Weeks 3 and 4; Settling in

Celebration with beers!

Well, although I officially finished school on the 10th of May,  I felt like I have still been as busy as ever. The last 2 weeks at work have really picked up. On top of some general preparation, I am also responsible for creating the materials for a few presentations our head of EPR will be giving at the Workshop on policy formulation (spoken about in earlier posts). Asked to write on the policy cycle, finally! Ron Heck, you would be proud, I policy cycled the heck (good play, huh?) out of that presentation. I almost felt like I gave too much on the Prezi, and will have to severely edit it. So, overall, have found that all my educational policy classes have been used and drawn upon in my first 3 weeks at UNESCO, at least it feels like I know what I am talking about.

Look David (my adviser!) working hard!

Also worked on more, was the Education Policy Simulation Model workshops came to a close. We got to work with some real data that the Cambodian government has given UNESCO in order to come up with a report on current needs and future issues. Although the data set is not complete yet (will be receiving the last installment this coming week), we still got to see how we adapt the model to specific country demographics and education systems. I happily admit, learning a whole new set of formulas (e.g to asses promotion, dropout and repeating rates) is not fun. It is definitely not like the Statistics course I had just finished. Working with the excel based program means a lot of understanding and applying formulas that at this time, I cant just keep in my head. Hopefully tho, that will change over the next few weeks, as my supervisor gets ready for maternity leave and I will need to use those good ole analytic reporting skills (that I did feel that I did mastered in Stats).  

Super-hyper mall of Thailand, at least that's what I would
have named it. 

Socially, I celebrated the end of the semester (I did well ,thank you) with a mani, pedi, shopping and a beer. After one weekend of keeping it very slow going, this weekend, I decided I needed to get out of my 5 block radius and start behaving like I live in Thailand! After seeing a movie (did you know you have to stand up at the beginning of movies when they play the king's anthem?), I finally had a Thai massage. Let me ask you, when you think 'massage', don't you feel good, happy thoughts? Well, you certainly haven't had a 'Thai' massage by an old war horse of a massager who pushes her elbows between your spinal discs. It felt like an intimate hard core yoga session, yikes huh? So, I have decided that I will still shop around for a cultural massage that is my favorite. In between exploring some crazy-large malls and markets , I also visited the Jim Thompson House.

In the garden of Jim Thompson.

An American who feel in love with Thailand and started the silk trade for exporting around the world. First of all, what a wonderful place. Holy cow, that's living! Everything in the compound is at least 200 years old, buildings had been moved from various parts of the country and erected exactly as they were. Thompson loved Thailand culture so much, he kept to all religious Thai customs of creating a home. After he made his home/compound, he then started to collect some amazingly old Thai/Asian artwork. Everything from dismembered Buddhas to scrolls of historical scenes. It was such a lovely place and I highly recommend going.

This week will see all of our team's preparation come to a head when everything is due to the printers on Tuesday and I will be using the three day weekend well by going to the island of Ko Chang!
On another note, Andrew and I had the anniversary of our first year of marriage. It sucks being so far away apart on such a day, and even worse when we dont even get to talk because my husband works 17 hour days. But they say that absence make the heart grow fonder, and it appears to be true.