The last night

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAR!

So the time has finally come and after nine weeks living in Thailand this is the last night I will spend in Phuket! I cannot believe it- at the time it definitely felt like I was here for an extraordinarily long time but looking back it feels like I have been here no time at all. Weird. I don't actually fly back to the UK until Sunday night though. Tomorrow night will be spent on a 12 hour overnight bus journey back to Bangkok (yeah I know. Lucky me.), Friday night marks the farewell dinner for all the ETAs and the British Council and Saturday night I have free in Bangkok. However this is the last time in Phuket and tomorrow will be my last teaching day- after Thursday I no longer will be "Teacher Sarah" and instead will be "just Sarah" which doesn't have the same ring to it in my opinion.

Free cake is good cake!

Even though it's my last week here my timetable hasn't been particularly fun. I was literally 60 seconds into my first lesson of the day yesterday before a Thai teacher came in to take them all away again. Apparently the hospitality classes had some sort of practical examination in housekeeping so needed to leave my lesson to practise (as far as I could tell practising involved the kids running around the halls and doing their make up but who am I to judge?) which
meant my full day of planned last lesson activities to do with the kids quickly became a full day of sitting in the office which is sort of a shame. Considering my Friday classes were cancelled as well, this meant that I hadn't taught a lesson in about a week which was really frustrating- there's only so many times you can listen to Teacher Glenn sit in the office and mutter about his cat (bless him!).

However today marked my first teaching of an actual lesson- HOORAH! It even started off well with EP1 as it was Jar's birthday so the rest of the kids organised a surprise birthday cake with candles. What cuties. Made all the better when they handed me a cake "for you and Teacher Fro" (they can't quite say Flo's name despite us being here for 9 weeks) which definitely put me in a good mood. Seeing as it was our last

I am so so amused by this drawing of me

lesson, I asked them to all draw and write a message in English something for me to take home and I was impressed by how seriously this was taken. Seen, bless him, got right on the computer to get up google translate and wouldnt let me look at whatever he was writing/drawing the entire time. And a lot of the kids started drawing me and not gonna lie the finished products were very flattering (when you see the pictures you will get what I mean my day has literally been made by these drawings of me). It was a really nice activity and it was nearly a bit emotional reading all their adorable comments- especially Seen's whose English has improved so much and every time I see him he is just so so happy, like a puppy. My goal in life is to be as happy all the time as Seen is! Anyway, he wrote in my card
"Teacher Sara Seen like studying mathematics because the

Leaving cards are totes emosh

teacher Sara and easy to understand and the Seen likes learning about division. There is a chance Teacher Sara Thailand again" (ok his English isn't perfect but you get the jist) It was just so cute it nearly got to me- god knows how I'll cope tomorrow when  have to leave my classes entirely as I have been informed on several occasions that the kids will cry when we leave. And as someone who finds emotional situations terrifying things, I assume I will just cry with them so on the extremely unlikely chance one of my pupils is reading this- NO TEARS TOMORROW PLEASE!!

After school it was time to say goodbye to the bikes we had rented and it was an end of an era- those bikes have been our lifelines and saved us from a life of terrible public transport, teachers with no cars, mentors that we never see past school hours. Literally without those bikes it would have been a really tough 2 months so it was sad to see them go (less sad about the massive hill I had to bike up every day considering the last time I exercised was sitting GCSEs) None the less we knew we'd have to be picked up by a teacher anyway so were looking forward to being able to get dinner and not have to be back before dark for once. Unfortunately our mentor had other ideas and picked us up on the back of her scooter (once again, sorry mum) approximately 0.04 seconds after we dropped the bikes off. Although she did arrange for the school to pay us the money we spent on our bikes during our time here (about £80!!) and she did pay for our takeaway curry on the way home so we'll let her off!

Goodbye EP1!

Let the leaving parties commence!

Don't think Bifern & Na wanted to be
in my photo...

Despite it being my last Sunday in Thailand I decided to relax and take a day off just lounging around and watching films (aka what I do best). We were looking at travelling to Phi Phi islands this weekend but unfortunately, as the students were performing the play on Saturday morning it would have left us with no time to do anything so it wasn't worth doing unfortunately. On top of this, it seems 9 weeks has finally exhausted everything Phuket has to offer with our limited transport and hence we had no burning desire to really do anything on the island either.

and the worst picture of me goes to...

