Immigration day

Today's the day I have to go to Thai immigration. I'm not much looking forward to it, but hopefully it will go smoothly, I don't know why it wouldn't. For some reason I can only get an extension, about 10 days, instead of my stamp that will keep me in this country until May. I think it is because the work permit isn't ready yet. The procedures and red tape in this country is remarkable! Many of us foreign teachers are discovering why many flee Thailand for better shores such as Japan or Taiwan: Better pay and less hassle. I think that if I weren't married, I'd consider going to Japan or Taiwan.

Work's been stressing me out too. We had a teacher's meeting yesterday and the school is due for another Ministry of Education visit and this time the visit is even more important. We have to have student portfolios of their work (which I had been sending home every week so parents could see what their child is doing that week) and assessment of the students using criteria that is vague at best. Their three different criteria kind of all blend into one another and it is difficult to discern one type from another. It's enough to make me pull my hair out.

Then we have an upcoming science fair. Science fair projects! What a joke. A fellow colleague suggested Dinosaurs as a theme. That's what we are going to do and the fair is in a few weeks. First of all, my kids aren't STUDYING dinosaurs. We have science once a week for 50 minutes. To study a topic that is unrelated to what we are doing in class is a waste of precious time. Plus there isn't enough time to fully study dinosaurs to make the project worth doing correctly. So I will have to do it the Thai way, half-assed but looking nice. Whatever. UGH!! Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating working within the system that exists here.