A Day in the Life...

A major case of procrastination has kept us from writing this post, but as we're starting to get ready to leave, we've been thinking a lot about our daily life and how different it will be when we get back.  So join us....on a day in the life of teachers in Thailand.


6:45 am: We wake up, eat breakfast, and get ready for school

7:20 am: We walk down to wait at the bus stop

Cyrus patiently waiting for our van driver

7:30-7:45 am: Our van driver picks us up (along with some other kids) to take us to school.

The two little boys in the front never stop talking (even at 7:30 in the morning)

8:00 am: We get to school and sit in the office until classes start at 8:30.

8:30-11:15 am: We teach anywhere from 1-5 classes a day. Each class is 55 minutes, which usually turns into 40 minutes after all the late comers show up and everyone gets into their seats.

11:15 am: Lunch time. A plate of food costs 20 baht (about 66 cents), which is actually a big hike from last semester when it only cost 15 baht.

Paige's favorite lunch counter

Enjoying our lunch

Fried rice and chicken for Cyrus

Paige's usual lunch of stir fried vegetables and rice

The cafeteria gets really crowded at the "peak" lunch time

12:00-3:50 pm:  More teaching

4:15 pm: Our van driver picks us up from school.  We usually get home around 5:00.

5:00-6:00 pm: Relaxation time (aka nap time for Paige). Try to get the sound of children talking out of our head.

6:00 pm: Exercise (sometimes).  We usually try to go to the school next to our apartment to run or play basketball. But not so much lately.  This usually just gets blended into relaxation time.

7:00 pm:  We go out to dinner almost every night.  It's cheaper, easier, and tastes better than cooking at home.  Once in a while we'll make pasta, but that's the extent of our culinary endeavors. It's funny, but because all the restaurant names are written in Thai, none of us have any idea what they're actually called.  So we have to make up names ourselves.  For example: pad thai lady, baumee hang (noodle) guy, blue chair place, white chair place, the place next to white chair, Tom Ka (coconut soup) place, the place behind nasa mall, etc....  And everyone who lives in our apartment knows exactly what restaurant you are referring to when you say any of these 'names'.

Blue Chair Place

Tom Ka Place

8:30 pm: "TV" time.  Since we don't have cable, we stream or download all of our shows. Since getting to Thailand, we've polished off  every season of Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy, Arrested Development, two seasons of Top Chef, Workaholics (Cyrus finished Sopranos and Homeland) along with quite a few movies.

9:30-10 pm: Bed time.

Weekend Edition:  When we're not traveling on the weekends, we usually take the time to do all of the "domestic" things that need doing.  Such as going to the grocery store (Tesco Lotus), doing our laundry (which we hang up to line dry), eating at some of our favorite restaurants that are only open during lunch, cleaning our rooms, and so on. Lately Cyrus has been giving me Tennis lessons, and we've been making drastic improvements.  I'll be ready to take on any challengers when I get back (I bet if I trained every day for a year I could make the pro tour).  Sometimes we go to the pool, the mall, or the movie theater, and other days we just bum around at home.

Here's a few pictures of our apartment:

I hope you enjoyed yourselves picturing us in this daily routine.  We'll try to follow up with our last week of school!

Paige and Cyrus