Not much exciting happened Sunday.  My bus left Chiang Rai at 8:30 in the morning and took most of the day to get home.  I’m not sure why it took longer to get home than it took to get to Chiang Rai, but it did.  There were 5 police check points on the way home, 4 of which we got pulled over and they searched the bus.  I assume they are looking for people sneaking in the country as they checked IDs.  They never checked mine.  I don’t look Burmese.  I got home and found nothing scary in my bathroom, but there was a dying rat peeing on my stairs.  Why can’t dying critters go outside and die?  They all have to die in some dramatic fashion and wait for me to get home to do it.  I assume he ate too much of the rat poison.  I had to sweep him into the dust pan and take him outside.

Yesterday at school, I found out that they are still coming up with random issues with my work permit.  Now they want my work permit dates to match my employment dates, but instead of making the work permit good for 8 months, they want the school to rewrite the contract for a year.  This would mean I would be here through March of next year instead of September of this year.  How do you politely say no to that?  I tried.  Pat made a phone call.  I have no idea where this stands now.

I have two higher level English classes.  Today I went to teach one of the regular level classes and was told that the higher level class was mixed in.  So, basically, what I was teaching was a repeat for the higher level class since I taught them earlier in the week.  How is this good classroom planning?  It will be an issue for the first two classes, but not after that.  Still, this added on to work permit thing just set me in the wrong direction for the rest of the day.  I felt defeated and although I know it will all work itself out, I couldn’t shake the feeling.  After school, I figured the best plan was to go get a massage.  They weren’t there.  I contacted Tip and asked if I needed an appointment or could just go get a massage at the hospital.  They have a section with acupuncture and massage.  She called to set up an appointment, but they were closed for the day.  I went by two coffee shops.  They were both closed.  I gave up and went home to clean my house in the heat.  I’m going to have to clean my house every few days anyway.  I cleaned 2 rooms and felt a little better.

I question why I don’t want to be here.  Ok, there’s the obvious: critters, bugs, the heat, the language, etc., but in theory, it shouldn’t matter.  I know that the real “I don’t want to be here” is the one from infancy, not wanting to be here alone in this body, in this life.  I have worked on that a lot over the years.  All I can gather is that I was left alone a lot in the first few weeks of life and it left a mark that is difficult to define and difficult to work on.  I started doing the DSE (Developmental Sequence Exercises) again as I think this is what is needed to finally work through this issue.  I catch myself wanting to blame someone else for my problems.  Then a second later, I think “that’s stupid.  I’m the one who chose this – on purpose”.  There’s no one to blame.  Even if there was, what would that solve?  Nothing.  So, this wanting someone to take responsibility is part of not wanting to be here.  They both feel backwards and inside out.  So, I feel uncomfortable and unhappy and I do my exercises.  I watch my thoughts and reactions and I wait for the issue to turn in on itself and flip so it’s no longer inside out.

Today I had 5 classes.  I’m exhausted and brain fried.  Sometimes I have Thai teachers that help.  Today, I didn’t for 4 of the classes and the lesson was pretty difficult.  So, I feel like I didn’t do anything useful today.  One of my classes was 50 students.  I couldn’t keep their attention for more than 5 seconds.  That’s too many students.  I teach 6 different grades and 2 advanced classes.  I had 16 classes last semester and now I have 18.  Last semester I was creating 2 lesson plans a week – one for the first 3 grades and one for the last 3 grades.  One teacher told me today that next week she wanted me to teach on one of the subjects in her text book.  This is great because what I’m teaching will be relevant to what they are supposed to be learning.  I’ve been asking for this for months.  However, it now means I have more lesson plans to do each week.  So now I will have to create one for the first three grades, one for the 4^th, one for the 5^th, one for the 6^th, one for one of the advanced classes and two for the other advanced class.  So instead of 2 per week, I’m now up to 9 lesson plans per week.  I’m not sure this is actually physically possible.  Then add on that I agreed to teach a monk after school twice a week so that’s now 11 lesson plans.  Then I found out that Tuesday the last period is for clubs and I have to co-lead a club with Pat.  We have to teach them hobbies.  My hobbies are snowboarding, mountain biking, hiking, etc.  How do I teach hobbies?  We will do pottery, but I have no idea how to teach that without supplies and equipment.  Beyond that, I know nothing.  Help – send me ideas.  If you add all that up, I’m now teaching 21 classes a week needing 12 lesson plans.  I suck at lesson plans.  How did this blow up to this proportion?  I can’t possibly see how this is going to work.

I came home to an air conditioner in my room.  So, that’s wonderful.  I had to clean the whole house again, but I didn’t mind.

(c) All rights reserved Kimberly Fiore