2nd week of school

The 2nd week of school was long. This week we spent anxiously awaiting our beach trip, getting our tests back, and going through the paperwork we would need to do on a daily basis as a teacher. The first day was rough we had gotten back from Siem Reap late and were super exhausted after the bus ride. We were expecting our test first thing in the morning, but we had to wait till our afternoon sessions to get our grades. Thankfully I passed both my tests I wasn't too worried about the Phonetics test but I was worried about the grammar test, I managed a "B." We spent classes this week learning how to make lesson plans, to make worksheets, and come up with games we can use to help the students learn. The best part as well as the most terrifying part of the week was our lessons on using drama in the classroom and chants/ songs in the classroom. We have some really great guys in our class that love to act out stuff. One of our classes we had to pick an item out of a bag and make an infomercial. It was terrifying for me because I couldn't think of anything to do, but I had such a great time watching everyone else come up with items I had tears in my eye. I did get up there and I think I did ok. I spoke loud and got tripped up right at the end. In that same class we had to come up with our favorite genre of movies or tv show. Groups were assigned the genre and as a group we had to act out a dialogue. Some of the groups were absolutely hilarious. We had a group do Bollywood, Erotica, Mexican TV, and Badly Dubbed Kung Fu movies. Some of the guys were absolutely hilarious with their accents and they really got into it. Probably one of the funnest classes we have had so far. The next day we had chants and songs. I don't like to sing in front of people so this class scared me the most. First up was chants we had to come up with a beat and then insert our dialogue into the beat. I had a beat, I used my old marching band beat, I just had trouble getting my words to match up with the beat. I had words like electronic center and escalator. Fortunately the whole class did not have to go so I lucked out, but that meant that I had to sing :(. Luckily we did it in pairs with the person who shared your same dialogue. My partner already had a song to put our dialogue to so I just got up there and sang. I think I did ok people had a little problem figuring out our song but once we told the class it was "We wish you a Merry Christmas" it clicked.

Wednesday night we all went down to the Riverside and hopped on a boat to take a ride down the river and see Phnom Penh at night. It was a lot of fun, it was a booze cruise. We had coolers with ice, beer, and liquor. There was dancing downstairs and conversations upstairs. It was a nice night to get out. A lot of people went out after we made it back to land I went back to the hotel to finish off some homework and pack all my belongings because the Thailand people had to leave from the beach to head to Thailand. Thursday night was our last night in town we had a LanguageCorp networking dinner/ karaoke at a local bar called the Pirate's Den. At this event we had good food and there were a lot of people. Karaoke was fun to watch I did not get up there but I had a good time with everybody. We all left about 10 and went in search of more bars with some of the old LanguageCorp people. We ended up going to a girly bar, a bar where Khmer women "socialize" with men. It was dead silent when my two friends (girls) and I walked in with this group of guys. The guys went off to find themselves some girls and we made friends with the "girls." We had an interesting time in the bar we talked with the girls and also with some of the LanguageCorps guys. We learned all about the "girls" lives like where they were from, how old they were, what was their name, etc.When the guys decided to move on to another bar a friend and I decided to moto it back to the hotel to finish up our packing because we were leaving early the next morning. The moto was probably one of the best things I did in Phnom Penh. It was a Khmer man driving a moto bike with my friend in the middle and me on the back. We made it to our hotel super fast and it felt so refreshing to ride with no pollution. I wish I had rode the moto more often. The next morning we said our goodbyes to the staff and our awesome Tuk Tuk drivers (Smitty). We were off to ShianoukVille for a weekend of relaxing on the beach.