First Day

First days are always scary, but it seemed especially daunting to launch into the first day in a new school in a new system in a foreign country.

I was allowed to borrow the director's key to the library for the day, and given a stack of expectations and learning outcomes—measures by which the students would be judged, including composition, performance, and appreciation of both Western and Thai music, their origins, instrumental components, and current evolution. And then I was given four hours. To straighten up the library and prepare for music classes and stew what I don't know into a vat and what I do know into an unusable reduction.

But there was hope for the library—almost all the Little Golden Books, Berenstain Bears, and Dr. Seuss books in the younger end, and an exciting collection of young adult readers up to Harry Potter and Narnia. Kinda wish I had known so I could've devoted some weight to a second pair of shorts, more socks, and one or two fewer books. Sigh.

Lunch at school is a very, very good thing. English Program teachers eat in the same area as the crem-du-chief and all the school's big mucky-mucks, upstairs above a special cafeteria for English Program students. It's a iarly open multipurpos room with eight or ten tables big enough for eight or ten people each running crosswise, and the bigwig table running lengthways and two tables with mirror offerings. Today was massaman curry—a rich, sweet peanut sauce with bone-in hunks of chicken—stir-fried veggies including baby corn, broccoli, carrot, onion and beans in a light seafood sauce, a lightly sweet brownish soup with surprisingly tasty hard boiled eggs floating like apples for bobbing (that's about the most palatable possible comparison, which is why I emphasize the tastiness), and a stir-fry of mixed seafood with baby vegetables in a chili lime sauce.

Here's hoping I'll be able to pack on some poundage.

Music 2A and 2B came after lunch. Second graders were really excited about lining up and having the honor of distributing the bin of songbooks from which a thorough search and selection takes place. Half the period or a little less goes to singing—Where Have All the Flowers Gone, a largely passive attempt at We Are the World, and a song by the King about being happy. Then what seemed a painfully long immersion in keyboard practice—the students stuck it out, but it was close to half an hour with one, two-line piece in a beginning keyboard book.

So next week's shaping up with a bit of singing—I like the idea of introducing Puff—and some rhythm clapping and some keyboard.

And POOF goes the panic. Thank God.