Is this the end for ‘The Grind’?

It looks like the guy who wrote one of the best “anti-TEFL” blogs ever is calling it a day. Unassuming AKA Bluffer AKA Iain, is rather an unassuming sort of chap who I met in Bangkok when I went for the Thai TESOL, and along with various others from Ajarn, went out on the lash with.

He writes better than I could of the daily irritations and surreal working environment that face many teachers in Thailand, and his familiar exasperated style has made it a very entertaining read over the year or so it’s been going.

If you’ve never had a look take a dig through the archives….wonderfully written tales of Prathom woe

Songkhla South salutes you!

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For those of you who have come in from Google searching for surrealist literature, you’re in for a disappointment, because all the title of this post refers to was the monumental (for me anyway) occaision that my daughter Mali uttered these magic words for the first time.  Sure we’ve had baba for a week or so now, but this was a definite “duh” sound.

Stuff like this really makes exhausting Sundays with my daughter rewarding.  Sure I’ve had to pick up my entire DVD collection off the floor after it was pulled off the shelf, a dipping sauce bowl full of yummy jalepino sauce got smashed, she complained the second she got brought in out of the boiling March sun, and she just spent 20 minutes mooing at us when she got overtired and wanted to play with the stereo instead of going to bed, but her personality is generally so sweet that it’s impossible to get too annoyed with her.  Another development thing is that she’s finally figured out that buttons are best pressed with the index finger and not the palm of the hand.

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There’s a thread raging on Ajarn Forum right now from a couple of posters who think that the number of low-paying jobs is the fault of the carrier of the adverts, Ajarn.com

I’ve been taking part in the discussion, and have taken the stance that Ajarn is absolutley not responsible for the salary levels in Thailand and merely acts as a carrier of those ads in the same way that the Bangkok Post carries ads and is not responsible for those companies’ activities.

Of course I’d like to see salaries rising in Thailand, but I’m a realist. Banning jobs that pay under 40k a month is just ridiculous, and completely ignores a number of factors that might make such a job quite acceptable to many people.

Of course working for 40 hours a week for 20k baht is a joke, but is working for 10 hours a week for this salary more paletable if you could come and go as you pleased and work overtime or privately. A blanket ban based on salary bracket alone is not the way to go.

Another suggestion was to put all jobs below this salary level into a “trash bin”. I’m not sure what schools other people work for, but I know for a fact that if mine discovered that it was being labelled as trash, it would soon withdraw it’s ads in outrage. It wouldn’t increase salaries, but would instead find another website that treated it with a little respect.

The view being taken is that making Ajarn.com jobs more exclusive would increase salaries throughout Thailand, whereas the opposite is true, it would merely be sweeping things under the carpet.

No, it is not Ajarn.com’s job to force salary rises in Thailand, rather it is the job of market forces, and individuals to influence those who actually make decisions about foreign teachers’ salaries. To illustrate a very pertinant example, I give you Songkhla.

Three years ago when I arrived at the Wor Zone I was offered the full-time salary of 25k baht. A year later it had risen to 28k, and two years later the school was offering a starting salary of 30k. Why? Because it’s an employee’s market. There are more jobs than teachers, and salaries are offered to tempt those few that are here that one place is better than others. It also goes without saying that once salaries are raised it’s very difficult for schools to lower them lest they want to appear a laughing stock by other schools. Meanwhile across town other schools are offering 32k, and we still can’t compete, but thats all good as it’s something to push for next year.

It’s informal networks of recruiting teachers having a quiet word here and there that are influencing school admins, not pressure or bans from classified ads sites whose role it is simply to reflect market reality, and include the occaisional editorial opinion that analyses the impact that certain salaries have on lifestyle, which Phil at Ajarn.com does and I’m sure will continue to do, but placing restrictions based on a simple salary level cutoff would do nothing but destroy Ajarn’s well-earned reputation of carrying the most comprehensive selection of jobs in Thailand - a fact acknowleged by both Thai and Farrang alike.

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This morning was the day I was told to go for my x-rays for my kidney stone issue, so off we trotted at about 9 oclock.  First it was piss in a jar time.  Then I was youyou-ed at by a radiologist who managed to get me a shiny pic of my insides.  Then all I had to do was wait for the doctor for an analysis.

