Sunday Summary #58

Mark Joseph Jochim

Oct 1

Welcome to "Sunday Summary" in which I try to summarize the week that came before. This is the 57th installment, covering the week ending yesterday, 30 September 2023.

With the end of the school term looming (just one more Friday left as our last day is the following Thursday), there have been more than the usual things to do on the Thai and foreign sides of the teaching pool. My main Thai teacher received her performance evaluation on Tuesday after being cancelled at the last minute Monday morning; we'd rehearsed a great deal and she was sorely disappointed. It worked out in the end and the school's director and other VIP's who came to watch were pleased with her lesson and activities (and were amazed at how much I assisted her). The director actually called my agency to say how pleased she was with the extra duties that I take on in the classroom.

This came at an advantageous time for me as the agencies and schools were finalizing the bidding process which would determine which teachers would be fired at the end of the term, which would be moved to different schools and which would remain as before. It is a maddening process and it is a thin line between being secure in your position and finding yourself suddenly without income. I received the oft-dreaded phone call Wednesday afternoon as I was taking a walk in the park. It turns out that there was a bit of a bidding war for my services with another school that I had worked at previously specifically asking for my return. I told the boss that I am happy right where I am. It has been many years since I have been consistently happy with my school and coworkers and the few times I have had a slight turn in enthusiasm it has been quickly rectified. I am now contracted to this school until at least the end of next year!

Also on Wednesday, we were given the guidelines for writing our mid-term exams. The agent wanted these ready (and she needed to proofread and approve them all) by the end of work Friday so that she could print and photocopy them. It can be daunting to create your first major exams for a particular school as you do not know their specific expectations or desired format. Luckily, our agent had the three Intensive English Program (IEP) teachers for each grade level (K1, K2 and K3) work together to create our tests.

The messages about this task went out as we were serving the children their lunch (just before 11a.m.) and I asked the other K1 teachers if we could have a meeting in my classroom during the kid's naptime (about 1pm). In the interim, I sketched out some ideas and we had a good discussion to divide up the sections of the test. We all took our exams home and finished them in time to send to the agent the next day. Approved with no hassle! We should receive our photocopied tests tomorrow (Monday) and can start giving the exams as soon as possible. It will be a bit of a process as the oral sections will need to be given individually (I plan to set a chair and table in the hallway) and the instructions for each of the other sections will have to be explained as clearly as possible. I only have 20 students but will still need to budget my time.

Other than K. May's evaluation (which was about the growth cycle and types of bananas in Thailand -- we served bananas which pleased kids and VIP's alike), nothing really special occurred at school this week. We had two more birthday parties for students in our class (another was out sick on his birthday) and we dismissed the children early on Friday because May had a meeting. While waiting for one of the little girls to put on her shoes, her mom told me, "With your white hair and kind manner, you are like the grandfather who takes care of all the children." I thought she might be referring to some Thai fable but then she added, "just like the man from KFC." Ha! Ha! I remind Nalin's mom of Colonel Sanders. I guess that is a good thing. . .

K. May was out of the classroom for long periods of time throughout the week. Given her administrative role (Head Teacher for K1), she had to sit on the panel for other teachers' evaluations. Since our classroom assistant was out-of-town, I was essentially alone most days which meant All English All the Time. I did some games to help review for the upcoming exams and I used up most of the worksheets I had prepared for use earlier in the term but had to put aside due to various activities, field trips and dance practices. If anything, the kids were much better behaved than when K. May or K. Star are in the classroom and there were no major "disasters." As Friday was sunny, we made an extremely rare visit to the playground -- possibly our last of Term 1.

Here are the pages that I have laid-out thus far::

^{Some of my journalling supplies. . .}

^{Plain black cover. . .}

^{TITLE PAGE With a subtle stamp collecting theme; I thought about making the circle into either a postmark with wavy lines or a magnifying glass but didn't trust my limited artistic skills. . .}

^{INDEX with some corrected mistakes}

^{FUTURE LOG is based on the Calendex}^{and is color-coded according to the Buddhist days of the week we follow in Thailand; at school, I have to wear uniform shirts matching the colors Monday through Friday so it is quite easy for me to remember..}

^{MONTHLY LOG - I tend to prefer double-page spreads in my layouts as there is usually so much that I want to include. My skills were not up to what I envisioned for the header on this one.. I also completely changed my TBR after I did this page.}

^{READING TRACKER - This might be the layout that I am most pleased with at this point. Over time, it will show me how long it took to finish each book and how long I read each day. I need more colors to fill out the other formats (but it is rare for me to read a book in any of those!).}

^{SLEEP LOG and BLOG LOG - The former will be color-coded according to the days of the week as well; for the Blog Log, I am thinking of including page updates in addition to articles. . .}

^{NEW STAMPS CALENDAR - I wanted to include some way of keeping track of upcoming releases rather than constantly checking my calendars on my Philatelic Pursuits website. This layout only works if there are not too many countries issuing stamps on the same date (like 10 October, for example.)}

^{DAILY LOG - My first daily layout (today's!) which I set to paper late last night -- also creating the one for Monday which is quite similar. Again, I went with a double-page spread and I know I will easily fill both pages most days. I have decided to keep my personal journal digital as I have a nice set-up in OneNote to do that.}

And there you have it: Mark's Bullet Journal Vol. One on day one. Over the course of each week, I will create a new daily spread each day and a new weekly layout every Saturday. I will start creating a new monthly spread and collections (trackers) that follow it around one week prior to the start of each new month. There will also be a monthly reflection page at the end of each month. That is it: I cannot think of any other trackers that I would like to create; I track YouTube videos watched using OneNote as I can embed the video right on the page to re-watch later if I want to.

I never found enough time to do the "5 On My TBR" meme on Monday (the prompt was "Public Transportation") but will probably do one for tomorrow ("Murder"!). It does make sense to alternate that with my other Monday meme, "Word of the Week", but when we are on our term break I should have time to write more than one entry on most days.

Thursday 13! #11: My Favorite Thai 7-Eleven Snacks28th September 2023
WWW Wednesdays #1827th September 2023
First Chapter, First Paragraph: Tuesday Intros #1626th September 2023
Word of the Week #1525th September 2023

It is a rare occurrence indeed to already have an article published before I plunge into the "Sunday Summary" each week but one of the first things I remembered upon waking up this morning (just after 5am!) was that I had not yet put together my October TBR. I took care of that and hit PUBLISH soon after sunrise. I actually changed ALL of the books from those that I had already written in my bullet journal so I had to put another sticker-paper correction on the page. Oh, to have an erasable pen that works!

Sunday Summary #581st October 2023
October TBR1st October 2023

Aside from my usual 7-11 fare -- some of which you might be familiar with if you have been following my Thursday 13 meme -- I continued cooking eggs in my mini-rice cooker most days, got a baked potato with cheese and sour cream one evening, and had a cheeseburger with fries (and free salad bar) dinner Saturday night at The Outdoor Restaurant on Kata Beach with my friend Luna from China.