My Blank Canvas

Blip was playing up yesterday and this will be a difficult one to do retrospectively but here goes..

The alarm going off at 5.30am was painful to say the least. Especially after only a few hours sleep (the rice paddies are home to a huge number of insects and frogs which do not shut up). I was given a brief tour of the school, taught first thing and met my A level groups and one year 10. I was also taken to the bank to open my Thai bank account.

My room has plastic chairs and no lab equipment (although the HoD's lab is next door so lab swaps will be easy). Throughout the day I was introduced to countless people who I promptly forgot the names of and generally felt like I was floating above myself and feeling almost tipsy, which is normal for jet lag I'm told.

I was shocked by how well behaved the pupils were and how much freedom I'm going to have as a practitioner. The answer to most of my questions was 'This is what I do, but you do what you think is best for your classes'. I have been given complete autonomy over A Level Chemistry. Exciting but terrifying, that one.

Despite getting a warm welcome, liking the pupils and knowing that things were going well I spent the day decidedly grumpy. I kept trying to work out what was bothering me as most of the 'it's different' feelings were positive ones. I came to the conclusion that I was grumpy because I was over tired and had a funny stomach not that I was actually grumpy. I went to sleep very early hoping that that's all it was.