Dear Anon,
Loved the poem. Though there’s no need to be so self-deprecating: I’m sure your nose isn’t that big.
But I’m skipping ahead by a whole stanza. First line. “Emma Emma, where are thee?” To answer your question, Thailand. “Where in Thailand?” you might ask, and to save you wasting your literary talent in composing another poem simply to ask this I shall pre-emptively answer you. Hang Dong. Is that helpful?
Reasonably helpful if you want to Google-map me, I suppose. Still.
I’m at work; work being The School of Promise. It’s is a small primary school about fifteen minutes away from the Bird’s house by car and is run by a mixture of Thais and Americans, all Christians. Two days of the week are entirely in English, with the other three in Thai. It’s still very small, with only twenty-eight students in total: the class I’m being eased into teaching has only three. To those three small 1st Graders (Year 2 in England) I am now Miss Emma.
To narrow it further, I’m in the music room. Which currently has no musical clutter of any sort and instead four English teachers and a whole load of Thai childrens books. I can practicly hear the next line of your currently-in-production piece of prose. “Emma Emma what is wrong? At work you should work and not write blogs.”
Obviously your piece would have better rhyming. I’m not great at rhyming.
I’m not working right now because for today I’ve finished. It’s nearly three o’clock, as of this sentence. I’ve observed and helped in two English lessons, one Science lesson and fun reading time. I’m being eased in to everything, and after almost a week of solely observations, introductions (To systems, students, fellow teachers) and tips on which meals in the canteen don’t agree with western stomachs I was asked to plan and lead a Math lesson. That’s done too, and now I’m making sure no-one abuses the books. Over this next week I’m going to change from observing to teaching by one lesson each successive English day, to make sure I’m not overwhelmed.
At the moment the rest of the English teachers are planning future lessons, which I’ll be doing as well in a week or so once I’m fully into the swing of things. We have to try and follow what the Thai teachers teach, with translated Thai text books. They have to constantly check that what’s in the text book actually makes sense, with the language barrier sometimes throwing a fast ball. The English teacher for Grades 5 and 6 (Years 6 and 7 in England) is planning Science, and we’re all trying to help and getting ourselves ridiculously confused over genetics. Double eyelids and cats lacking whiskers made an appearance. Don’t ask. Because we really don’t know.
Right, where were we in the poem? Dum de dum... “To blog in oft thou didst promise...” In oft? Didst? Have you got some Olde English to Modern English dictionary secreted away somewhere? If so I want a copy, just so I can make sure you’re using it correctly. And yes, I did promise. But we had a small holiday after the group left and we just started work again last week, so we’ve only just got anything worth posting about. Here’s hoping this blog satisfies you. Things will be picking up as we head into autumn though, so expect blogs aplenty over the next few months!
Emma.