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...