The City of Angels: “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

Everyday it is so humbling to know you don't know anything. The girls here have more life experience in their 20 years than I can even fathom. Yesterday I spent the day with my four roommates from the south of Thailand. Their English is slightly better than my Thai, so we spent most of the day in an extended game of charades. They helped me with my Thai ((sorry SIT, I'm never getting that French homework done!)) and I mimed that I could look over their English homework- my only contribution to the learning! I read through all of their "About Me" poems and corrected their grammar and spelling. Then we watched some tweener tv show. I took a walk around the neighborhood and took in all the new sounds and smells. It still amazes me that I haven't seen a child or dog running loose in the streets get hit by a moped. And I am pleased to report that last night was my first time trying Wii and my roommates schooled me in Wii tennis.

Today I woke up early and made my way to the Mercy Centre. Nitaya, my supervisor of sorts, told me that I would be teaching three 7th graders English from 9am-11am every morning this week. I need to summon my inner TEFL because I realized just how rusty I am. Chris Westergaard, wherever you are, send me positive thoughts tonight! After about ten minutes of reading comprehension and vocab CCQs, I decided to take a new approach; I had them act out the story. Finally they were laughing and starting to have fun. Tonight I'll be brainstorming more fun ideas- and checking out Chris' TEFL blog (see BLOG LOG on right for the link).

After the lesson, the kids told me I had to meet Ben. I'd heard his name about two dozen times already, as the person I had to meet. Ben is the other volunteer- he's 29 and from Australia. I finally bumped into him and the kids pushed me towards him in true 7th grade fashion. I flashed back to my awkward middle school days and was actually nervous. But we sat and talked- he caught me up on the ins and outs and told me everything I would need to know, even what going on in politics, since the elections for Prime Minister are in two weeks. He took me to Mercy 2, where he lives with 35 young Mercy boys and then we ventured out to Lumpini Park. The park is AMAZING and there are these gigantic lizards that roam around. We saw two of them either making love or fighting- they look like kimono dragons they are so huge. At the end of our walk, Ben showed me the best way to get home and which metro stop is closest to Mercy. From there we took a motorbike "taxi" back. As we separately hopped on the back of the bikes, I thought, well this is it- Bangkok has me now.