Being surrounded as I am by Poms, and bearing in mind the evolutionary notion that one adapts to one's surroundings, I feel the need to have a bit of a whinge. Basically, I'm having to work rather hard over here. For example, today I started work at 7am (as I do every morning) and basically worked non-stop until 6:15pm tonight. Trust me when I say that having worked for the last 6 years as a public servant, I'm not used to such long hours. And you'll be stunned to learn that this is not the latest I have finished work since being here - one night a couple of weeks ago I didn't leave work til 8pm! Shocking, no? On top of this, I made a promise to myself that I would never take work home with me to finish, yet just in the last 2 weeks I have done this no less than twice.
Now while every teacher that I now work with, along with all my friends (and one brother) who happen to be teachers will have absolutely no sympathy for me (as they do this all the time), I am but a simple counsellor and not respecting one's own professional boundaries is rightly frowned upon in counselling circles. However, the fact remains that there is a lot of work to keep me busy at the moment. Most of my days are spent seeing students and then after the students finish school at 2:30, I generally have to type up notes. Occasionally I have students and/or parents come to see me after school as well. On top of all this, I have to prepare a couple of programs that I'm delivering at the moment.
In all honesty, I'm not really complaining about all this. Yes, work is fairly hectic at times, but generally it's quite interesting and rewarding. And I have a fairly nice office and counselling room in which to work:
This is my office area - a bit cramped unfortunately.
This is the counselling room - less cramped fortunately.
And this is view out of the window - very pleasant.
The other thing I get to do at school is run the school cricket program. Admittedly, the program is fairly modest at the moment, but there are plans to build it up over time. So I spend an hour or so every Monday in the cricket nets with some of the students. I am also finding other sporting activities to enjoy after school. On Tuesday arvos I play indoor football (or soccer if you must) with some other staff in the school's brand new and mighty impressive sports hall, and on Wednesdays I've just started playing squash on the school's squash courts. On Thursdays I'm taking Thai lessons through the school, meaning that most of my afternoons are taken up with something productive. It's definitely one of the advantages of being a part of such a large and diverse "community".
The other great thing I've been able to do is go away on weekends. Since my last post I've been to Ko Samet for one weekend, which is a small-ish island about 3 hours south-east of Bangkok. It's not hugely developed (yet!) so it still has a bit of a beach bungalow-rustic feel to it, which is reall nice. It is a great spot and a brilliant spot to spend a weekend. Here's a few photos: the first two are of the beach, the second is taken from the place we were staying, looking towards the beach.
The weekend just gone I was in Bangkok, where I spent all of Saturday in a pub watching, of all things, the AFL grand final. A group from school was going and I sort of felt obliged to go, even though I was supremely disinterested in the game itself. It was a fun day though. This coming weekend I'm off again, this time to go white water rafting in Chiang Mai, again as part of an unofficial school trip. It should be a lot of fun.
So let me take back my whingey comments at the beginning of this post. Although work is busy and I have to work long hours occasionally, the good things about working here far outweigh the bad. There are so many opportunities that I am making the most of and mostly really enjoying. Fortunately, it's fairly rare that one of these opportunities turns out to be a bit disturbing. For example, when I decided to buy something new from the market on my way home tonight: what I guessed was barbecued chicken skewers in fact turned out to be barbecued chunks of fat (possibly chicken, but who knows) and what looked an awful like barbecued pork skewers was in actuality barbecued pieces of kidney (I think). Ahh, the joys of Thai food!
Til next time, cheers!
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