You Take the Good, You Take the Bad.....

It's coming up on the end of my first week of living in Chonburi and for the most part, things are going pretty well.  It got off to a somewhat rocky start though; as I mentioned in my last post, I felt pretty alone the first half of my first weekend here.  I had just spent a week in orientation with 140 people and now here I was, alone, in a place where nobody speaks English (unlike Bangkok or Pattaya) and living in a seemingly empty apartment building.  It’s one thing to feel alone; it’s another to feel isolated, and when you don’t know the language in a town where you don’t know anybody, it’s, well, isolating.  I was prepared for the former, but the latter really took me by surprise.  Anyway, long story short, things are a lot better.  On Sunday, I met up with Pooja and Audrey- two girls on my program who are also living in Chonburi but teaching at a different school.  We went to Central Plaza (Chonburi’s four level mega-mall…it’s pretty nice) to catch up and commiserate about some of the difficulties we were facing in our new surroundings.  It was great to see them and I instantly felt better, especially as we talked about traveling the next couple of weekends.  Later in the week, I met a girl in my building who I think was happier to see me than I was her; she’s from China and is teaching at the university (okay, so there are two of us in this building, but she was out of town the weekend I moved in and I really thought I was completely alone).  She speaks English pretty well and we’ve hung out a few times.  Yay, I have friends!

As far as Chonburi itself, it’s a pretty big city and you can find whatever you need here, especially at the mall.  It has a Fitness First gym, Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, Dairy Queen, Starbucks, a huge department store, a Big C (the Thai version of Target), countless clothing, accessory, and drug stores, and even a 7-theatre movie theatre.

I’m living in an okay spot too; I walk out the main door of my building and walk two blocks to a really busy road with tons of shops, restaurants and vendors, as well an amazing market, where I’ve bought my dinner most nights. 

Sukhumvit Road- the main road in Chonburi and one of the longest roads in Thailand and the world

I have about a 20 minute walk to school, though I’ve started to catch a motorcycle taxi, simply because it’s cheap, easy, and I’m not in full sweat by the time I get there (and I’ve become a pro at riding on the back of one sideways because I wear a skirt to school).  It's not unusual to see a family of 4 on ONE of these, so I figure if they can do it, so can I.

And…..now I’m a teacher!  Supposedly anyway.  School started on Monday and it’s been interesting.  I was under the impression that I was only going to be teaching kindergarten and elementary school kids but they have me teaching high school kids too.  I wasn’t prepared to teach older kids and I hate to say it but they are downright uncontrollable.  I’ll just leave it at that for now.  The little kids are adorable though and I’ve had so much fun teaching them so far; hoping things get better with the older kids soon (not getting my hopes up).  I’ll talk more about my school and teaching when I get a little more into the process; it’s only been four days. 

I’m off to the island of Koh Samet this weekend with some friends from the program; I think we’ve all had a challenging week and are looking forward to some fun in the sun!  Koh Samet is supposed to have beautiful beaches, so hopefully I’ll have some good pictures to post.  Until next time- Sawatdee kah!