Just Gotta' Deal...

Me: "My class has been over 20 minutes late (out of 50 min) every week so far; is there another time we can re-schedule so they can have the full lesson?"

English Department Head: "This semester we have a lot of holidays. Don't worry about it; you won't see them much either way."

Well, okay... 

Let me start out by stressing the point that I'm not actually complaining, nor am I currently concerned about any of this. However, it must be said it has taken a lot to arrive at this zen-like state when it comes to going with the flow. Typically, that's not been my thing, but luckily it's growing on me. In Thailand, you are presented with only two options: chill out or go crazy. Not too much in-between.

So, to the meat of it all. This semester. At school. Is chaos.

Before we even began, the best we could possibly have hoped for was to see our kids 16 times a semester (once a week per class). If I haven't told you before, I'm averaging 45 kids a class, and at 20 classes, that's about 750 little chitlins every week. Woah. Okay, that's not particularly pertinent to this story; I'll get back to it..

We are in the middle of Week 5, but I have seen most of my kids only twice, none more than 3 times thus far. I'm supposed to be giving mid-terms soon to students I will have seen something like 4 times. Yeah, that sounds great.

They told us repeatedly last semester that these four months would be jam-packed with holidays, festivities and outings. And they were serious. I would say it will be a miracle if I see any classes more than 10 times in four months. What an opportunity for me to teach them something new (cough cough, sarcasm, cough)...