First Impressions

 After about 30 hours of traveling by plane and bus from Bangkok we finally made it to our hotel room in Phichit at 4 a.m Thursday (thai time) morning. We were staying in the hotel, as the teachers who taught this previous semester were still at the school.

Thursday and Friday we shadowed these teachers to see how teaching goes about and Friday evening we moved into our dorm which lies on  campus. The dorm is filled with 3 bunk beds a table and a sitting area. All in one room. It's a nice cozy place, but I immediately recognized how

hard it may become within the next four months, as all 6 of us have completely different personalities.

We begin teaching on Monday and I couldn't be more excited. I am a beginning reading teacher and will be sharing 12 students (roughly ages 5 and 6) with another girl in the program. The kids are darling, and I can't wait to see their improvement in English which is already relatively good. I'm also looking forward to test out ways to teach a foreign language by immersion. The ILP program has interesting ways  in which they go about teaching English some of which I don't find the most productive ways, so when I say I'm excited to figure out new ways, I really am.

I really only got to go into the city this morning (saturday) and lemme tell you, this is place is interesting. I will try to get more pictures of it, as I have not taken very many yet. They weren't kidding when I heard that Thailand is the land of smiles. Everyone smiles and waves to us and shout "helloooo" as we are the only white people in town and they know we teach at the "Imperial bilingual elementary school." The people don't seem to have a lot, but are very grateful for everything.

As seen on the left there are many stray dogs here. I have never seen so many dogs in my life.

the bottom photo is of a couple of my roommates sitting on the back of a truck getting a ride to the school. The ride did it for me- I smitten with this land. Which also reminds me, I always considered driving on the right side of the road a completely normal thing to do that is done in every country except England and their commonwealths. Turns out it is done in China, Japan, Thailand and who knows where else. A bit weird to get used to as we do have our own bikes to ride into town, which is also the experience as everyone drives they way they want to here.

I hope to post some more soon, especially when I start teaching and what not. I also hope to sound a little bit more intelligent.

Lots of Love und Ich habe euch Lieb.
McKenna