Four More Thursdays to Go!!

Since the beginning of the semester, Thursdays have always been Hard (for those of you listening to recordings of my blog, that's "hard" with a capital H).  Apart from the fact that I have 5 classes, each one is more challenging than the next.  I noticed recently that on the first day I had written myself two notes next to two of the classes on my Thursday schedule; "Algo difícil" (kind of difficult) and "socorro" (help).  The other problem with Thursday is that each of my classes is  separated by an hour break.  If that doesn't sound like a reason to complaint to you, just imagine that you get a good momentum going and then you have juuust enough time to cool off and lose it but not enough time to actually do anything productive.  Then you have to suddenly break out of your "relax" mode and start again.  By the end of the day, I've hit that rollercoaster so hard I'm exhausted and don't know which way is up and which is down.

This is the first Thursday in 6 weeks that I've taught all my classes.  That is not an exaggeration nor is it meant to be funny, I have documented proof that for one reason or another the classes have been cancelled for 6 weeks in a row.  Needless to say, all of the above made me start off my first full Thursday of 2017 with a mild sense of trepidation (I always thought that word was "INtrepidation" by the way) and by that, I actually mean I was freaking terrified.  Not to mention, I was supposed to be due to give these guys a test but since we hadn't covered the material in almost 2 months, I was hesitant about expecting them to remember enough to do well (I eventually asked my Thai teacher friend what I should do and she looked me straight in the eye and in the kindest way possible explained to me that my grades will not matter in the long run).

Now that I have fully set the stage, I'll tell you about my day.  I hit my first class with the perfect amount of energy and control, and "Nice Cop" never had to turn to "Mr. Hyde" like I'd expected.  We even had some nice "conversations" where I took the vocabulary words to another level and they nodded and at least pretended that they understood me.  Hell, one student even raised his hand and asked a question!  I thought I'd die right then and there.  It's almost like the class has given up on treating me like the useless school decoration that I had just found out that I was.  

Several students in another one of my classes today went, "Teacher! We missed you!"  Only in retrospect writing this blog did I realize that that should have made me ashamed.  I just happily responded, "I missed you guys too!" And actually felt like I could have meant it.  

Fine though, these weren't the classes I was most worried about anyway.  My most difficult class of the day (the one next to which I had hand written my solicitation for help) made me wonder if I'd been remembering the whole group of them wrong.  They were almost... delightful.  I can't say that all of them shut up for the whole class but I got through all my material and I even had some time to spare (sometimes I don't even finish with them).  Furthermore, more than once my antics solicited loud group laughs from the class.  Basically I thought I was losing my mind.  

On my way home, a little color to my step and slight, carefree smirk on my face (I had defeated my evil Thursday!) it occurred to me.  Maybe my classes hadn't changed at all.  Maybe they hadn't gotten better or learned to appreciate me in the last 6 weeks.  Maybe what had changed was me.  Maybe all I needed was a little break from the constant pelting of difficult classes to get my feet under me.  Or maybe, most surprising and annoying of all, I had finally figured out a key to this classroom management thing out 4 weeks before I would no longer be needing it.

That could all be wishful thinking.  I could be writing another post in 7 days about how I cried my eyes out during every hour break I was mercilessly allowed, but for now I just want to bask in some form of "success."  Cross your fingers that the rest of the semester goes as smoothly as today did!

Last weekend we went to Lampang and here are some pictures!

Selfie on our horse carriage ride.

  

Sorry there were a disturbing lack of puppy pics in that collection.  I'l do better next time.