Move In

Last Tuesday, after riding around on elephants all morning, Orientation came to a close.  That afternoon we all traveled by bus back to Bangkok where we were each picked up by our School Coordinators.  My coordinator, basically the liaison between my school and the program that hired me, is named Pee Moo.  Moo isn't really her name but it is the nickname she goes by because she, like all Thais, has an extremely long name.  Thais use the term Pee before a name when addressing a superior and Nong before a name when addressing an inferior.  So she is Pee Moo to me and I am Nong Connor to her.  Just another interesting cultural difference to remember.  Anyway, Pee Moo picked me and the other teacher from the program who will be teaching at my school, Becca, up around five o'clock on Tuesday.  It took us about 40 minutes to get from Bangkok to our small town of Bang Bon.  I was actually really pleased that it was such a short trip because many of my fellow teachers were sent as far away as 8 hours from Bangkok.  On the way home we stopped for our "welcome dinner".... at KFC.  Its a very popular fast food place around here and I guess it was a very nice gesture for them to take us to an American place.  Either way, the food was good and I didn't have to eat rice for the 100th time that week so I didn't mind.

The neighborhood where I will be teaching is interesting.  As I already said, its proximity to Bangkok is a huge plus.  Unfortunately, there is not much in the form of entertainment very close to me.  There are many food carts around and a very big market only a short walk away but beyond that there isn't going to be much to do in the evenings.  I'm a little bit worried about this but I feel like once school starts, I'll be busy enough.  I guess its a good thing I collected all those movies before I left.

My apartment is actually pretty nice.  It basically consists of one huge room and a bathroom.  No real cooking area but that's ok because I usually just get dinner from one of the street vendors.  They charge about 30 baht, 1 dollar, a meal.  Living on a budget isn't too hard here.  Within my apartment I have the biggest bed I've ever slept in.  I don't think its quite a king size bed but its close.  However, between school and traveling almost every weekend I don't think I'll be spending too much time shut in my room.

As I said in an earlier post, school starts next Monday, November 1st.  I think that is when I'll get a better idea of what my daily life will be like here in Bang Bon.