On top of this, another problem is money. Having to wait for pay day is so painful and it's inconvenient being paid at the end of the trip- at least I'll be able to take money home with me to survive on until the monumental day my student loan comes through! Our school assured us though that we would get paid on Monday 25th August which would give us time to arrange a trip to the bank as the school pays us in cheques which we have to cash in. Of course, Monday arrived and the money didn't. Well, it wouldn't be Thailand if things were too organised. This is actually rather concerning as the school were under the impression we would be getting the bus on Wednesday instead of Thursday despite the fact we've had repeated conversations with our mentor about when we need to be leaving this week and the fact the school has to pay for the bus back. No matter how many times we have informed someone of this the school still seems very confused on the whole matter so if I actually ever make it back to England I'll be very impressed!

Due to the fact that the school thought we were leaving on Wednesday, the director took us and several of the other female teachers out for lunch at a Thai restaurant. I'm not entirely sure why it was just the female teachers, maybe he was trying to boost his ego by taking 9 women out (he is definitely no Ryan Gosling, believe me...) but it was a lovely idea and the food was AMAZING. I love Thai style of eating out- basically order everything on the menu and everyone shares it between themselves. Definitely a lot more social way of eating and solves my dilemma of never knowing what to order... just order everything instead! I even managed to try Som Tum (papaya salad which is really spicy but so delicious and apparently a big deal in Thailand).

Let the kids loose on the selfies.

The only downside to this was we promised Pink we would be back at the school for 1pm as EP1 and EP2 wanted to take us to the beach for our leaving party. Zeen was VERY keen on the idea and all morning was yelling at me "Teacher swimming!!!!!" and I was definitely looking forward to chilling on the beach with the EP kids- it's a tough life teaching, ey? However, 1pm turned to about half 2 and when we arrived back at the school the kids had completely disappeared. Turns out while we were gone they were sent to the beach to interview foreigners about their nationality and their time in Phuket which I am a little bit gutted I missed out on. As soon as Shedah came in and told us that all the tourists kept running
away from them, it sounded like it had the potential to be very amusing to watch. It did seem the idea of a party on the beach with the EP kids was out of the window until Pink decided it was back down to the beach we go! Of course, Gun (an EP 1 student) drove us in her car as she is the only student in the entire school to have a car and not a scooter. I am assuming this girl is rich. Anyway, it is not deemed inapproriate in Thailand for students to drive their teachers around or indeed make the teachers get on the back of their motorbikes.

That is something which is very different- the teacher/student relationship is a lot more relaxed than in England where there are definitely strict rules. The teacher/student Facebook friends thing is fine out here and we had to tell them during our "party" at the beach (the term party is used quite loosely, it was basically a glorified photo opportunity) that we weren't allowed to accept their Facebook friend requests. It wass quite cute really when they asked "why" and they couldn't even comprehend the fact that teachers could send nasty messages to pupils (that was the angle we went with. Some things are just too hard to explain with a

"THANK YOU FOR TEACHING US!"

language barrier!)

I am really going to miss EP 1 and 2. On the beach they all got into a big circle around me and Flo and started saying in English (after a five minute practise session which we pretended not to hear) "I love you, I miss you, thank you for teaching us!" It was all quite emotional- they nearly got me bawling and I'm going to see these kids tomorrow! The rest of the week is going to be emotionally exhausting if today was anything to go by...

It's the final countdown! (dum dum dum dum dum)

"WE NEED MASCARA.. STAT!"

I have only five days from now left in Phuket and I am currently experiencing my last weekend on my 9 week placement. This time next week I will be getting ready to fly home. Although I can't deny that I am really, really ready to come home and see all my friends and family it is going to be a weird experience having to leave. Especially when Kip, one of the EP2 girls, reliably informed us on Friday "Teacher, when you go England we cry!" which was so so sweet (although the teacher in me wanted to mention that it should be "when you go to England" but my sentimental side let this go). Saying goodbye to EP2 and EP1 (even if EP1 have been a nightmare to teach sometimes) is going to be very hard- they're such cuties.

