I came back from Chiang Mai with Noi and Chelon.  We stopped in Lampang and I got to see some of Noi’s home there.  After I got home, the rest of the day was laundry and cleaning.  It was nice to have a short week – 2 days.

Somehow, Pat realized that I wasn’t the right person to be creating the curriculum for the Mini English Program and she assigned different parts to all the other English teachers.  I will proof read what she writes though.

My MEP students did horrible on their tests.  I didn’t think the test were that hard.  Pat suggested I re-test them.  In America, they would fail and if they failed enough, they would be held back a year.  But, here, they help them by re-testing or giving them other ways to make better marks.  I think I will re-test them, but then average the scores of the two tests.

I got home Friday and just decided to go to bed early.  I slept 12 hours.  I needed that.  I know a huge part of why I don’t like teaching is that being in a school setting is reminding me how much I hated my childhood.  It’s exhausting, but it’s also good to be facing it head on.  I know that much of what I feel isn’t real.  There is absolutely no reason to feel negatively about any of this – it’s old stories.  I’ve known this for a long time, but it feels like I’m looking at it from a different angle as if I’m not actually feeling this childhood stuff, but watching myself feeling it.  It is very detailed as if I am looking at it under a microscope.  This is what most, if not all, humans do to themselves.  We spend so much time feeling things that aren’t even real.  They may not have even been real in the past the first time we felt them.  But we keep pushing play over and over and over on an old recording of a bad feeling.

I notice that music helps break the cycle of old feelings.  So, I’ve been playing music more often when at home.

Here’s some pictures and video of the students cheering and some pictures of Jetson, the village next to mine.  Even though it seems run down, there’s so much beauty in this area.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore