they go back to Bangkok. I think that’s kind of a lot, considering, I don’t actually know how to teach and I am not even getting paid for this. Back home a two hour English lesson for two girls would make me good money and I know that foreign teachers here make good money for that sort of work, so, I don’t think every day is very fair.
So, now I am back at school for another two hours and then I will go home and sleep, because believe it or not, teaching English tires you out.
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