First couple of days

After our walk around campus on Saturday, a few of us were feeling adventurous. We wanted to venture off campus. Thankfully we stopped and spoke with some students who had told us a place to go...Central Bang Na. Central Bang Na is a mall. It is 9 floors of everything one can ask for in a mall...it even had a mini roller coaster, movie theater, grocery store and a bowling ally. Fun stuff for a Saturday in Thailand!
On Sunday we made it to Bangkok. Our student guides decided to take us to Mah Boon Krong (MBK), Siam Discovery, and Siam Paragon...guess what those are??? MALLS!!! I guess they thought we loved to shop! Anyways our group wanted to branch out and see some of the city. First of all, Bangkok traffic is nuts...and I have not even seen it during rush hour yet. I can't even imagine.
As I am sure most of you know, Thailand is famous for shrines and Buddhism. And I finally got to see a minuscule bit of it. Our first turn out of the mall we see a 4 faced Buddha statue, known as the Erawan Shrine or 'Thao Maha Brahma'. At this shrine people pray for good fortune.

At 6pm I had my first experience with the playing of The Royal Anthem (often called the King's song). This song is played everyday at 8am and 6pm (on the radio, at train stations and all state buildings). Aaaah so that explains the 2 minute bell clock tower fiasco I hear every morning...
We found an awesome beer garden and sat down for several drinks. And mustered up enough courage to try the street food. I played it safe and went with some fried chicken wings with some amazing sweet, sour, and spicy sauce.
On Monday morning I was anxious to start my day and I was up super early...so I thought it would be the perfect time to go out for a run. Bad idea! Have I mentioned how hot and humid it is here? Even at 6am it was quite gross out. But I ran anyways. After about 20 minutes I had to stop as my clothes were soaked through and sweat was pouring down my face. Sight to be seen, let me tell you. Anyways this was our 1st day of our 3 day orientation. Officially this was considered our first day of work. We got our cubicles and I took my my first day of school/work picture!
At our orientation we received our syllabus for the classes we will be teaching. We will be teaching 5 classes that meet twice a week for 90 minutes. We received a ton of information and paperwork...don't get me started on the paperwork. It was a very overwhelming day. And we got 'homework' (what? I thought I was done with school...argh) we had to create two lesson plans. How easy right? WRONG. Especially if your lesson planning training consisted all of a 20 minute lecture that day! Thankfully the other teachers here are amazing and some of us got together and brainstormed and bounced ideas off each other.
Tuesday morning I woke up and had my first minor 'work' freak-out moment....ha ha ha its only the second day and I have not even stepped foot into the classroom yet!!! "I am not a teacher" "I don't know how to create lesson plans" "I know nothing about ESL" "I don't know what I am doing" these were my thoughts...Thankfully my aunt was on skype and successfully calmed my nerves a bit.
Today (wednesday) was the wrap up of our orientation. Overall it was three intense days of sitting, note taking, activities and learning new information. Hopefully I will retain some of these ideas and use them in my classroom. Afterwards I seriously needed to get active. I couldn't even imagine running outside at 4pm so I went to the pool for a bit, that was a nice. I need to buy a bike!
Oh so check this out...the ketchup and hot sauce bottles. No ketchup and mustard on the tables...its ketchup and hot sauce. I am in heaven!

And this has to be my favorite sign here...4th one down...can you read it? It says "some kind of food/curry" lol