Where have I been? It’s the week between the end of the summer term, and the start of the fall term. That’s good news for students, but bad for me. I’ve had to grade exams (thanks to the 35% cutoff, all my students passed my math class), and prepare syllabi for my two classes next semester.

I’ll be teaching an introduction to computers course, and a course called “Fundamentals of Mathematics.” The second one will be a problem. I just found out that there is no book and no notes, and the topics covered are totally random and unrelated.

So I’ll have to totally revise the schedule, finds texts, and prepare lectures. I have a feeling I’ll just be improvising as I go along.

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Practically everything is considered to be an “auspicious occasions” here. Today in particular, since it’s Her Majesty the Queen’s birthday. Since the Queen is the mother of the country, it is celebrated as Mother’s Day, and is a national holiday. Like all Thai holidays, all bars are closed, and the sale of alcohol is prohibited.

Thus, there is nothing to do in Bangkok during a Thai holiday. So it was a good opportunity to go to Koh Samet, an island a mere four hours away, which everyone raves about.

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Today is the auspicious occasion of my thirtieth birthday. Normally this is a pretty depressing occasion, but Samet Island in Thailand is the ideal place to spend it, and I actually forgot about it.

It’s very close to Bangkok, but is very rustic, with dirt roads. There’s a lot of bungalows, but it’s not too developed. The beach is big enough to lay on, with white sand, is free of garbage, and there are only a few chairs set up. Best of all, even though many places are full due to the holiday, there aren’t that many people around.

So, the secret’s out: Samet Island is the best island in Thailand.

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I still can’t believe how busy I am, and it’s the second week of the semester. I’ve gone from only teaching two double periods (6 hours) of one class (Preperatory Math) a week, to three periods of Fundamental Math, and four periods of Computer and Information Technologies, along with four lab sections, for a total of 16.5 hours (4.5 of which I get paid extra for). That’s a pretty big increase.

Luckily I have two lectures for the computer class, so I only have to prepare once. Likewise, the four labs are exactly the same. And the former teacher, Stuart was on the ball, and handed over all his notes, labs, and tests, so all I really have to do is teach it.

The problem has been the Fundamental Math class, which I’m getting paid extra for, so I suppose I can’t really complain. But all we were given was a syllabus, and no materials. The syllabus is broken into four arbitrary, unrelated topics. Me and my co-teacher decided to take turns planning each topic. So I took the first one: algebra.

So we have three weeks to do what should be a review of algebra for them. I found a book in the library, and we hashed out a schedule. There’s no way to cover algebra in three weeks, so we picked some highlights, and tried to pick things that would be needed for the later topics, but it’s still pretty random.

Since we will have to use five different books, for the five unrelated topic, we can’t expect students to buy books. So going through the book, picking which pages we will use, then copying them has been a task. Since making copies involves money, I need all sorts of special permissions and signatures. I think tomorrow I will have my copies, though. Then I can make a binder that the students can copy.

Between this busy work, and the actual classes, which are spread out throughout the week, I’ve been away from my computer a lot. I also haven’t been able to study Thai. Hopefully next week things will settle down.

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