Living in Bangkok

I had another challenging week at school. The new schedule is hard, and the kids have been unruly in two of my three classrooms. I tried different classroom management techniques without much luck—and then I started feeding myself messages like, what kind of person are you that you’re letting a bunch of six year olds walk all over you? And then I beat myself up for beating myself up, like , Ellen and Luke are worn out by this schedule too, but they aren’t blaming themselves—why is my brain wired to be so self-critical? But I’d say I had a little more space around my feelings this week than last, and I focused a lot on being in my experience, and not just focusing on when the morning or work day or work week would end. And when my direct conversations or promises of rewards (like extra playtime) failed with the kids, I tried some more discipline-based classroom management on Thursday (I sent one of the kids out of the group and back to his station after he repeatedly did something I t

I often bring my phone into the classroom because I use it to play music when I’m doing song and dance lessons with the kids. On Saturday morning, I opened my camera app to find these photos (and video) on my phone. This is Pi. He is one of the students in my new class and is in K1 (the youngest class). He also apparently knows how to operate an iPhone.  Pi is a bundle of pure joyful chaos. He is the only student I've ever had to ask to put his clothes back on and he always, always has a smile on his face, whether he's throwing all my teaching cards to the ground, or putting his face an inch away from mine to say "hi hello good morning" or agreeably stepping back into his shorts as I pull them onto him. I love him. I know I haven't written in a while—my new schedule is hard, and I'm struggling with now having two wild classes out of three, instead of one of two. I'm also struggling with managing the kids' behavior, and with just feeling worn out, oft

Well, we are back in Bangkok after what felt like a quick trip to Hua Hin! On Sunday morning, we had a lovely breakfast at the German Bakery—Roman got an omelet with mushrooms, cheese, and bacon, and I had the German breakfast, which came with sliced cheese, cured meats, tomatoes and cucumbers and (weirdly, for me) pickles. It also came with a hardboiled egg that I put in my bag for later (yeah, I know), and bread and jam and tea and juice.  After breakfast, we went back to our beach spot and Roman played guitar while I waded into the water and took a long walk down the beach, watching the many kite surfers moving across the waves. We headed to a place right on the beach for lunch, where we got fresh coconuts, spicy seafood papaya salad and pad thai. It was cheaper and better than any restaurant set up directly on the beach has any right to be. On our way back to the main street, we walked past pretty bougainvillea in bloom. And then we headed to The Chocolate Factory, which I wanted t