Winter in Thailand

Hey there, I'm going to try to get started maintaining my blog again, sorry it's been quiet for such a long time.

Anyway, winter time in Bangkok.. Last year I would have told you that winter doesn't mean anything here, but I must say that this week it has become really really cold here.

I mean showering with cold water is very nice when the minimum temperature is 25 degrees celsius, but if it's 15 degrees in the morning and at night then it's not so much fun anymore! :/
Last year I was also in Bangkok this time of year, but there was not 1 day last year when it got below 20, this year we're going into the 2nd cold week now.. brrrrr

But other than the cold weather everything is going pretty well here, still teaching at the same school and still enjoying it, although being a teacher is quite a lot of work (probably 1 of the reasons I haven't been posting here, difficult to find free time at school).
The kids are fun, I'm teaching IT and reading & writing classes and the kids are enjoying it, a large portion of them seems to even be learning something, so it's all good.

Nang and me will be moving to a new apartment in 2 weeks, just across the road from where we live now, but a lot bigger, my old room is too small for 2 people to live in.

I think that's about enough for a small update on what's happening. I promise that I will try to keep up my blog, but of course I can't guarantee anything.


A merry Christmas and a very happy New Year for everyone out there!!!

Back home again

Hi everybody, I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to write to you again, I see that it's been over a month!! :o

But it's been quite a busy time; I stopped working at Interkids around the 12th of May, I really did not like it there and as soon as I got my TEFL certificate I was out of there, the school was just closing for the summer holiday anyway.

I spent the next 2 weeks looking for a new job, going to interviews and preparing to go back to The Netherlands. I went back home for the month April, I had to get a new visa and clean up all the left-over stuff I had stored with my brother and I wanted to bring my girlfriend to Holland, show her where I came from and of course the family had to meet her.

So middle of April Na arrived (BTW I was very disappointed how difficult it is for someone to visit Europe, it took 2 months of paperwork and 4 visits to the Embassy in BKK before we finally got a visa for her and then still they questioned her at the airport!), and we had a great time, visiting all the tourist attractions, exploring Amsterdam.
Na loves flowers, so April was really a wonderful time to visit Holland, everything was starting to bloom and the trees just started to get green again.

And meanwhile I got an email from Potisarn, the last school I interviewed with in BKK, and they told me they wanted to hire me, so after a lot of email traffic and sending them all my official documents they send me back a letter of employment and voila, I have a one year visa now and they already got started on a work permit. :)

The school arranged an apartment for me, 2 minutes from the school, the kids are really very nice, good colleagues, over 20 English speaking teachers and generally a good atmosphere.

Ok, more later. Class is about to start, just wanted to let everybody know I'm doing really well. :)

An Outstanding Woman (in Buddhism)

Finally an update! And for the first time in a long time there is some Buddhism involved.. ;)

Monday the 7th was the award ceremony for the 'Outstanding Women in Buddhism Award', and one of the winners was the person who got me involved in meditation and Buddhism, she is my Dhamma and vipassana teacher, Sister Jotika Hermsen.
A truly outstanding woman, she was a Christian nun for 25 years before she switched to Buddhism and now she has been a Buddhist nun for 20 years already.
Living in and caring for the Buddhavihara temple in Amsterdam, she has made Buddhist teaching available to many many people in The Netherlands.

So when I learned that the award ceremony would be held in Bangkok I had to be there of course; it was wonderful to see Jotika again after all these months and very nice to see some other friends from the Buddhavihara in Amsterdam.

I was very honoured and happy to be there to see this wonderful inspirational woman get some well deserved appreciation.

Of course I took some photos, unfortunately the lighting was quite poor and my battery died prematurely, but anyway you can see them here. :)

UPDATE: Here is a short biography of Jotika and some photos of her welcome home party.

Still happy :)

After writing about my time working as a teacher some people might have gotten the idea that things aren't as wonderful in Thailand as I first thought and that I might be a bit disappointed..

Well don't worry; my students might be very difficult, noisy, busy, etc and the school administration might be a bunch of money grabbing business people, but still every evening when I drag myself home (exhausted) I am happy to be living in Thailand. I just love to walk home, seeing all the hustle and bustle going on all day in Bangkok, walking across the market, enjoying the wonderful smells of spices, fruits, food being cooked everywhere..
And not all the kids are little monsters, quite a few of them are actually very good and very sweet; yesterday one of my favorite students, a sweet little girl named Minnie, gave me a bunch of oranges.. in what other job do you get such sweet gifts as this? :)

And I'm definately planning to stay here in this crazy, lovely city for as long as I can!

After 2 weeks...

Well, it's been 2 weeks now at Interkids Bilingual School in Bangkok..
And I'm still alive, but man.. teaching is hard work!!!

I'm starting to have a lot of respect for the teachers in my old school, because these kids might be difficult, but I remember from my school time that we were a lot worse than the kids here! We sent a couple of teachers home with nervous breakdowns each year, I don't think the students here would go so far. :)

It was quite difficult to get started, but now I'm starting to get a bit more comfortable with teaching. It helps that all the other teachers here have just as much trouble controlling the students, at least it's not completely my fault that most classes end with all the kids running around screaming and fighting and playing. ;)

Luckily there are also a few students (and I really mean a few) who really are interested in learning English and who do seem to like and respect their teacher (me).. :) But most of them really don't care at all, they're not interested in learning anything and a few are so bad at English they can not even understand my instructions to the class.

All in all, it's very exhausting and I'm happy to get home each night and especially happy it's weekend now!!!
Anyway, this is just an internship for me, 2 months teaching at this school and then I get my certificate and after that I can try to find a nicer school, with better students, who will be interested in learning something...