Well, Kan and I waited for about 40 minutes before the doctor even turned up at 11am.  Then we waited a further 20 minutes to be told that the doctor “didn’t want to see anymore patients”.

“Like bollocks!”  I thought, and we camped out on his doorstep til he saw us.  He then took a look at the x-ray and showed me the two small stones which as I type are now winging their way to my bladder where I’m told I’ll be in for a painful treat when they emerge.  Joy!

Back at school, I’ve been diving around for visa and work permit documents for the re-newal stuff which will happen in the next week or so.  I also just signed my new contract with the school.  I’m currently interrupting the departments anti-virus efforts in getting rid of this accursed Brontok virus, which every computer in the school has aquired, but the computer guy just looked at my blog and says it’s beautiful…well he was only pointing at the masthead.  I’ve just learned that I picked one of the the most popular WP templates of the moment…purely by accident…I hope I don’t see TOO many like this.

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If yesterday was everyone else in the staffroom’s re-test hell, today’s was my own personal one. The bulk of the 15 students made it in today to learn the 5 conversations by heart neccessary for me to sign their little green slips and award them an undeserved pass.

There’s always something that they do in my tests that annoys me and this time was no exception. I expected that some of the weakest might break up their test into maybe 2-3 units at a time, but not only did half of them insist on attmpting one at a time, they couldn’t even do it in twos and got aother guy who had already passed to come in and read the other half. Effectively this doubled the amount of times I had to hear any given coversation.

Some students took in excess of 8 times in coming to me to perform and still didn’t do enough to pass. “Come back tomorrow!” I instructed one girl who’d failed miserably all semester to pass a single one of the simple tests I’d set that semester after she was still struggling to remember a single sentence at 4pm, but this was apparently not on as she had something important to do somewhere in the boonies..I went way overtime for her, but it was apparent that she wasn’t going to be anywhere near the standard by the time it was time to go home and she was fishing for me to to just pass her whatever. Not a chance!

It always amuses me to see just how terrible some kids clearly regard me as when I don’t give them a pass even when they don’t even approach the pass level. It just goes to show you just how used they are to unacheiving and being rewarded by the Thai teachers with a pass at the end of it without the slightest effort needed to do so.

I have yet to even see one guy. He promptly disappeared after I firstly rumbled him with the conversations scrawled on his hands then, after instructing him to wash and come back, rumbling him again with the same conversations scrawled on his bare feet.

Another guy just didn’t show up…the one who scored a massive 25%.

On a lighter note my extra class seemed to enjoy my class today when I took them into the self-access centre and we watched a Teletubbies DVD. It was funny that English meant for the under-4’s is still difficult for reasonable M5 (16-17 yo) students to comprehend. I did manage to squeeze some reasonable conversation out of the 20 minutes we watched, including “What’s your favourite Teletubby and why?” to discussion about why Dipsy is black.  It was a bit daft at times but was a welcome break from the classroom, I felt.

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On Saturday at the Wor Zone, the English department released the final grades including those who managed to get a grade zero. Consequently the staffroom is abuzz with the kind of students who would otherwise not be seen dead near an English teacher, or an English class for that matter! Students who felt they shouldn’t have failed are asking to see the grading books, and I even had students and their parents coming round to my house yesterday (Sunday!) to ask me to check for them.
I personally have 15 ne’er-do-wells who are vying to change their zeroes to ones via a re-test. Their usual assumption is that I just give them their final test, which they scrape though or otherwise, but inevitably they pass. Ok, I did that in previous years and felt supremely dissatisfied that people who had to make no effort, got through without much fuss. This year, I decided to make it harder - much harder.

As my course is Speaking and Listening, I have always felt that giving a paper test as a final is a waste of time, though it’s something I have to do as a matter of school policy.
In the past, my re-test just echoed the final test, but this year I’m making them do a speaking test. The must memorise the conversations in all 5 units we studied this semester. Ok not much genuine speaking there but at least it’s something they’ll have to knuckle down to rather than a random a,b,c,d waste of time. I’ve given them 24 hours to prepare, and if they come tomorrow and perform to my satisfaction they get their grade 1, if not they come back on Wednesday. If they pull it off on Wednesday they get their grade 1, if not it’s grade zero on their first re-test card. I repeat this Thursday and Friday, and if there is ANYONE left who has not performed satisfactorally by then, I am authorised to fail them.

