If anyone still is looking at this blog, I commend you on your tenacity. Since I last wrote, my life has gotten much better as I have been moved from science to COMPUTERS! Thank Budda for his divine intervention. I now teach grades 1-9, with 1-3 learning Word, 4 learning excel, 5-6 learning illustrator, 7-8 learning Flash, and 9 learning photoshop. I was a little intimidated at first since I had never used Flash or Illustrator, and my Excel and Photoshop skills were rusty at best. I discovered the wealth of knowledge available for these programs in youtube tutorials, and my routine fell into doing a tutorial myself first, then teaching a class on it. The kids like computers much more, it is more hands on than science and more easily bridges the language barrier. I never could figure out how to teach relatively advanced science to very basic English speakers, especially since they are teenagers. I was severely stressed in that position as i knew i was ineffective, and it felt like an impossible task. My new positions is easy and fun, and I felt quite accomplished after teaching myself Flash and Illustrator.
Our summer break arrives in two weeks, and i have some excellent vacation plans in the works. Christine and I will be heading to some Thai beaches, then on to Kuala Lampur and maybe Malaysian Borneo. I am then coming back to teach summer school in April. the first two weeks of May will be spent in Hanoi, where hopefully my mom and cousin will meet me. After that, I will buckle down for a new school year, I expect to stay in Thailand through March 2014!
All the best to everyone.
