As time goes by.......

Another week goes by and another week nearer the end of term.

Just 4 weeks to go before we dont see our little ahem angels again until next year or forever. One week of teaching, one week of revision, one week of exams and then one week that is described in the book as "Carnival". Whoop de friggin whoop, what does that mean to kids here? NOTHING! The end result will probably be a combination of giving the kids colouring in, worksheets and videos.

True to form, the mattayom lot stop 2 weeks before we do and they teach less through the year because of camps, trips, cheerleading rehearsal.................... jammy ******.

And then its marking, report writing and down time for some and summer camps for others. After that on March 20, we say goodbye for the last time.

The atmosphere in the office is beginning to reflect that as well with people making plans to go on holiday, go home, get new jobs in Thailand or Korea or Japan, starting to push limits on what they are doing in the office and so on.

This week has been pretty average with a mix of good classes and bad classes. As usual my first and last class of the week ( the same mob ) were among the worst with the Spider Monkey being hit repeatedly by my mental baseball bat. How that kid has survived so far I dont know, he is so fecking annoying.

One of the strangest kids I have is, at times a smart kid, at times totally unresponsive moody little shite and at others totally psycho. He managed to pull a real moody today because I caught him throwing a worksheet he found onto the floor. I asked him to pick it up and put it back in the desk or in the bin, not unreasonable I would have thought but no, totally unreasonable for him. It took about about four tries to get him to pick it up and then he slammed it down on the desk and put the hood of his jacket over his head and crossed his arms. Ooohh boy, now was that the wrong thing to do with me! Three times I took the hood off and he put it on again, a fourth time I took it off I had to physically stop him putting it back up. You should have seen this guys face, talk about a face like thunder! Anyway, finally he seemed to admit defeat and because we were doing a test, I passed the papers out and everyone completedly them ( apart from a couple of wasters who shouldnt be in the program ) except sulky boy. No amount of prodding or reminding or encouragement or whatever you like to call it worked. He just sat there sulking and didnt get past writing his name - even that took 15 minutes.

Ah well, sod him. I tried but i cant force him to do it and after all he is still going to get a pass mark no matter if he did that through the entire year.

Gosh thats a good use of a teachers time, get a kid in your class who will do nothing all year - apart from play games, disrupt the class, annoy others who are trying to learn ............... and then pass him anyway. Why cant they just put all these kids into one class and give them colouring in or videos to watch and do away with all the pretence that we are actually teaching them something?

From the realms of Hmmm thats a bit strange. For a long time we had been complaining that no one was coming into our rooms to clean them and finally after months, we got cleaners in at least once a week to sweep the place. Not as good as a proper clean but at least a start. Now the thing is that I have normally had a bottle of water in the class - for the usual reasons - and then kept on refilling it as needs be from the various water fountains in the school. And then a few weeks ago, my bottles started disappearing. Ok, I thought, I had left them out on my desk at the end of the week and the cleaner thought they were for the bin. Then I put it on my shelf and same thing - gone. Then I put it in a box and left it on my desk, gone. Then
I put them in a box and put some paper over them and it still disappeared. What has she got? A magic bottle detector!!?? This is costing my 6 baht a week buying a new one!!!!!! I wonder if she will find it if I take it back to the staffroom :)