Rakhi: I'm finally taking a well earned break. Joel and I had an early start yesterday as we had to come to school early to do the 'Morning Greeting.' The Morning Greeting is a load of tripe that's been written into our contracts. Basically, we have to stand at the school gates for half an hour and say 'hi' to all the students that walk past. Thankfully, we only have to do it once a week but it's still a waste of time.

As of yesterday, all the Thai English teachers in our department have had to attend a three day seminar in a neighbouring city. That means that the rest of us have had to cover their classes. Yesterday I was busy from 7:30 am until 12pm, I had a break for lunch and then I had to resume teaching for another two hours. It doesn't sound like much but I can tell you that teaching 50 minute classes with over 50 students who don't speak the same language as you can be pretty tiring. I haven't had to cover any classes today so I'm enjoying the three hour break I have before my next class!

Our English department is starting to resemble the United Nations; there are 13 Thai teachers, two teachers from Holland (Fritz and Joe), a Chinese teacher (Ting), Joel, myself and I'm told that there's a teacher from Korea on the way too. The Thai teachers are ace but they are 'feeders!' Their favourite pastime is definitely eating! It's astonishing the amount of food that gets consumed in the English room in one day. There's a spare desk in the staff room and when teachers come into school in the morning they deposit things on it for everybody to eat. Throughout the day, snacks are always left on my desk or given to me in person or both and at least once a day I'm called over to try something whether I like it or not.

Last Sunday, the daughter of one of the teachers got married in Bangkok so we were all invited to the wedding. I was hoping it would be a buddhist ceremony but as she was marrying an American guy, the wedding took place in a church. My agony was prolonged when the vows and passages from the bible were read in both Thai and English and then the priest gave the couple a lecture on how to be husband and wife. The reception was held in a lovely hotel, there was lots of delicious food and we got to spend some time with the teachers outside of school so that made it all worthwhile.

The most exciting thing that's happening in Takhli at the moment, is that Joel and I are moving house. Fritz recently moved to a brand new house on the other side of town and Joel and I were toying with the idea of doing the same. However, we decided that moving to a new house makes no sense as it will be totally unfurnished. Fritz is staying until next year so he can justify spending money on a bed, a fridge and other furniture. We're just here for another twelve weeks so it's pointless forking out money. There are fully furnished houses around but they're not really much better than the place we're in now. Also, there doesn't seem to be an in between; places are either empty or furnished and full of the owners crap and clutter. Our place is alright but it's very depressing as natural light doesn't get in since the property has a big covered caged bit at the front. Also, I really don't like the kitchen, I never go in there since we have all sort of creatures crawling around and getting in through the gaps in the roof.

After, looking at a couple of houses we came to the conclusion that the best solution could be to move across the road into Fritz's house. His house is more airtight than ours so he rarely gets any creepy crawlies, it's more modern, there's aircon, a nice clean kitchen, internet connection, a nice outdoor area and best of all LOTS of natural light. Fritz has to pay two months rent at his new place since our company have paid for his old place in advance. If we move into Fritz's it's all sorted so we don't have to pay anything ourselves. The owners have even said that they'll install a washing machine for us. There's only one snatch... Fritz moved out of his place because there are eighteen caged dogs just behind his house and sometimes he finds it hard to sleep because of the barking. That's not the only reason though, he doesn't care much for the area we live in either. Last night, Joel and I did a trial run of Fritz's place to see whether the noise was really that bad. We slept like babies and found there were no disturbances at all also, whilst it's not the nicest area, it's safe and we have a bike now so can get anywhere in town easily. I think we're going to move in after school today.

This Saturday, we have to do another English camp at our school. This time, it's with the Prattom (elementary) kids from another school in the area and we only have to work on Saturday. We don'h have the expertise of Mediakids staff to guide us this time and I don't think that there's an experienced camp leader- I hope it goes okay.