It’s been a while! I apologise (for those who care) that I haven’t blogged in a long time. Truth is, I’ve been incredibly busy. I remember reading a girl’s blog back in September last year when she was doing the Samui TEFL course. She did two blogs and then I never saw another one. I remember thinking how it was a bit weird to stop there but I now know why. You are so busy on the course preparing lesson plans, getting your resources, practising lessons, doing projects and revising for tests that you barely have any time to write down what you’ve done that week. I will now try and summarise the final three weeks I had on Samui before it leaves my already full brain.
The last blog ended with Josh and I preparing for our first lesson. It was on transport with adjectives taught and comparatives, such as faster, and superlatives, such as fastest. We thought there was way too much content to go through all of this in a two hour lessons (which with breaks in between actually comprises of 1hr45mins). We were wrong. The 11-15year old students had a great grasp of the transport vocabulary and the adjectives. They breezed through the listening activity worksheets we made for them and they understood the comparatives and superlatives really well. It was so rewarding being able to introduce a concept to them and know that they understood it and could use it in a sentence. The Samui TEFL course allows you to get practice in teaching a range of ages (the youngest I taught were 7 years old and oldest were either hotel staff or teaching assistants around 25 years old) and gives you a real classroom environment to be able to put into practice the teaching methods learned. Over the course of the final three weeks of the course I taught 7 teaching practicals (TP) and each one had to be planned to perfection (I did have a bad TP in the third week with the 7-11 year olds because I was unprepared due to a power cut and having an phone interview just before teaching… It helped show how you have to be prepared at least a few days before in case of unforeseen circumstances!). My favourite class had to be the 11-15 year olds and I taught them twice after that transport lesson (one lesson on sea creatures and one lesson on monsters). The TPs were a great experience in how to control the class, how to demonstrate the games and actually make the students speak in fluent English as much as possible!
The course lasted a whole month but it flew by! It was an intense course with a lot of effort, work and hours put into it but it was all worth it in the end. I met some incredible people of which I will be keeping in contact with whether they like it or not. We would spend pretty much every night together after class either eating, planning, revising or well, getting drunk. This is something we were quite good at on Koh Samui. We befriended Nong who worked at Lucky Shakers bar just down the road from our bungalow accommodation. Nong worked for his friend who owned the bar and was always happy to see us. We frequented there quite a lot (but also managed to revise there for our exams) and so much so that we were invited to celebrate Nong’s birthday with a delicious spread of food put on and also Lucky’s birthday (the owner’s little 3year old). If you’re ever in the Choeng Mon beach area of Koh Samui, make sure you check out this bar because they are helpful, friendly and accommodating… and their Chang beer is cheap. There was also a barbers near to it where I got my haircut one night. When I walked in he sat me down and said “what you want?” whilst pointing at a wall with about 12 pictures on. It was hard to choose between the short on sides, long on top or the short on sides, long on top or the short on sides, long on top styles that I had as my options.
We would also have class nights out where we’d visit the local night markets and fill ourselves silly with cheap street food and then haggle with Songthaew drivers to take us to the main strip of Chaweng to have a few drinks. This is how the majority of our weekends were spent, except for the one weekend where Devin, Jody, Emma and I rented scooters and travelled around the whole island. We saw Big Buddha, beautiful scenery and views, a waterfall and an elephant (of which Devin was ridiculously excited about). The island is easy to navigate around (just basically one main road around the outskirts of the island) and is a lot safer to drive on than Bangkok or the bigger, busier cities. The following day (Sunday) saw the four of us head out early on a boat trip to the Angthong National Park. We were up bright and early (7am) and waited for our transfer to the ferry port. On arrival at the ferry port, we were given some breakfast and told we’d be leaving at 8:30am. It was just the four of us there, waiting patiently and after a good twenty minutes of no one else arriving, we kept saying how good it would be if it were just the four of us on our own boat (I mean it was the day after the Full Moon party so we thought the majority of tourists would be hungover/still drunk and not in any state for a boat trip). Well, we spoke too soon. Suddenly two minibuses full of Japanese tourists arrive. Okay, this is fine, we’ll all fit on the boats and maybe we’ll just have a couple of extra people on our almost private boat. Nope. Another two minibuses arrived, and then another three and then two more and well yeah it got a bit ridiculous in the end. It felt like the whole of Japan had moved to Koh Samui for the weekend to come on this boat trip! We had a brilliant day however visiting the national park and snorkelling near some of the most picturesque mountain islands. One island we visited had a viewpoint of a lagoon to go and see. We began the ascent and honestly I have never walked up so many 90 degree steps! It was never ending and as we got higher and higher, the sweat just kept dripping and dripping. It was one of the hottest walks in my life. The view at the top though was definitely worth it.
