They'll call me "Teacher John"

So after a lengthy hiatus I'm back. Life has been treating me really well over the past month and a half. I've worked at a couple of different short-term positions and had a good time with them. I was at one for over a week and actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I was helping out the HR director. Maybe I'll have to look into HR someday -- down the road a bit.

The big news around here was the job search. I sent out about 10-15 resumes to schools in Thailand hoping that maybe we'd get a bite. You see, most of the research we've done has indicated that if you aren't in Thailand schools don't usually respond all that much. Well, we did hear back from a number of places. A few that were clueless -- one asking if I could come in for an interview on the 16th or 17th of March (my cover letter clearly stated that I wouldn't be arriving until May 10), another addressing me as Jeffery, and another that was asking me questions about what I'd need to get a visa from the Thai embassy. Those aside I did get a few bites from decent sounding schools and pretty quickly narrowed it down to two schools: The Language Institute of Lopburi (in Lopburi) and the Patanadek School (in Khon Kaen). Financially, the two offers came out about the same -- one offering a higher salary while the other offered paid housing. It was really nice to -- for the first time in my life -- have people really interested in hiring me. After a few agonizing days of going back and forth between the two we have now decided to pursue (we don't have anything official yet) the job in Khon Kaen simply because we feel better about it and it's a bigger town with things to do. Lopburi, although only two hours outside of Bangkok, kind of sounds a bit podunk.

So you can get an idea of where we'll be, here's a map of Thailand. (I say where we'll be simply because it sounds like they're willing to hire me as soon as I give them the go ahead.) Bangkok is on the coast straight below where you see "Thailand" in the center. As I mentioned before, we'll be in Khon Kaen which is located up and to the right of the "Thailand."

I hope I'm not boring you but this is big news in my life. Anyway, some details about the job: I will be teaching about 20 hrs./week but I have to be at the school for a full 40 (8 AM - 4 PM daily). They'll provide us with a two-bedroom, mostly furnished townhouse very near to the school and pay 1000 baht of our utilities ($26). That'll probably be about half. They've offered to let Kristen work full or part-time and Chantrea could go to their nursery at no charge. The English language director that I talked to said that they do everything they can to accomodate the foreign teachers. So, it's always nice to go into a place like that. The school actually has a website -- www.patanadek.ac.th. Although there isn't a whole lot there I could see pictures of some of the teachers that I may be working with. Also, I will be teaching more than just English. I will teach Science, Math, and Social Studies. It's lower grades so hopefully it won't be a problem.

Of course anyone who reads this is welcome to come and visit us any time! :-)

The picture at the top is actually from the school website.