Tender Musings

When one door closes, another opens... Today was my last day teaching at IHOT (International House of Tutoring). It's a bittersweet experience. I'm sad because I won't be seeing my students, but I'm also excited because I know that a new adventure awaits. That's the great thing about life, there's always something new in store for all of us. It's been an amazing experience teaching my students and learning from them as well. I learned that to be a good teacher means being willing to learn from different experiences in the classroom. No lesson is perfect, but it's a teacher's goal to strive for it anyway. One of my classes was a group of P6 boys ages 12-13. At the beginning of the semester, they were taught by Rommel. However, when Rommel had to move to Sisaket I took over the class and I just loved working with them. Their proficiency was at the beginner to low intermediate level. It was a challenging task to teach them in English when they har...

The province of Ubon Ratchathani is situated in the northeastern part of Thailand. If you travel northward for about three hours, you will reach Savannakhet, Laos. That's where I went to get my visa. If you travel westward from Muang (the city I live in), you'll reach the province of Sisaket which is just above the border of Cambodia. Because of their geographic location, these northeastern provinces have been greatly influenced by its neighboring countries. Last new year's day, I had the opportunity to visit Sisaket for the first time. Compared to Muang, the city we went to was a little bit smaller and more provincial. It was a great opportunity to travel to a different place and see different sights. My favorite part of the trip was visiting Wat Sra Kum Peng Yai, a Khmer temple. Since Sisaket is close to Cambodia, several Khmer temples have been built in this region. The architecture is just amazing. The common materials used for building these temples are bricks, ...