Teacher, this time for real

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted. Life has gotten busier.

I taught two classes last week which both went alright, but both days it started raining on my way to work, and I showed up soaking wet. I also didn't finish the lessons I wanted to teach. But, I got a better handle on the time it takes to explain and run activities.

So far this week, I've taught five classes, and I have one more tomorrow. They have been going much better. Elite has been very kind and helpful and forgiving of my mistakes. When I work two classes in a row, I have 15 minutes in between classes and they give me a free snack or drink. I've been getting fruit and vegetable shakes. Those avocado shakes are amazing. Next time I should get food, though. It's tough waiting until after 9 to eat dinner. By then I'm so tired I don't even feel like eating.

Anyway, I enjoy teaching. Some of the classes are low level and have trouble understanding things, so I have to expect that and train myself to talk slowly and loudly. I'm getting better at slowing down and being patient. It can be difficult when you have the students working on something for 5-10 minutes, and then you ask someone to share what they talked about or wrote about, and the class is dead silent. Students here are just more shy and afraid of saying something wrong. But with a little coaxing, you find that they have interesting things to say. In the higher level classes, some students are just itching to get a chance to share. One class I taught yesterday was pretty smart, and we were just flying through the activities so that I thought we'd have too much time leftover, but it ended up working out.

Yesterday I was also a little late to my classes, because I was teaching at a school I hadn't taught at before, and all I knew was that it was on the street that I live on, just in a different district. So I thought, ok, I can find this, I just drive up. Except, when I got to a busy intersection, the street turned from one way my direction, to one way against me. It made absolutely no sense. I could even see the school right there. I wanted to just drive on the sidewalk to get to the school, but the cop shook his head at me and I pleaded with him, asking "how do I get... right... there!!" and he pointed to another street going into the intersection. So, I took that up and took the next sidestreet to try to get back, but there was stop-and-go traffic the whole way, and it took me another 20 minutes to get there. Luckily I was only 5 minutes late and they seemed to understand. They also told me a much easier way to get there if I take another sidestreet and get to the school from kind of a backdoor. So, it should be easier next time.

Today is my... day off! I'm just going to be lazy today. I've been kinda tired and sick, just from lack of sleep and some stress. This past weekend we went to the Mekong Delta, which was a lot of fun, sailing up and down the rivers, visiting floating markets, eating seafood, getting caught in monsoons, and just watching how people lived their lives everyday. But, I didn't get much sleep that weekend. Last night I took some tylenol PM and slept for like 12 hours, so that helped.

Oh yea, I also got a roommate, so I can cut my rent in half. She's a Sri Lankan university student named Chethana, and her English is pretty good. She's pretty nice and I don't think we'll have any problems.

I don't think there's anything else to say, so I'll put this rambling, haphazard post to an end.