Blogs from Nonthaburi, Central Thailand, Thailand, Asia

On the Teacher’s Lounge bulletin board at my new school, Phraharuthai Nonthaburi (Sacred Heart Nonthaburi), English Program Director Sonny had written a notation asking if any teacher was interested in playing the role of the Bookseller in the school’s upcoming production of “Beauty and the Beast.” After confirming that it was a small part, requiring only a few moments onstage at the beginning of the performance, I decided to go for it. The show would run for one night only and a full house was expected. Over the next few weeks rehearsals were held, and I gradually became aware that this was to be a large-scale production, with well over 100 students involved, and would also include additional dance and song routines to commence after Beauty finished; the full stage time ran about three hours! In ... read more

(note: Originally intended to present these blogs in chronological order but...blahblahblah...eventually the blogs will become more “time-orderly.” Also, regarding video quality, "it is what it is." mea culpa) I currently teach English at Sacred Heart Nonthaburi, a Catholic school in northern Bangkok and, as usual, started my work day with a motorcycle taxi ride to work -- copy/paste following link to see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T03PSIDZjNo On Friday a Christmas festival was held on school grounds. Although Thailand is largely a Buddhist country and does not recognize Christmas per se as a holiday season, our school certainly does. Many smaller events preceded the Friday festival (which was open to all the students and their families) -- class activities conducted on the big stage; group lessons in learning and singing of Christmas carols, beginning basics of... read more

Well I've been in Nonthaburi, Thailand for over three months now! I saw that my friend Matt had started one of these and I just had to copy him. It's a little hard to believe that all that time has passed already. I found out about Global English School through a friend of mine I went to college with. His parents run the school and they come down to my college every year so I was able to interview with them directly. I came here under the pretense that I would be teaching kindergarten 2 (4 and 5 year olds). That was true, but I found out after I got here that I would also would be teaching grade 9 history and grade 10 p.e., surprise! Kindergarten has been pretty fun so far, I have ... read more

We arrived on Saturday the 1st,dog tired, after a 12 hour flight and no sleep for 20 hours. It pisses me off cause i can't sleep on planes. For those who knew of our struggles to stay take only 20kg each to the UK, so far so good. we are 10kg over wieght but airlines have been kind to us. Anyways we had to get up for a tour at 7am so there was no rest "for the wicked". We did 3 of the 44.000 temples in Bangkok, amazing but like being in Africa and seeing another Elephant or England and seeing another castle, the catch cry soon became another F&%king Budha. In the afternoon we swam in the pool and sleep. The food here is absolutley amazing, it is one of the delights of Thailand, ... read more

We arrived at BKK International around 12:30am. Mom was waiting with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and her friend. We got back to the condo and finally made it to bed around 2:30am. We awoke to a breakfast of coffee, puff pastries filled with tuna and pork, and potato balls kind of like tater tots. Stu started his morning with a massage while Jason and I ran down to the pool. We had lunch next door at a little noodle shop as well as having some pork satays. Total tab for 4 people...$6. Quite a difference from Japan. We took a taxi boat down the Chao Praya (main BKK river) south towards downtown as we're up on the burbs. The taxi dropped us and we trekked across the street to the Grand Palace. The king no longer ... read more