Wednesday, May 01, 2013

New Places, New Faces



What a week! I changed schools, and moved in the space of about 3 days. Thank god for friends and family. I feel bad because I probably did the least amount of work during it. I pretty much just went on an interview, and then did my last 2 days at Assumption. My girls had already all taken their final exam for summer school, so we didn’t actually do a damn thing.

During that time, Roong, Palmiez, and Puk were making runs in their cars to get me moved. I think the whole thing only took 3 trips. My new apartment is on the 4th floor, with no elevator. Roong hired some of the locals to get the stuff up there, so that part wasn’t too bad, and Puk got to skip a day of school, so I think she will survive.

My X landlord was being her normal bitchy self, and made us pay a full months rent because we didn’t give her a full months notice. Please remember that she already has 2 months deposit that we were never going to see again anyway, so don’t feel bad for her. We put one of those outer door knob locks on the apartment door, so she can’t rent the room out from under us. Oh yeah, she’d do it. I’m sure she was already counting the money. We gave the key to a friend so that he can go take a look every once in a while to see if she cut the lock or anything. God, I hope she does. Haaaa!

Anyway, the new job is at a school about 30 minutes north of BKK, just south of Ayuthaya. That's a shot of the old palace above this. It’s kind of a rural area, but kind of not. There is actually a lot here, it’s just not name brand. The school looks nice, and we noticed that a few of the rooms in the English language section had air conditioning. I hope I can teach in one of them (please please please!).

My new man cave is about the same size as my old one. A bit dingy, but OK. The building is smack dab in the middle of the local market, so anything you need is right outside the front door. That is, after you go down 4 flights of stairs, of course. I am sure that is going to improve my memory dramatically. We were missing a few things here because the apartment is only partially furnished, so now I have a new refer, TV, and even a washing machine. All are tiny, but efficient. The landlord’s name is Yu, and she and Roong seem to get along quite well.

The most excitement I had during all of this was riding my motorcycle here from the old place. It took about 5 hours. The girls can take the tollway, so they can do it in under an hour in their cars. About 45 minutes of that was me getting lost, but the rest was due to construction and holiday traffic. The old girl was a champ though, no problems what so ever. Well, other than a severe sun burning on both of my forearms. That’s OK though, because it’s probably the longest adventure I will ever get to take on the bike. My ass was killing me by the end of it. I guess it’s time for a car (sniff). I’ll probably give the motorcycle to Pukky, just to scare the shit out of her mother. :D

My new boss called today at about 3pm, and said..”Oh yeah, the school wants you to come and do a demo class for them tomorrow. Nothing fancy, just enough so that they know you can teach.”  WTF? I already fooled you, how many times do I need to do this? I will make sure he knows that I had to miss the premier of Iron Man III tonight because I have to get up early for this. (Sorry Palm, we will go see it soon, I promise!)

So that’s what’s been going on lately. More later, once I have had the time to look around this place a bit….