Under the Sea

One night, as I sat watching the BBC documentary Life with my housemates, I got it in my head that I wanted to learn to scuba dive.  Seeing footage of all the crazy fish and weird coral that live down in the water made me realize: I MUST see it for myself.

So I booked a very last minute trip to Thailand with my coworker Hannah and set off to swim with the fishes.  Twenty four hours and a xe om, plane, taxi, subway, sky train, night train, bus, and ferry later, we arrived in beautiful Koh Tao. 

Hannah rides the rails

Night train fun

Finally!  Koh Tao!

We stayed at Crystal Dive Resort on Koh Tao, and I signed up for the PADI Open Water Diver course.  After checking in to the bungalow and eating lunch, I started my course that afternoon.  The first day was less than thrilling, just watching videos and taking quizzes, but the promise of underwater adventure was just below the surface (see what I did there?).  

Crystal Dive Resort

Path to our bungalow

Pretty nice classroom, if you ask me

Another day of videos, quizzes, an exam (perfect score, whaaaat??), and practicing the basics in the swimming pool, and we were ready to dive to the bottom of the big blue sea.  I had worked myself into quite a little nervous wreck the night before, imagining myself getting tangled in seaweed, having my leg chopped off by the boat propellor, and slowing drowning due to a regulator malfunction.  But the morning of the first open water dives, I woke up early, all my death dreams pushed aside, ready to see some sharks and giant squid. 

Setting sail for the dive site

Even though I had aced the written exam, I struggled a bit with the practical side of diving.  I couldn’t really remember all the steps of checking your equipment before getting in the water, and I mostly relied on my partner to make sure everything was in working order.  Luckily there were seven people on the course, which put me the odd man out, so I was paired with one of the Dive Master trainers, Daniel.  I felt confident he wouldn’t let me jump in the water without all the gauges and other doodads operating properly.  

And once I was in the water and it was time to descend to the depths, I quickly discovered that filling in the correct circles on a test doesn’t actually mean you’ll be a great diver.  Right away my ears felt like they were going to explode from the sides of my head, and I strained to make them pop and equalize.  I rarely have trouble when flying, so I assumed it would be the same for diving: just swallow a few times and move on.  But no.  I had to be privately coached on how to do that thing where you plug your nose and blow to pop your ears, with the added graceful element of shaking your head from side to side to force the air bubbles out of your ear canal.  But the dive instructor Brandon was very patient, even when he had to drag me down to the bottom by the weight belt because I was too focused on blowing my ears to remember to actually descend below the surface.

Anyways, now for the good parts.

DIVING IS AWESOME.  You breathe under the water.  Like a fish.  No holding your breath.  No going up to the surface for air.  Just swimming around, free as a fish.

Over the course of two days, we did four open water dives for our certification.  We saw tons of cool fish and swam over some beautiful coral.  I’ve just spent about twenty minutes here at my computer trying to figure out how to best describe the experience, but no words can do the trick.  The only thing that comes close to doing it justice is this video taken by the resort on the last day of our dive certification course. 

My debut as choreographer comes in minute ten :)

That night we celebrated our new qualifications by drinking too many beers and playing with geckos.

Books and beers: the perfect studying combo

So tame

Maybe too tame

Before heading back to reality, we squeezed two more dives in on the morning before the ferry.  The second dive took us around a ship wreck, which was equally spectacular and creepy.  

Buddy check complete!

Sitting on the upper deck of the ferry boat speeding away from Koh Tao and towards Chumphon (Chumporn?  Chumpaloompah?), I reached up and discovered that I’d lost an earring somewhere in the depths of the Gulf of Thailand.  A small price to pay for one of the most remarkable experiences of my life (so far)!

Swing 

I want to go baaaaaack!

Less jewelry, more freckles

And it’s all thanks to David Attenborough.... 

Open Water experts!

Tessa

Brandon, me

Akhmed, Ollie, Tina

Piotr, Snir, Justin

It's the Little Things...

Today’s article is written for the Reach To Teach Teach Abroad Blog Carnival, a monthly series that focuses on providing helpful tips and advice to ESL teachers around the globe. I'll be posting a new ESL related article on my blog on the 5th of every month. Check back for more articles, and if you'd like to contribute to next month's Blog Carnival, please contact Dean at dean@reachtoteachrecruiting.com, and he will let you know how you can start participating!  For more tales of proud classroom moments from around the world, check out the other links for December's Blog Carnival.

It’s difficult to choose one moment in my time teaching abroad that I could label as my “best” or “proudest”.  When you’re in a career like teaching, there are so many highs (mixed with a healthy dose of lows), sometimes they become the norm, and you forget to be grateful for them.  But reflecting on those moments can be a real boost to your morale, giving you a jolt of energy and feeling of accomplishment.  

In the spirit of reflection, I’m going to share a few of my fondest memories, simple as they may seem.  I truly can’t choose just one!

Two years ago, when I was teaching in Taiwan, I had a sweet little class of three six-year-old girls.  They started with me in August in the very lowest level class, learning to say “hello” and recite the alphabet.  But by winter, we were reading simple books and chatting up a storm every week.  It’s amazing what young brains taught in a small group can absorb!

Reenacting the barber shop scene in "Kipper's Haircut"

I had a student in Taiwan that changed his name three times in the course of a year.  His name started out as Dan, but since there were two other boys in the class who had chosen the name Daniel, he decided he wanted to be different.  (Side note: the name Daniel is very popular in Taiwan because it’s Hello Kitty’s boyfriend’s name!)  Dan was not one for subtlety, so he chose to rename himself as Milk.  Yes, Milk.  Now, I loved this ‘name’ and did not question his decision.  It fit him quite well.  But his mother did not like this dairy moniker, so it was back to the drawing board.  After some deliberation, he came back to class rebranded as Mario.  I couldn’t help but sing the theme song every time I called his name for register.  

Check out his artwork.  Hahahaha!
Full credit :)

So many of the students here at British International School Vietnam come to class everyday with a great attitude and an excitement for learning.  It’s refreshing, really, to not battle constantly with behavioral issues (although I deal with a fair amount of this too) and to actually focus on teaching and learning.  This allows for breakthrough moments for the students.  I had a six-year-old girl earlier this year read a sentence independently during class.  She was so proud of herself because this was the first sentence she had ever read on her own!  She read the sentence, “The chick is in the egg,” and immediately broke into a huge smile and shouted out, “I read! I read by myself!”  A truly heartwarming moment that I had to capture on film.

Proud moment; first-time reader!

Here in Vietnam, I’m teaching the youngest students I’ve ever had in my class.  My four-year-olds are particularly cute, and they make me smile everyday when they insist on calling me “Ms. Samantha Cinderella Princess.”  I mean.... come on.  Too much cute.  Since I’ve never taught kids this young, I’m still learning the best practices and what appropriate goals are for this age.  Every once in a while, I come up with something that turns out fairly well, like this gem:

With these little cherubs surrounding me on a daily basis, it’s no wonder I can’t choose just ONE best moment!