I can’t believe it has already been 3 months. It still feels like I got here a few weeks ago. I guess “time flies while your having fun” is a cliche for a reason. The past few weeks have been amazing both in and out of school.
We had our first week long break and I went to Burma with one of the other ETAs. It was easily one of the best vacations I have ever taken, but I do not recommend it for the novice international traveler. Being a tourist in Burma presents a lot of new challenges. They don’t have ATMs in the country and it’s a rare case for a business to accept Visas, therefore you need to plan out the exact amount of money you will spend making sure that the bills you bring are US dollars with no wear and tear of any sort. If you do not do this you will run out of money and be at the mercy of the kind Canadians you run into on your trip who offer to trade flawless USD 20s for your old, folded bills. Traveling from city to city is also more complicated than I expected. There are a lot of mountains in Burma which means that it takes approximately 10hours by bus to get from one tourist destination to another and those who get motion sickness (like I do) should bring dramamine (I didn’t) for the long night busses. However for those of you who are willing to brave leaving the creature comforts behind you will be rewarded with some amazing views and an extremely rich culture. My favorite destinations were Bagan and Inle Lake.
In school, I have been having my students write pen pal letters to my mom’s 6th grade students. The project has been a bit bigger than I originally planned because I had the brilliant idea of typing up all of the letters myself realizing that it would be more time efficient to email the letters than snail mailing them. Even though I have spent nearly every evening this past week typing up grammatically incorrect sentences and long Malay names and their still long, strange looking nick names I have really enjoyed reading my students letters. I now have a better understanding of the common mistakes that everyone is making as well as a more thorough understanding of who my students are. I don’t know if it is because they have already become more comfortable talking about themselves in English or if they are more comfortable writing to an eleven year old as compared to a twenty-three year old, but they were much more open in these letters then in my original introduce yourself lesson. (Am I already considered old in the eyes of high schoolers?!) It was great to read what they had to say.
This past week also marked a big milestone. I rode my bike over the bridge and into Kuala Terengganu proper on my motorcycle for the first time, AND I wasn’t even close to falling/hitting anyone. For people who knew me in high school you probably know that it took me 2 years after getting my license to drive on the highway and into the big city of Grand Rapids by myself. Progress.
This week I’m teaching my students English basketball, finish writing my survey so that it can be translated, and preparing for my first English Day Camps that will be later in the month. Wish me luck.
