Back from Bangkok

To start; I've been without internets for about a week so that's why I haven't been able to post anything in about a week or so. Orientation in Bangkok was pretty awesome. Although the teaching classes weren't super relevant for me (because of the whole I've already been teaching for 3 weeks thing), we also some language and culture classes that were both helpful and interesting. I've only picked up a little bit of Thai on my own, but thanks to the language class I was able to learn a lot about pronunciation and grammar. I also learned my numbers so I can officially count in Thai now which is cool.

I also met a lot of really cool people. There were several hundred people at orientation (apparently it's the biggest incoming class that OEG has had so far) and, even though I wasn't able to meet everybody there, the people I did get the chance to meet and talk to were pretty cool. Since I was sans internet, I did a pretty terrible job social networking but luckily most people are on the Teach in Thailand Facebook group, so I should be able to keep in contact with everybody and hopefully meet up as I'm traveling through the various provinces. 

Aside from the people, the best part of orientation hands-down was the trips. First we got to go to the Grand Palace in Bangkok which was almost overwhelmingly amazing. Thailand is big on appropriating aspects of other cultures, so the palace and temples were basically a massive conglomeration of various art and architectural styles throughout Asia. And, as if the Grand Palace wasn't cool enough, we also got to go to an elephant camp in Kanchanaburi where we got to spend several hours riding elephants, rafting/swimming down a river, and playing with baby goats they had for some reason. 

I'll talk more about the trips, and post some pictures of the Grand Palace a bit later, but I've missed a week of school and should probably get to work. I need to write a test for my English Culture class and figure out what I'm teaching my fundamental English class later today so I'ma go ahead and get to it.