Kim and Jeremy in Thailand

The school year pace is definitely starting to kick in. This is only the third day, but we're already starting to get into a routine. Jeremy has been busy with Sam setting up computers all over the school, repairing wires damaged during the summer construction projects, and just keeping everything running. I'm really enjoying teaching, and last night we had an open house for parents. I was impressed with how many people came, especially since many parents don't live in Chiang Mai. It was neat to meet the parents and hear a little more about what they do. Many of them live in houses that were flooded, so we heard some pretty awful stories about people with a foot or two of water and sewer muck in their home.

We're also starting to learn to drive! I have to learn to drive stick, so I went out once with Krista (another teacher here at Grace) and drove for about 45 minutes. I only stalled once-I was so proud of myself! I think it's easier to shift with my left hand, but it's weird to have to take sharp left turns and wide right turns now. and to have so much car on the other side! Jeremy actually drove us to school today and did pretty well. Now, if we could just learn our way around...

This has been a very interesting last few days! Saturday we spent at the school finishing our preparations for the first day of school. But on Sunday, a lot of Chiang Mai flooded pretty severely. Apparently it was a combination of a lot of rain, a dam bursting upstream, and then a need to release water from a few more dams. Grace International School is fine, but parts of town just a few miles away from us are several meters underwater. Several of our staff members and students were unable to get to work today, so please pray for people as they deal with this fairly traumatic situation. The water rose pretty quickly, an inch every 10 minutes in some places, so a lot of people were caught offguard.

Then today was the first day of school!! It went really well. I like teaching! The students are great and I think it will be a really exciting year! We had a few challenges (internet snafus since our ISP's main place is underwater) and I actually had to teach one computer class without computers, but all in all, it was a good day. Please pray that I will be able to remember everyone's names soon! Through 6 classes, homeroom, and study hall, I have direct contact with about 75 students, and I really want to learn names ASAP.

Today is Mother's Day here in Thailand!! They celebrate it today in honor of the Queen's birthday. It's one of the biggest holidays in Thailand, so our Thai staff is on vacation today.

It's also the last "official" working day before school starts next Monday, although I suspect that tomorrow will be a very busy Saturday here at Grace. I'm beginning to feel more and more like a teacher, which is good, since my responsibilities here are shifting drastically in that direction. I'm excited about that. I went over materials with Kirby, the other computer science teacher, and he really has everything ready for me-tests, homework, the class website. I really can't complain and it's going to be a really neat opportunity to teach this class.

I added more pictures of our house! Now you can see the outside, as well as our car and our cats. Check it out in the gallery page.

Tonight we're going with some friends from the school to The Upper Crust, which is supposed to be a really fun restaurant with great cheesecake. Then we'll take a look around the Chiang Mai night market. A good reward after a long day's work!

We've been doing more orientation today. Yesterday I got a bit of a surprise, but a good one. I knew there was a possibility of me teaching a beginning computer class, but it turns out that I will be teaching for three periods each day, and in each of those periods, I will have two classes simultaneously. The classes are on Word and Excel, and most of the materials have already been written, but I would still appreciate prayer as I try to figure out how to be a good teacher!

Jeremy is already hard at work in the computer services department, setting up people's accounts and laptops. I can tell we're in for a busy, but very exciting year!

Today was our first day of staff orientation. We've been able to see more of the school and meet all the other new staff. We learned a lot about what to expect in our first year here, some details of how the school runs, and how the Thai cooking staff is so good they make everyone gain 20 pounds! We also got to work a little bit in the computer services department. I got to meet Jit, the Thai lady who works in the department, and she helped me read a Thai kid's book while we were waiting on a few things. Hopefully she can teach me more!

Tomorrow we have more new staff orientation, and then on Wednesday we leave for the staff retreat. That will have old and new staff, and it's held at a resort about 25 minutes away. We've heard great things about the staff retreat, so we're really looking forward to it!