Thursday passed by in a blur as I was convinced that Friday would mean my last maths lesson with my Architect class as this week we are leaving the school on Thursday so I spent ages drawing out cards and such for games so I could have a fun last lesson. In true Thai style, however, we arrived at school on

My voice doesn't need a mic but here we are

Friday morning to discover that the kids were off to some "fix it" automobile center and hence all lessons were cancelled Friday morning. I even brought sweets for my last classes. Gutted. I'm hoping this doesn't become a common occurrence over the next week as I would like to teach a final lesson at some point! Instead, we spent all day practicing a 15 minute play with the EP kids which, considering around 2-3 hours of this time was trying to perfect the princess's make up by all the kids (which seemed to be somewhat of a military operation between the girls. It was taken VERY seriously) wasn't a bad way to spend a day considering it was Friday and I'd been having a hard week.

Thais love a selfie!

With that Friday feeling in mind, we headed to the beach all set to relax and have a beach-view meal at our favourite place Phens after school. Unfortunately for us, it seems the military who have been slowly moving illegal structures slowly off Naiyang sea front since we arrived 8 weeks ago have decided to pretty much wipe out the entire beach resort in one go. Every restaurant/bar/souvenir shop we've grown accustomed to in the past 2 months has been ripped down so that the small beach town is now a ghost town. In the long term, I guess it's a good idea to preserve the national park and they're illegally built etc but it's such a shame that the Naiyang I've grown to love has now been turned into a dump. It has also drastically narrowed down our choices of where to eat dinner everyday as it is very hard to order food at entirely Thai restaurants in town that isn't "fried rice with chicken" the only Thai food we can get across the language barrier. Sometimes, not having our mentor around outside of school time does pose a few potential issues...

Having said that our mentor, Pink, arranged for the students to perform the play at the Swedish orphanage

Kip and Seen are too cute! Proud of them!

on this morning so, despite it being a Saturday we were up and ready to go at 8am (Thai's are far too much of morning people for my liking...) I had been told multiple time by Pink that the students were to perform the play at a "Swedish orphanage". I understand both the words "Sweden" and "orphanage" but I could not for the life of me work out the connection so I just let it slide and I figured I'd find out eventually what was going on. It turns out that a Swedish couple set up an orphanage about ten years ago originally for children who had lost their families in the Tsunami. Now it is home to about 20 children aged between the ages of about 4-15 and our job was to play games and teach the kids a bit of English. When we arrived some poor Swedish girl who was volunteering for a short while at the university was like "I didn't know you were coming!" as apparently the Thai lady who worked there didn't tell anyone. Don't worry love, we never get told anything either- welcome to Thailand! However the whole morning activities went pretty smoothly and the kids even aced the play they've worked so hard on for the past god knows how many weeks. Shoutout to Princess Bifern and Prince Seen who, bless them, weren't the best at English and ended up with the most lines but worked their arse off to remember them AND did them with amazing acting and pronounciation- I'm such a proud teacher! I'm also gutted I don't have any videos of their

Musical chairs was fierce

awkward dancing scene. Romeo and Juliette eat your heart out!

It was such a lovely morning and the kids who lived at the orphanage were really cute and seemed to have fun- even when playing word animal bingo and I had to read out the word "hores". (I think whoever typed it up might have meant horse but as I have the maturity of an 11 year old boy I definitely thought this was the most hilarious thing ever). It is almost too cute getting a bunch of 8 year olds up dancing during the final dancing scene of the play too. I'm a little bit jealous of people who are placed in primary schools as Thai children are undoubtedly the cutest! Never the less, I'm very proud of our kids who helped out and ran pretty much the entire morning and they did a great job. I am definitely going to miss teaching them and I hope they get the jobs they want in life- they work very hard and deserve them!

I stick out like a very sore thumb

Tears, drugs testing and Thai massages.

After FINALLY getting them to do some work

Monday morning we rolled into school bleary eyed as usual to find that all lessons had been cancelled in the morning. This didn't really bother me as I have Monday mornings off to sit in the office and work and plan my lessons for the next week (a.k.a relentlessly scroll the internet for four hours and recover from a stressful weekend lying on a beach) but we were told that all the students would be in the meeting room (their
equivalent of a school hall) and we should join them immediately.

