WOOHOOO!!! We did it!! We graduated!! :)

YEAY! We're done! We're official! :) Today was the last day of our course. We got our certificates and hand shakes and now we're official!! :)







































This last week was extremely busy but also a lot of fun. We had 3 lessons to prepare and teach. 1 lesson was a one-on-one lesson with the student we interviewed the first week. We had to transcribe the first interview, correct it and then build a 50 minute lesson according to the difficulties they had with the language. It was very fun but also a little awkward to have someone watch you have a conversation.


The other two lessons were for an Elementary school. I (Kat) had 1st graders for both of my lessons. Jeff had 1st grade and then 2nd - 3rd grade. There were about 20 kids in each class. In my class, the kids were about 5-6 years old and were very lively. The first day, I was not strict enough at the beginning of the class (they're so cute. It was really hard to be strict :) ) so by the end of the class, tons of kids were just running around, playing, drawing and not paying attention at all. It was very exhausting and frustrating. The second day, I was a lot stricter and more consistent with class room rules and the class went a lot better. The kids participated much much better and that made it a lot more fun! :)


Haha... so in my second class, we were just getting ready to do an activity and I had the kids stand up and come to the front. Two boys were running around and all of the sudden one boy pulled down the other boy's pants in front of everybody. Luckily, the naked boy was very close to me so I hurried and pulled his pants back up. Then at the end of the class, I noticed a pair of underpants sitting on the boy's desk. I don't know when he took them off. Very very weird. :)


So yeah, it was an interesting experience teaching such a wide variety of students. We really enjoyed it and learned a ton.


This weekend, we'll be moving apartments. We found a place we like. It's a small studio. It doesn't have a kitchen but it has a big fridge and we'll probably get an electric pan. It has a little balcony, air conditioning (which is great because it's getting really hot) and a seperate shower (this is great because going to the bathroom is not very fun when the floor is constantly wet). The other awesome thing is, the complex has a huge outdoor pool. YEAY!!! (Karen and Teancum - make sure to bring your swimming suits). The place is also in a really nice part of town, close to two language schools. Rent is about $170, so fairly inexpensive.


Also, we got our camera today!! Yeay! So here are all those pictures you've been waiting for. :)


The resort in Rayong:

The one with the islands in the background is the view from our room. The one with the beach is the view from the restaurant.














































The teaching experience:


















Count how many girls there are in the picture:










Scroll down for the answer! No peeking! :)







Answer: 2!! A teacher on the very left in the purple shirt and the girl in the green shirt. The 3 pretty ones on the right are Kathoeys (Ladyboys). They were born boys but from a young age identified themselves as girls. So they dress like girls, behave like girls and some of them take hormones and/or have surgery. Kathoeys are very common in Thailand (in our group 3 in 30 students) and are very accepted. If you want to read more about it, click here.


All right, well that's it for now. Until soon. :)


By the way: it's 90 degrees in our room right now!