Thailand Vlog :: volunteering

Today I took a one to one private English class with Mint, she came last night and I felt like I did a terrible job but I think that's the perfectionist in me. I believe that I'm really developing my listening skills when I teach and from remembering what Mint likes to do I was able to plan a lesson around her interests. 

So today's lesson was designed around her passion for fashion and the possibility for job applications. Yesterday she told me how much she would love to be a fashion designer, but her mum doesn't allow it so instead she works as cabin crew for a new airline. However, Thailand have received a bad report from Japan, China and a few other countries so they no longer have flights. Mint said that she would like to work for Qatar or a similar airline so I thought it would be good to practice being able to talk about her strengths and weaknesses. 

The lesson started by me showing her some pictures of women and asking her to describe their clothes and appearance. I corrected her mistakes and then I asked her to repeat the same exercise using new images. Each time there were improvements and at the end of the lesson I had her repeat it one more time. I feel confident that she understood, but I will find out tomorrow by repeating the same exercise. 

Regarding the attributes exercise I wasn't entirely confident with it because let's face it job applications are generally hard work anyway, but I guess it was useful to practice speaking in full sentences. 

I find 2 hour lessons are exhausting, especially one on one as there's no one else to break it up. However, today was good because we did something different, the first day we just talked for 2 hours! I'm thinking about taking her to the mall tomorrow so we can people watch and look in the shops so she can practice the descriptive sentences again. 

I'm also thinking that she could describe something to me, perhaps an item of clothing or an ensemble and I will draw it (but my drawing skills aren't exactly perfect Haha!). I hope I get to continue teaching her. 

All in all I'm enjoying this more than when I was at the school. I find that I am better communicating with young adults than with children. They say that life mirrors you so I need to contemplate why I don't like being around young children... Some would say it's because I am a child. Hmm.. 

Thailand Blog :: relaxing, new hostel, English club

Well hello there. Hopefully I've not lost my readers because my posting has been inconsistent. I have also abandoned my YouTube channel too.

So I left the alternative school, returned to Bangkok on the train, cancelled my second voluntary position because it was difficult to get to (and I felt like I needed a rest from being with so many children), chilled out for 1 week and now I'm in another hostel in Bangkok helping Thai students improve their English speaking skills. 

First impressions of the hostel were "I want to go back to De Talak!" 

Here's why. The building is residential, once upon a time it may have been a wealthy families 5 storey home, which then may have been developed into flats and it has since been converted into a hostel. The rooms are packed with bunk beds. There are shower curtains hung around the beds to create walls in order to keep privacy when people from other rooms come in to use the bathroom. There is an unusable kitchen that smells terribly damp, the fridge was padlocked (but I think it was cleaned out today) and the lockers are actually really old built in wardrobes and cupboards. 

I feel like I moved from a mid to high range modern hostel to an 80's shabby chic home. The bathroom actually has a bath (which looks like it's older than me) but it smells like those awful lemon toilet balls. The first bed I slept in was just terrible. The mattress is softer than any I've ever slept on (in Thailand the beds are normally rock hard so it was a shock to my body!) and it didn't fit the frame so technically I could have fallen down onto my bunk buddy as well as onto the floor. I tried to keep still and as I was conscious of this I didn't sleep well, plus the noise downstairs was very loud too. 

My second night was a bit better but I have been having to listen to music in order to get to sleep. The first night I listened to smooth jazz, very sexy saxophone music and last night I fell asleep listening to Iggy Azalea! 

Today I moved beds so I am right underneath the air conditioning unit. The previous two nights I was so hot so I made the decision to be blasted with cold air. Let's see how it turns out tonight! 

I was actually dreading the teaching part because of my inexperience but I actually really enjoyed it. The first class I did was not prepared very well. Learning from yesterday's mistakes I put some effort into planning today but I had planned for a group of 9 but in the end they were split up and I only got 3! So my tasks were completed quickly and the last 30 minutes was terrible! 

I feel confident about staying here for 2 weeks now. My initial judgements are turning around and I'm finding things quirky rather than awful. I said to myself not to make judgements and after I accepted that statement I started to see the beauty and not the negativity. 

Tomorrow I may tell you about my recent eating habits... 

Thailand Blog :: first day volunteering

Wow... There are no other words for now.

My first day was a huge shock to my system, I had forgotten what it's like to work with children. They're so energetic, full of life and very noisy!

I woke up at 6pm and got back into my routine of stretching with some yoga moves, tomorrow I'll do more because I had so much free time in the morning. My plan was to eat when I'm hungry, but it's impossible when you follow a schedule and it's one of the topics covered in the book Man's Higher Consciousness that I recommended a few weeks ago. We force ourselves to eat due to jobs (some people may not be fortunate enough to eat as and when they desire, so they must eat when they can or "starve"). 

So I ended up helping cut up fruit this morning, which was fine. I was requested to carve love hearts into the watermelon pieces, which was quite fun, but when one of the boys was failing to peel the rock hard green mangoes I took over his job. I don't know why Thai people love to eat unripe mango... It's just sour and too crunchy. 

After that class started and it was mayhem. They're currently running a summer school program and normal outside children are enrolled so there's more children than normal and they're not all up to the same level with English. I struggled with one girl who was either severely shy or didn't know any English. She just looked at me blankly and I had no idea how to speak with her. 

My task was to supervise the juggling ball making, which is using balloons and rice by the way. You funnel some rice into a bottle, blow up a balloon and place it over the bottle before tipping the rice inside, then you chop off part of the balloon and the same on a flat balloon and wrap it over, repeat with a 3rd balloon. It was not relaxing at all... I'm a perfectionist and I get stressed surrounded by mess (OK so my bedroom is a different story) so I was frantically trying to help and keep the place tidy! 

I had a very good time with one little girl who is partially sighted, it looks like she has cataracts, but she had the most life singing and jumping around. She liked to come to me and have me pull faces. I enjoyed that a lot. I love pulling faces, in fact I would do it all the time with my reflection at university. I was my own friend haha

Part of me was thinking I'm not cut out for this and I will leave on Friday, but then part of my wants to keep going because that little girl made my day and I want to see how the children progress. I will decide by Wednesday though. 

The major downside are mainly the heat, showers, mosquitos and flies. I was spoilt in Bangkok with air conditioning and the shower was awesome too. I did have to out up with mosquitos in my hostel though and flies too but no where near as bad as this. Someone said we attract these things because of the level of our vibration, but I think that's total BS because I've been high, low and in between and it never differs, they always seem to want to be on me like they're on dog shit. 

That's the main highlights of my day. Right now I'm just chilling in front of a fan. Earlier the ice cream I had hardly cooled me down. I just have to get used to my sweat beard and sticky skin. 

Peace