The rest of the day was spent swimming, eating and admiring the beautiful views around. And getting ridiculously sunburnt. Like a lobster. When we returned back to Choeng Mon, Emma and I headed to Family Mart to get a few bits. This meant walking past Lucky Shakers and as soon as Nong saw us he gasped. He ran out back, sat Emma and I down and then smothered us in Aloe Vera gel! It certainly helped cool us down! This led us into the final week of the course where we all taught our last few TPs, handed in our individual assignments and had our final grammar test! We celebrated the final day of the course with our graduation. Kathryn and Rosanne (the trainers) gave us our certificates and references and then gave speeches on how we’d all come a long way from the first week. We had our group picture by the pool (of which none of us used!) and decided to meet up at Lucky Shakers for a drink before heading down to the beach to let off lanterns. This was a perfect way to end the four weeks we spent together and letting off the lanterns on the pitch black beach was beautiful. I haven’t laughed so much in ages and I hope this continues throughout my time in Thailand! After the lanterns, we headed to Chaweng to go to Lipsmackers and Ark bar one final time. It was a night full of alcohol, playing jenga against the bar men in Lipsmackers and rain (of course it rained on our final night!).
The following morning saw Emma, Josh, Anika, Anushca and I getting picked up at 6:30am for our journey to Bangkok. I… well, I hadn’t felt so horrendous in a while. Luckily I’d packed everything before going out the night before (can’t say the same for Josh who I had to help throw the last few things in his bag) but this still didn’t help how awful I was feeling. We got on the minibus and Anushca offered us anti-nauseous tablets. This is where the irony starts as a couple of us threw up into plastic bags. There was a distinct smell of sick in the minibus. Classy. Then was a stopped off to pick up what looked like a couple on their honeymoon, I’m sure they were thrilled to be getting a bus that stank! We got to the ferry port and clambered aboard our catamaran to take us to the mainland. This bit was fine. The next not, well not so much. We got off at Donsak ferry port and Emma and I somehow lost Josh. He was two people behind but when Emma and I grabbed our luggage, put it on the bus and got our seats, we got a message from Josh saying “not sure if you’re on this bus or if my luggage is but here we go.”. We then leave the ferry port as Emma and I turn around and just see Josh’s bag fading away into the distance. He didn’t get his bag and now Emma was telling him to stop his bus. Josh tried to but couldn’t get to the driver and when a Thai woman asked him if he was okay, he simply replied with a panicked “I need to stop the bus” which I can only imagine was the last thing the Thai woman thought he was going to say. She replied with a suitable “Oh shit…”. Luckily, Josh managed to ring the ferry company and get his bag driven to the airport. Phew. This journey wasn’t going too smoothly so far but fortunately there were no further mishaps and we arrived in a wet and rainy bangkok later that afternoon.
We checked into a hotel where Josh was having an interview that afternoon (I’ve no idea how he did it after a day of travelling on little sleep) and relaxed. After some dinner in the evening, Josh and I decided to trek across town to meet Lisa, Luke, Nigel and Cillian at their flat. They had done the Samui TEFL course the month before us and I had Nigel’s degree certificate because it got delivered after they left and he needs for his work visa. As we were in Bangkok, we thought it’d be easier to meet in person than to send it across Thailand again. I had only been in contact with Lisa because of Jess and Elle who met her in their hostel room when they were in Bagnkok back in February so it was crazy to finally meet her and even madder that Jess and Elle had met her before she did her TEFL course! We had a few beers and decided to head out to Khao San Road (which if you haven’t heard of it, it is an insane brightly lit up road full of bars, street food, ping pong shows and edible scorpions and tarantulas). We headed to a nightclub called Lava because we needed air con (Bangkok is ridiculously humid) and paid the extortionate prices they wanted for beer. Now, what I am about to say is something that also happened at a club on Koh Samui (The Green Mango) and when it happened there I somehow loved it. Basically, I went to the toilet and when washing my hands, the toilet guy (much like the no spray no lay guys from back home) grabbed my neck and turned it all the way right to click it, then left to click it. When this happened the first time I laughed but then as they continued to click my back I realised they were only doing this for money. So, as he grabbed my arm, bent it backwards and picked up my leg to try and click my back, I started shouting ‘no!’. This didn’t work and next minute I’m lifted up in the air on this random guy’s back all whilst this Canadian guy watches and says “I’ll tell you why they do this when we get out”. Brilliant I thought, the reasoning behind why this keeps happening to me, some sort of story as to how it all started, maybe even an anecdote of a time it happened to him? Nope. Instead when we’re out of the toilet he tells me “they do it for tips”. No shit Sherlock! Needless to say I didn’t go back to the bathroom again in fear of being clicked all over again.
I’m currently still in Bangkok for training for my new job with Fun Language. They specialise in teaching in and around Bangkok with their lessons comprising a lot of drilling procedures and playing games to reinforce the language being said. I’ve had two days of training now and part of today’s big training conference was a games rotation whereby, in a circuits style layout, we experienced 32 different games to play with the children. I’ve got another day of training tomorrow before moving to Ratchaburi (an hour and a half South West of Bangkok) where I’ll be living and teaching. It’s a scary transition time but I’m looking forward to the next part of this adventure. Yesterday was a sad day, however, as I was told I needed to shave off my beard. I told Emma and Josh (as they’re staying in a hotel near me) how I needed to be clean shaven and their reply was “Please can I watch you shave that’s going to be so amusing but so sad 😂”. Brilliant. So they came over, cracked open a beer and watched me shave. I now look about 12 years old again.
OneAmazingAdventure 