Starting TESOL Class

I thought I'd catch everyone up to speed as to what I'm doing here in Phnom Penh. I'm currently taking a TESOL (Teach English Speakers of Other Language) certification course. It is a four week course which puts me here in Phnom Penh until December 20. The course is taught by Languagecorps, which is an American company. My class consists of six twenty-somethings from the U.S., three British guys who are all 39 or older, and two New Zeleander women, who I think are both thirty or older.

Our class runs from 9:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and takes place at Pannanastra University, which is a local school that teaches entirely in english. It's a five-story building and only has two stairwells. It's smaller than my high school.

Right now, we're on day three of the class. It seems pretty overwhelming that I will be teaching my own class in China in just a month's time, but my teachers all ensure us that we will be ready and highly effective at the end of the certification course.

My housing situation:

I stay at "the villa". The villa is a two story, six bedroom house that is about fifteen minutes away from the school and equally far from the tourist area. Its kinda cool being in a local part of town, and away from all of the Western influence of the tourist area. For example, about thirty seconds from the villa is a "restaurant" that serves breakfast and coffee for under a dollar total. I use the word restaurant loosely because this place consists of a tent in some dirt with plastic chairs and cheap folding tables just sitting on the side of the road. The food is quite good though. My best meal so far in Asia, was when we found a little stand outside of a market and it served noodles with chicken and about six other food items I can't name. It was damn good though. The lady charged us a dollar, but after talking to Khmer (local name for Cambodian) people, it became apparent that she probably overcharged us. As long as I don't accidentally eat dog one of these days, I''ll continue to eat on the street at the foot carts and stands.

The traffic is another thing that I'm finally getting adjusted to. About 90% of the vehicles on the road are motorcycles. It's common to see four adult men all huddled onto one motorcycle. I about shit my pants in astonishment the first time I saw that, but I'm kind of used to it now. It's also common to see them transporting huge items on their motorcycles. The other day I saw two guys holding a queen sized mattress on their motorcycle. Definitely not something you'll ever see in America.

This is also the most lawless place I've ever seen in regards to traffic safety and regulation. I've seen maybe two traffic lights in the entire city thus far. Why they even have the traffic lights installed in the first place is beyond me. Green light means GO to Khmer people, and Red light means GO to Khmer People. There is no such thing as rules on these streets. When our driver (we have a personal tuk-tuk driver) makes a left turn into oncoming traffic, he always goes into the left lane (oncoming traffic) for about 10-15 seconds and drives down the wrong side of the road until someone will let him over into the correct lane. This scared the hell out of me the first couple of times, but I realized that it is necessary for him to do this, because there are no stop signs or traffic lights, so if he were to wait for an opening in the road, we would be sitting their until next February. Surprisingly, I haven't seen any accidents, as I think everyone is just used to driving in a crazy manner out here, so that crazy is actually routine for them, and they know how to properly navigate the traffic and roads.

I've got to head back to class right now, but I'll try updating again in a few days with a post about the nightlife out here. Nightlife essentially meaning " any establishment that serves alcohol/prostitutes."

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We found an American bar which also happens to be one of the few places that serves alcohol without a shot of prostitute on the side. They are having a thanksgiving turkey buffet, so all of us American students are going to be going there at 6:30 after class tomorrow for dinner. I'm pretty excited. I wish I had a pilgrim costume to wear, but I guess just eating turkey will have to do.

Hope it's not too cold back home. My back sweat is quite unsavory here in Southeast Asia.