yea, the tourist visa will be a waste of money if the 60 days started. It should be ok to apply for 30 days. It might happen in 5 days time. (seen a reply somewhere, a immigration guy to someone that it is starting on the 15th.)
u can take a bus to lao, (cam might ask u to stay for a day before they let u back into thai.) bring all documents from the school. it depends on your luck.
go google map, on the bottom right hand side, there is a human looking button. click that bring it to the location. you can look at the location from a real life view.
just go google what the thai embassy in your country need for a 90 days retirement visa. After you arrive, use the stamp in your passport to open a account that you will need to transfer 800k baht into. Not that hard... After that, go immigration to get the 1 year.