End of the Year

Well, Year Two is over. It's been quite a year, and it's had its ups and downs. Overall though, it's been a good one, and I've learned a lot and grown as a teacher.

Last week our department went out for a farewell lunch for the teachers who will not be returning next year. It's going to be very different next year, because James and Ryan have been here with me since I first arrived. I'm now going on my third year. That's where James was when I first started teaching. If the school expects me to be as competent next year as James was when I started... I'm going from being the third-best of the four at Thai to the one who can speak the most (which is still very little). Anyway, the running joke is that I'm slowly turning into James and that I'm on my way to turning into the new Geoffrey.

James and I were clearly not ready for a photo

Next year won't be the same. The other night I had dinner with James and Nan, and he was telling me what I can expect from  my third year. I'm excited in a way, because I'll be the de facto leader of the ajarn farang, and I'll be able to give advice and make suggestions about what has and hasn't worked in the past. I'm not too excited about the extra responsibility though, although that's just part of the job. I'll be back in Texas in May to give an orientation meeting to the new teachers. I'm looking forward to meeting them. I hope that my new Mathayom colleagues will be good people and hard workers like the ones who I'll be losing this year.

I joke that every year I extend my contract, the school gives me a bolt of cloth as a gift. Last year the school gave me the material to make my official school blazer, and this year they gave me purple cloth to have a special uniform shirt made for the fifth cycle and the sixtieth anniversery. I've mentioned all that before. The official colors of the day have been put aside momentarily, and everyone is just wearing lots and lots of purple nowadays. You can notice it in the pictures of us at the farewell lunch. Over the weekend, one of the Thai teachers took me to a tailor to get measured. I'm excited about this, as it makes me feel more like a "real" teacher. Geoffrey and James have blue and pink uniform shirts that they wear occasionally, and even Grant, my predecessor, got a blue one.

On the last day at work, Geoffrey informed us that the new 60th anniversary school yearbook had been published. I never saw a yearbook from last year. The yearbooks work differently in Thailand. I'm not sure that every student gets one. As far as I know, each office gets a copy, and one copy stays in the library. But maybe I just don't understand how that works. We have had fun looking at old photos of Geoffrey and the ajarn farang from the 90's.

We went to Tip's office (the former head of english department and current head of Academic Affairs) to ask if we could look at the book and try to find pictures of ourselves. To our delight and surprise, she gave each of us a copy of the yearbook to keep! It's a great memento that I'll keep forever. The book is really nice, and I am happy that we Mathayom teachers are listed along with all the other English teachers. The yearbook even features the elusive and mysterious Mr Garnier, the other elderly British gentleman who is employed by the school but whom we have never actually met.