Looks like Gun was inspired by my lesson...

I have become accustomed to never being told anything by my Thai school and it seems that if they ever want us to do something you're told about 0.3 seconds before. No matter how frustrating this is, it is the Thai way and I don't think they are going to change anything about this soon in the 8/9 week of teaching. Never the less we arrived to find that the hall was full of armed military personnel which was slightly alarming at 8am when you're sleep deprived and homesick. It turns out that today was the day of random drug testing- a couple of times a year the police/army (im not entirely sure I just went along with it) do random drugs testing throughout the schools on the island. If a student was to test positive for a drug, they would be sent out of school and straight into a rehabilitation center as Thais have a really strict stance on drugs. Unfortunately this meant for us four hours of watching 400 kids line up to be handed a pot to pee in, and then had the delight of seeing 400 pots of pee lined up outside the hall on our way out (note to some of the kids- drink more water.) I'm still not entirely convinced why myself and Flo had to be present to witness this as neither of us were tested and all of the other teachers had decided it was too boring for even them to sit through. Although, in true Thai fashion it seemed that a drug test from the army was still a perfect photo opportunity!

Tuesday and Wednesday has sort of passed in a blur- the days are going really fast now and I'm quite glad about it as I really, really want to leave. It's a shame that's how things have worked out as in any other circumstances I'd be gutted about leaving but at this moment in time I just really am looking forward to
getting home. This was also when Pinky, who picked us up from Bangkok, announced she was leaving the school! She's the only teacher who's expressed somewhat of an interest in us since we arrived and I'm sad to see her go. As were the pupils who spent the whole of yesterday afternoon hysterically crying in my last lesson with Pinky. I'm not emotionally equipped to deal with such things...

This morning I was greeted by a bad mood, made even worse when my mentor informed me (0.3 seconds before I had to do it- obviously.) that I had to give a speech to the entire school about something from "my

Not sure why my school now has a fish tank, but
hi Nemo.

culture". In all honesty, I've lived in England all my life and all I can gather from our culture is we like to moan about the weather and love a cup of tea but how do you tell 400 Thai kids that? In the end I settled for something about school when 10 seconds into my speech it started raining and (as assembly is outside in Thailand. A country where it rains a lot. Go figure) the kids started screaming and diving for cover. You would have thought that would have been the end of me talking, but no. My mentor was keen for me to continue over the sounds of 400 children screaming and getting soaked. Ah, Thailand.

My day considerably brightened however when I was sat in the office working (I am fast becoming a god at minesweeper) when 2 hospitality girls came in to drag us downstairs to ask if they could practice Thai massage on us. Um, yes I think that would be fine! Surprisingly they were actually really good and I left a lot less stressed than I had entered. It also highlighted the difference between teacher/pupil relationships in Thailand and the UK. I'm not sure what kind of school anyone else went to but mine certainly wasn't the type to have all of the teachers sat in a circle while the students practiced massaging them...

Elephants and ting

ELEPHANTS AW YH!

Having been in Thailand almost two months by this point it suddenly occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't done the thing which was THE thing to do if you were in Thailand. Go elephant trekking. It's so cliche and very "I-went-on-a-gap-yarr-in-Thailand-to-find-myself" but oh my days it was definitely one of the best experiences I have ever done! And, with an elephant sanctuary on Phuket island (which I may add I did my research and concluded that this elephant safari which was one which had the welfare of the elephants as a highest priority. Sadly, elephants are often very mistreated just because they bring in so much money from unknowing tourists. However, I was under much assurance that this elephant safari in Phuket was the only one in Southern Thailand certified from the government and apparently David Attenborough had been there so it couldn't have been too bad!) I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see the elephants.

Saturday morning arrived and it was raining. In Thailand it usually rains like you've never seen it rain before for a maximum of an hour before it stops and it's back to the baking sunshine again. Unfortunately the only day I needed to cycle down to the hotel (the safari people arranged a hotel pick up for me- Flo decided against the whole elephant thing) and it rained relentlessly for 6

Modelling the sexy anorak look

hours. Which was fine until the point I realised I was cycling downhill on a dual carriage way and couldn't see a thing at which point I did consider that maybe cycling in the torrential rain isn't the cleverest of moves. I wish I had a scooter out here- at least if I'm going to die on the roads of Thailand I would like it to be on something a bit cooler than a push-bike!

