Every time I let this blog go for even a few days it becomes intimidating to make an entry because of the amount of material I could potentially cover. I’ll relegate this entry to my most cynical experience of the week, or should it be cynisizing experience?
I had agreed to start a French class on Monday from 10am to 11:30. There were, evidently 17 would-be francophones set to embark on the apprentisage of the belle langue. I was doing this class for a paltry 250 baht, (6$), which is low even for this country. In addition, the school provided only poor photo copies of a substandard text in guise of materials. Due to this, I spent a fair amount of my own time making up handouts. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the class as I had never taught French before, and I am not a native-speaker of the language. I woke up to a rainy Monday morning, a first in a longtime. I got to the school about a half hour early to set up. Let me mention that this was the first class I was set to teach at this particular school (not my full-time). With materials ready to go and the whiteboard filled with weather related vocabulary, I awaited my eager élèves. At ten after ten none of my students had shown yet. On the other hand this is Thailand, but such consistency is rare here, surely one or two should have arrived just to make me feel uncomfortable about when to start the class before the others arrived fifteen to twenty minutes late. At twenty past the hour I became genuinely concerned. I went down stairs to inquire with the staff. Evidently all of the students had cancelled because of the rain. Granted many of them were on motorcycles, but all 17 ditched because of the rain? Merde! I was born in March, but it was March of ’75. Suffice it to say that I will not be teaching anymore lessons for that educational establishment. They had me sign a pay slip as if they intended to pay me, but only after they attempted to get me to teach a class later in the day in ‘lieu’ of my cancelled French class. Zut alors, ces Thais sont vraiment fous!