Before I go

My name's Sarah and I've just finished my first year at Nottingham University studying Natural Sciences. Around February, I received an E-mail from my university about teaching English over in Thailand and thought "yeah that looks ok" and applied, before forgetting all about it and continuing my life as a fresher.

However, around the end of March the British Council sent me an Email saying that I had been accepted and will be teaching English in a Thai school for 9 weeks of my summer! I later found out that I will be placed with another ETA (English Teaching Assistant) in Thalang Techincal college in Phuket. (Which I am extremely happy with this placement, judging I will be based around 5 miles away from the following beach:



So the past few months have been a little crazy (not to mention pricey) with passports, visa applications, DBS checks, flights etc etc all while trying to pass my first year exams. However, I've finally sorted everything out and in just under three weeks I will be flying out to Bangkok to start my orientation with the British Council!

At the moment it hasn't really sunk in that I'm spending 9 weeks of my life on the other side of the planet teaching English to classes full of teenagers. I have never done anything like this before so it's only natural that I'm a little apprehensive about the whole experience. On the other hand, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am so excited to get out of my comfort zone and try something completely different. To be honest, the thing which is phasing me the most is that I appear to be the only ETA on my flight from Heathrow on the 24th June and I don't fancy a 14 hour flight all by myself!

The next time I post will probably be when I am over 6000 miles away starting my adventure as an ETA in Thailand and if that's not the scariest/most exciting thing then I don't know what is.