Cliche elephant trek photo

Eventually, after an hour and a half in a van and absolutely soaked through, sat in a weird rain poncho (I'm so attractive) I made it to the safari! I COULD SEE THE ELEPHANTS! Firstly, we were introduced to our tour guide Wi and then put in a tractor and taken to see two baby elephants who were made to kick footballs and paint pictures for our entertainment which seemed all a bit pointless but it was explained that it was to get the elephants used to the presence of people as when they turned 16 they would go out on the safaris. I also learnt that the elephant trainers and the people who control the elephants during the trek are people called "Mahouts" from the north of Thailand (where Asian elephants mainly originate in Thailand) and a lot of the conservation of the elephant sanctuary was making sure the Mahout people were looked after and received a fair wage. Mine was very nice although he didn't speak very much English- he did reliably inform me that "elephant hungry" when it turned out my elephant was the fattest and stopped every 2 seconds to eat. I related to that elephant on a spiritual level. 

Cat cafe in Phuket Town. A cafe.. with cats.

It was definitely one of the best days I have had in Thailand and I know it is so cliche but when else are you going to get chance to ride an elephant through the jungle (unless you go on holiday in asia ever again...)

Today me and Flo decided to check out Phuket town, the "capital" of Phuket. When we visited Patong it was almost like Malia in the middle of Phuket and now we visited Phuket town it was like a small piece of China. It's weird how such different places can exist on one island which isn't really that big. Apparently Phuket Town has a

A little bit of China

massive Chinese influence and it was definitely one of the nicer towns in Phuket. It was very quaint with a lot of hipster cafes- it was a backpackers dream definitely. But at the same time it was relatively relaxed and cheap and it was nice to be able to see an overall nicer part of the south of Phuket- as the only other southern part of the island we have visited has been Patong. It was a relief to not have been offered to see a ping pong show that was for sure!

So tomorrow marks the beginning of 8/9 weeks of teaching meaning that the programme is rapidly coming to a close. While one half of me is desperate to come back to the UK (I think this is definitely the longest I haven't seen my friends/family/boyfriend and I have been struggling a little bit. I am a softie i know) the other half doesn't want to leave. I have settled comfortably into my teacher role and going back to the UK will be really sad when it's freezing, I don't live next to the beach, and I'm just your average student again, wasting my days hungover rather than teaching English to Thai kids. It's also not tempting me to come back to England knowing that, due to the

Always time to mention chocolate cake.

fact that life hates me and ruins any plans I make, I will be stranded at the airport anyway. (if my friends/family see this please send help on the 1st september. Desperate times...) 

10 teaching days to go

Loving this whole teacher thing

The realisations that I only have 10 teaching days left is slowly starting to sink in now that I'm back teaching and I don't really know how to feel about this. Today I was sat in the office (trying to do work, failing and ending up stalking everyone's A level results- congratulations to my brother for getting into Sheffield uni!) when Seen and Mon, two of the EP1 students wondered into have a conversation. This isn't unusual as their classroom is next to the English office and if it improve their English to speak to us or Teacher Glen, no one really minds. So Mon walked in and shouted at me "Teacher go home!" which, at 10.30am was almost offensive- surely you can't be that bored of me already?! However it turns out after a little broken English conversation between the two they were asking me when I went home back to England. I got up the calender on my laptop pointing to my last teaching day and when I'd be flying back to the UK to which they both replied "soon!". They then returned to their classroom jabbering in Thai to the rest of the class but I managed to catch "Teacher Sarah" so I thinking about us leaving.

I've been so preoccupied with getting back to the UK, I haven't really thought about what it would be like to

Jojo doesn't look too traumatized by his abuse..

eventually leave all the classes that I teach. For example, I was teaching my regular EP2 class this morning when Shedah, one of the pupils kept punching Jojo the only boy in the class who, being a 16 year old boy, kept winding her up. I was absolutely cracking up at the constant complaints from him of "teaaachhhherrrrrr" every time she punched him on the arm and gave him a "wtf face" - I think I would have more sympathy for him if he was actually doing the work I set him. But it's the little things like this, one of the benefits of teaching older children, and the friendly relationship you develop with your students that is really nice and is going to be weird about leaving. Unlike teaching in the UK, once I leave Thalang Technical college I'll probably never come back and see the students and it'll be much much harder to hear about how the pupils are getting on. It's really quite sad!

