Wooden Clogs and Hedgehogs : Day in the life

A typical Monday

5:45 Alarm goes off
Relish in the fact that I actually have 15 more minutes of sleep and turn off my alarm
6:00 Second alarm goes off (I just like waking up and knowing I don't actually have to get up for a whole 15 minutes)
6:03 Third alarm goes off
6:05 Fourth alarm goes off
6:07 Wonder if I can skip showering for the ~~second~~ ~~third~~ fourth day in a row
6:10 Decide I can just rinse off and wear a headband
6:15 Skip rinsing off
6:17 Get out of bed and look in the mirror, decide I in fact can not skip rinsing off and hop in the shower
6:20 Make that good good coffee
6:25 Ponder why I ever decided being a teacher was a good idea (this takes a full five minutes)
6:30 Decide natural beauty is better, and forgo makeup because realistically I would sweat it off anyway
6:35 Pick out whichever past-the-knees dress isn't sweaty from the day before, as well as a cardigan because it is COLD in Thailand (this is very sarcastic)
6:40 Look in the mirror and decide this is as good as its going to get

6:45 Gulp down an entire pot of coffee and scald my throat in the process
6:50 Bumble down to Chelsea's apartment where she is sitting on her couch in her slippers that she wears around her apartment 24/7 because she is oh so Thai
6:51 Talk about what would happen if we just didn't go to school that day
6:55 Convince ourselves we have to go to school
6:57 Get on our moto half asleep
7:00-7:25 Drive to school/ avoid hitting/being hit by other motos, busses, cars, stray dogs, Thai people wandering into the middle of the street without looking/ narrowly avoid death
7:26 Wait for my blood pressure to return to normal and thank God that we made it to school alive for another day
7:27 Attempt to wipe the sweat off that is dripping down my face with my bandana that I wear over my mouth in hopes that it blocks some of the air pollution from getting into my lungs (it doesn't)
7:30 Get hugged/kissed by the lady who sells fish for breakfast outside of our school every morning. Fish. At 7:30 in the morning.
7:30-8:30 "Lesson plan"/ morning assembly where I have no idea what they are saying but it involves lots of bowing/marching/sweating because it takes place in the blazing sun. There is a little part that is in English and still to this day I do not know what they are saying. Kids also throw up a lot so it's a good way to start the day
8:30-9:30 Fourth grade math

Quiz each student on their times tables before they have to sit down (discreetly use my fingers to do the 9s because I am that good at math)
Tell students to draw a BINGO board on their papers so we can play math bingo
"NO rulers. You do not need rulers just draw lines"
Students all take out rulers
Try and speed up the process by helping them draw lines
"TEACHA DO NOT TOUCH PAPER YOU MUST USE RULA"
Students start over because one of their lines was not perfect
Wait for students to finish drawing their BINGO boards (time elapsed: 45 minutes)
Call out the first question
Bell rings
Class is over

Tell students to take out their workbook and open to page 35.
"Teacha math notebook?"
No, math workbook.
"Teacha what page?"
Page 35.
Go around individually to the students who are still taking out their math notebook and tell them to take out their math workbook.
Wait five minutes for them to rifle through their desks and locate their math workbook
While I am waiting, the rest of the class has decided it is play time and start running around the classroom hitting each other with rulers
Chase the kids who are running around the room and tell them to sit down
Go back to the students who have simply forgotten they are looking for their math workbooks in their desk, and try and find their workbook
Make a fool out of myself by trying to explain math to kids with limited English. Lots of hand motions/dances

Walk to get lunch at a stand by our school. We eat kai geow (omelet with rice) every day. Every. Day. Maybe once every two weeks we will get something different like chicken and rice or curry but every time we don't eat it I feel incomplete.

I try and explain words that my 32 6th graders have picked out from their textbooks that they "don't know"
Such words have included:

~~Organized~~ chaos
1/3 of the class are at a 7th grade math level
1/3 of the class struggles with 2+2
1/3 of the class has ADD so severe it takes them the entire class to finish a single problem. I do not exaggerate. I applaud them when they finish three problems.
Nutt #1 stares into space the entire time and when I ask her what number she is on she gets distracted before even answering me
Nutt #2 is hanging off my arm talking to me while I am trying to teach
Peepo sips his water out of his water-bottle's cap with his pinky raised and I laugh every single time
Tor is an angel who wears his pants up to his neck
Toang (I don't know if I should pronounce is Tang or Tong so I just call him TangTong) is running around the room because he is the first one finished
Ong must have 20/20 vision because I need a magnifying glass to read his writing

They also refuse to use pencil so when they get an answer wrong which is 80% of the time they get out their "liquid" and white out the entire page and then have to wait for it to dry
Liquid is the bane of my existence
Class is dismissed

1:30-2:30 Grade and initial the 50+ workbook/notebooks I have collected throughout the day. "Teacha I want your swish swish swish!" I imagine this is how famous people feel when they have to autograph things. I am famous.
2:30-3:30 Conversation class with my 6th grade

I used to hate this class because it's the last one on a Monday and my class loves to annoy the hell out of me but they are so funny they always put me in a good mood
My greatest teaching moment to this day was when we were playing pictionary and I asked someone to draw Kanye West.

"Teacha I do not know who that is?"
I ask another student.
"I do not know Teacha"
I asked entire class if they knew who Kanye West was. All I received were blank stares.

3:30-4:30 Forced to stay at school simply because.
4:30 Sprint out of the school where I almost knock down 1st graders in my haste to leave

Repeat.

Wooden Clogs and Hedgehogs