Well, we took the apartment i mentioned in my last entry, we looked around at some others, but they were dreary or too expensive. I have a great view of the sunset at night which is fabulous, though once I moved in I discovered the shower is only cold water, but I am actually used to it now, and being summer time here now it is easily hot enough for the experience to be pleasant.
I bought a bus map of Bangkok the other day, this is possibly the single most useful item I have purchased since I have been here, once you have the busses sussed life takes on a whole new meaning, though having said that it can easily take an hour to travel from one part of Bkk to another. From home to Bkk can take anything from one to three hours, depends on the bus the time of day, oh etc, etc.
The other day I discovered that baseball caps are not the only hat that can be worn backwards, I saw a guy with his motorcycle helmet on backwards!! He had the bit that goes across the back of your neck across his forehead, mind you the thing was strapped on and not worn like some kind of top hat as many motorcyclists do over here, I fail to see what kind of use they are in accidents when worn in this fashion.
In other surprising sights of the day, I saw a fireman on a motorbike speeding to some emergency or other, I understand that given Bkk traffic issues this is a handy solution to the congestion issues but where do you suppose you put your hose?
One of my favourite sights at night while walking aimlessly around streets, has to be through the almost closed Iron teeth of door shutters you can always catch glimpses of the warm red glow of Chinese shrines. Many homes here simply do not have conventional doors and sliding garage doors or grills often feature at the fronts of houses, the residents don't like to close them up completely due to the stiffiling heat that becomes trapped inside, but they want some level of privacy. It has the charm of making you feel like life is being lived right there in front of you, I love it.
I have officially started work, I have some books, and some curriculum outlines, of course the subjects I have curriculum for I have not got the books for and vice versa, I have heard a lot about the Thai education system and so far it is certainly living up too it's press. I have meet some of my students but school itself won't start for a few weeks yet, apparently i am supposed to be writing lesson plans, of course i can't start without curriculum and books, tomorrow i have three meetings so hopefully some things will get sorted out. Face is incredibly important in asian society and apparently it is more important to look like the Thai expectation of your job description than to actually be good at your job, so I am wearing my suits (as i only have two they are on very high rotation at the moment). Apparently they are going to make me some more (well at least I will have some extra changes of clothes).
The books have a section on "good touching" and "bad touching" and include words like scrotum, penis and vulva. (oh boy is that a class I am looking forward to). It is the first subject in one of the topics I teach, so it will be "Good morning girls and boys, I'm your new teacher, lets talk about penises!" (oh joy) at least it is a few weeks away yet. In the mean time I have a bunch of lesson plans to write to keep me busy.
Not much more to report, so I'd better cook up some noodles in a jug, yes they sell jugs over here just for the purpose as so many people eat instant noodles at least once a day.
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