Cooking at the market

After school we had play rehersals and after almost a month solid of hearing the same (admittedly very poorly written lines) it is STILL funny to see an overly camp Prince and un-amused Princess try very hard to look like they want to dance with each other (it's definitely the most unconvincing couple acting I've ever seen). It's refreshing to have this in my day though and break up sitting in the office writing a full 18 week, 33 page course plan on "Basic Mathematics" that my mentor Pink asked us to complete 2 weeks ago which, for the record, might be the most boring document I have ever read. And I wrote it. Then, to get food we headed off on our bikes to the market inevitably getting absolutely soaked from the torrential rain in the
process. The rain which waits for us to get on our bikes before deciding to fall. Typical.

Ate this badboy with chopsticks- been spending
too much time with Will..

Sometimes I wish our mentor or maybe one of the other teachers were there for us a little bit more. To be fair to them, they are all fantastic and if we ask for something they'll try very hard to sort it out but I feel like our experience is very different to a lot of ETAs. Where people live with their mentors, they are cooked for or people seem to be taken out to dinner occasionally by teachers at the school. Or the school will want to do something with them outside of school hours. Not us. If we don't find food for ourselves, we don't eat. Our mentor never spends time with us outside of office hours and many of the
teachers seem to leave us to just fend for ourselves almost which is very strange. I know I am at an age now where I should be fending for myself but sometimes it would be nice if our mentor or someone wanted to cook us dinner at some point or take us somewhere on the island. It's a very petty complaint considering a lot of the teachers are VERY busy (way too busy to consider whether some farrang girls have eaten dinner) and on the whole the teachers have been very welcoming towards us, but it would be nice.

A very long weekend

Due to the fact that it was the Queen's birthday today and also mother's day, I haven't had to go into school as it is a national holiday. This means that I haven't taught a lesson in nearly two weeks which is crazy considering that's the reason I'm out here. It also means I'm probably going to be really rusty going back- I

Hard to be too homesick when this is your home

only just managed to master my not-impressed-at-all teacher bitch face!

Seeing as we had the last two days off we could have traveled around Thailand but having spent the majority of last weekend away at Morn's wedding and Krabi, we decided to just come back and spend Monday and Tuesday chilling in our apartment (and this way it meant I wasn't watching my money disappear before my eyes) So, while it's not been the most exciting past two days considering I am in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, it has been SO good to just be able to relax and not have to worry about anything or get up at 6.30am. It has been a really intense 7 and a bit weeks that I've been out here and even when I'm not teaching I'm off doing something so it is really refreshing to be able to chill out and do what I do best- binge watch 4OD.

Dinner on the beach awww yhhh

Having not taught for a really long period of time has meant I haven't had the routine I've been used to which
meant time has gone a lot slower than usual. Combine this with the fact that it's coming up to the end of my programme now (just 12 teaching days left!) it has felt like this past week has been a struggle. I've not been particularly homesick while I've been away as I've been too busy having an amazing time but
now it feels like coming home is so close, yet so far which is a horrible feeling! There have definitely been points when I would have jumped straight on a flight to the UK if I was presented with an opportunity. Times such as when the mosquitoes have had a lovely little feast on me, it's too hot to do anything, you can't get a decent cup of tea, and everyone feels so so far away is when I really do wish I was back in England.

I could eat my weight in Thai green curry.

Never the less, I am not one for moaning (if you know me in real life you will probably have just laughed out loud at this comment) well, I am not one for wallowing TOO much in self pity. And I am not too homesick- I'm not about to quit the programme kicking and screaming, heading straight for the airport. Once I get back into teaching I'll realise how much I love Thalang technical college and my classes in it and there will probably be a lot of tears once it actually comes to leaving so hopefully I'm not going to be missing England for too much longer (not to mention the fact that it seems absolutely freezing over there after 9 weeks of 30 degree heat. I am not prepared for such arctic conditions)