Domestic Bliss

It's Friday night and everyone is in bed at 21:43h except me. I am preparing for my Saturday lessons. I have started to teach a small group of Grade 1 students on a Saturday morning and we are doing The Enormous Turnip tomorrow following the success of The Gingerbread Man last week. So I have prepared a writing sheet and the kids can practise writing some of the key words. Yours truly will be Jackanory meets Blue Peter, I apologise for this British reference to 1960/70s children's TV. Those of you familiar with these programmes will understand. Teaching small children is absolutely mind blowing stuff. Prior to this class I am teaching an especially bright Grade 4 child a one to one lesson. I reckon she speaks better English than most of my Grade 5 & 6 students.

A very busy week with Benedict continuing to grow and enthral us both. He is a real joy, a right little character, making his own authentic sounds and threatening to produce his first unmistakable smile. Luna has been granted some additional unpaid leave and I am very grateful to the school for this because it will be good for both mother and son. I can envisage Luna's eventual return to work being very tough.

I taught my normal load of classes this week. It is hard going and we had exams this week. I set my Grade 5 students a very tough science exam. I only realise this now that I have seen the results and I am concerned because I don't want to put them off science for life. Some of my Grade 6 students did brilliantly well in my maths test. Impressive. However my classes contain some difficult students, they simply refuse to concentrate or settle and within this group there are some who simply refuse to engage with the English language in any shape or form.

I don't know much about teaching in real terms but I find the kids enormously competitive. What I am getting at is I wouldn't know how they compare with their British counterparts. Sure we were competitive, but I am not sure we were as much as my kids appear to be. In addition to wanting to outdo each other, and by any means I hasten to add, there are a few who have finished all the exercises in their course books. When I set work to do in class they sit and talk and can be quite disruptive. I'll know next year to give out very clear directives about not working in this way. An additional problem is these speedsters make plenty of mistakes. No doubt the theory is very important but I am learning that in addition to this there is a huge need for experience at the chalk face. I am getting it but at times it is exasperating and I survey my children and I hear myself saying:I am not going to let these kids drive me mad! There again there also sublime moments........ when a kid gets 100% on a tough math test.

We now have a legal motor: insured, taxed and running like a good thing. I am proud of this achievement given the potential of the language barrier to bring life to a halt: buying the car at an auction and then sorting out the paperwork. I am in the process of getting a Thai driver's license. In order to do this among other documents, the applicant has to produce a medical certificate stating they are fit to drive. I went to a doctor today who charged me 30 baht ( about £0.56) and asked me how to spell my name and provided the certificate without any further enquiries or routine procedures! This is Thailand as we say! Anyhow we spent a few hours at the Department of Land Transport this morning and got it all sorted.

On the bird front I had sixteen little ringed plovers in my sights late this evening. I was wondering where they had flown in from as they are very much winter migrants although there are some residents. Maybe China or Siberia or perhaps Korea.....who knows. They are very dainty little fellows. I have seen a few other migrants this week such as marsh sandpipers and brown shrikes. A fair few near IDs but more work required. Great fun really.

Good to be alive and able to get ripped into life. Hope you are all well.