Four chances! That’s two more than they’re technically allowed!

Of course this announcement when given, was greeted with consternation by the students, who begged to have a simple abcd test, who berated me that they lived in faraway Rattaphum district, that it was so unfair to have to learn 5 units and not 2, though they ultimately knew that had they passed the first time around, they would not have to be there in the first place. It was a case of talk to the hand! This class will try to blag out of tests EVERY time.
I saw no reason to capitulate, after all these are students who barely lifted a finger all semester, and I’m certainly not a difficult man to please. Let’s see which of these students jump through the hoops quickest. I’ve got a feeling that I know which few I’ll still be seeing later in the week.

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Slept 8pm til 8am…presumably because of the pain killers I’d been taking. I said yesterday that I wasn’t able to feel anything, well it was largely true today, but then I kept getting little reminders of the presence of my kidneys, and after 14 hours without a painkiller decided I’d prefer not to be reminded and for them to shut up and do whatever it is they do.

Continued consuming vast amounts of water as per doctors orders. Took Mali out in the stroller in the afternoon, and stopped by at Lek’s Bar where Grasshopper was lurking who too had been in hospital all weekend with a stomach ulcer. We looked quite a pair - me with my bottled water and him with his milk. Took Mali off to see the Monkeys at Monkey Mountain who promptly wrecked the straps on her stroller.

Mali appears to have added a second word to her vocabulary, and now says Baba as well as Mama…I’m assuming the “b” is an attempted “d”…well I hope so anyway, as I’m getting fed up with being called Mama. I can’t really complain at 8.5 months I guess.

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Well, after yetsterday’s wedding escapdes I was pretty knackered out so I went to bed at about 11:30 last night and fell right to sleep.  Half an hour later I woke up with a pain in my abdomen.  I just thought it was gas and went to the toilet, but having sat down I realised something was not right and the pain started to grow more intense.  I tried taking pain killers but just as I thought they were about to kick in I had the urge to vomit and ejected them.  Two hours later and the pain wa just getting worse and worse I couldn’t stand it anymore so Kan called her brother and his girlfriend, who came round to babysit Mali, and Kan drove me to Songkhla hospital.  I received a pain killer shot in my bum and gave a urine sample, and the doctor said he believed it to be a kidney stone and that I should just go home and drink lots of water to flush it out.

I got another shot in the arm to make me drowsey again, and after 2 hours went back home feeling sleepy and in a lot less pain.  Felt the odd twinge this morning, but I went to the toilet earlier and I think (not sure) something came out, but it flushed away before I could fish it out to examine it, but it was tiny and black. Right now I can’t feel any pain.
Bloody typical eh?  Not three weeks past thrity and my organs are giving me gyp already!  Fok me that was painful!

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I’ve been thinking thinky thoughts today of how I procede with this blog of mine.

So far today, I’ve drawn a blank over what to post, aside from finding some bizarre link about dolphin sex.  It seems all to easy to post something wierd and just leave it.

I really think I should be doing proper writing like this and draw out my thoughts a little.  Either that or podcasting with the facilities I’ve been testing out over the past couple of days.

The fact that I’m writing as lucidly as I am right now is amazing considering the volume of Blue Spey I consumed at my colleague Martin’s wedding today.  It was also topped off with a couple of pints of Killkenny at the Buzzstop which I swear is going to bankrupt me.  I’m treading on the edges of a hangover and trying to ward it off with pints of nam blaow.
I think the way to procede is to stick abitrary linkylinks in my del.icio.us sidebar, and unless I have something substantial to say, not put them on the main blog.  I must also remember to ration myself to one item from the B3ta newsletter a week.

I’d also like to think this blog should contain some elements of my life, without getting too self-indulgent.  Perhaps given a few podcasts this can be possible.

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Sex with Dolphins - “How To”, and a Personal Viewpoint…

Um…yeah back to true blogging form…this link explains the practicalities of having sex with dolphins….

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