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New job
I start my new job tomorrow. I told a couple of people in Bangkok that I was really nervous about it. I am. It's very different from my last job in Bangkok. Matayom instead of Prathom. Kids that want to rebel, and prove that they really are teenagers, rather than sweet faced kids eager to copy the strange sounding noises that you are making. Large classes (up to 50 kids in a room) rather than less than 20. Only 2 other English colleagues. In Bangkok I was part of a team of 10, and there were native speaking kindergarten teachers to chat to and hang out with too. No air con classrooms and a fraction of the resources we had back in Bangkok.
I'm really looking forward to it. It should be a good challenge. But I'm worried too. Very worried. A couple of my friends in Bangkok can't understand why I have jitters about it. I should easily do it, they think. But it's not that simple.
I'm not worried about making an a**e of myself. If it turns out that I'm crap at teaching Matayom, no worries. I know that I can teach, and enjoy teaching Prathom. The thing that worries me most is that, should I turn out to be really hopeless at it, I will make my friend's sister, and her colleagues, who offered me the job look bad.
I'm also a bit worried about living upcountry. I love the countryside but I also loved living in Bangkok too. I've spent the last couple of months travelling around the north, northeast and the south and have really enjoyed it. I even spent a month working as a volunteer teacher in Naan, and another month and a bit doing the same thing in Kalasin. But a months easy. If you plan to travel each weekend (and realise that there are only 4 of them...) it seems that a month's far too short a time. If you feel homesick or start missing the city or your friends, it's easy to start counting down the number of days until you move on again.
But a whole year. That's much longer, and much, much harder.
I know that I like the north. I spent a month in Naan last Decemeber, and, aside from a few days around Christmas when, for the first time in the 3 years I've lived in Thailand, I felt really, really homesick, reallly enjoyed it.
I already have some friends here, but not that many. Most are much, much older than me. I only know 4 people around my own age. I'll be the youngest teacher in my department too. I wonder how I'll get on with my new collagues, whether I'll end up being part of their social circle or not, whether I'll find enough things to do with my free time (as there will be lots of it), whether I'll like my new house, and neighbourhood or not, whether I'll make friends easily, whether I'll enjoy the job and find the students be fun to teach, whether I'll manage to survive wearing a skirt 5 days a week...
One friend in Bangkok asked me why I decided to move out. Sometimes, when you realise that things aren't quite working out the way you wanted them to, you need to do something different, find some way to move on, make a new start. I gues this is it.
| Create Date : 05 พฤษภาคม 2551 |
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| Last Update : 5 พฤษภาคม 2551 11:25:51 น. |
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