strikes and gutters

I've had some ups and downs recently. The good news is that I'm feeling better, so my tonsillitis seems to be all gone. Once I got the right medicine, it worked really quickly to make me feel better, so I'm grateful for that. Now I'm just trying to get things back to normal.

The problem I've had recently is not getting enough classes to teach. When I was sick, I had to cancel my classes, and then I assumed I would start getting a full schedule again, but my school told me that based on some negative feedback from students, they're going to cut my hours and see if I improve. Well, I understand they want to hold teachers to very high standards, but it's very difficult for me, money-wise, to only work for a few hours in a week. Having just this one job which fluctuates so much is really too unstable for me when I'm trying to pay the monthly bills, so now I'm looking into other places to teach. Some of the other teachers here have been working for Cleverlearn, so I'll look into that, but Graham says he's been placed in public schools for some classes out of the week, and they have no air-conditioning. Considering that I am a sweaty mess before I even enter the classroom, to teach without AC sounds cruel and unusual. What I also like about Elite is that the locations were all close by, so I'm hoping to find a place to teach that is in my part of the city. Since I already signed my contract with Elite, I believe I may be obligated to continue teaching there until next July, but as long as I get another job, I should be able to get up to my goal of 20-25 hours and it hopefully will be less stressful when I have some variety teaching in two different places. At this point, I wouldn't mind also teaching some classes in the morning. I haven't had to get up early at all in the past few weeks, and it's kinda nice but I also feel like I waste the day.

At any rate, I do want to get better at teaching. I feel like I may have been slacking lately, probably because I was still feeling the effects of my illness and exhaustion from the week before. As hard as it is to maintain, I have to keep a very slow and loud voice so that the lower-level students can understand me. Also, even if I'm feeling really uninspired and just want the students to talk with their partners, I do have to plan a fun, active game of some sort that lets them practice the language as much as possible. Some of the classes I taught complained that it was too boring. I guess I had gotten discouraged from trying to do activities that students didn't understand or were too shy to get involved in. But, I can't let it get me down. Being a former student, I know that few things in life are worse than a boring class. Even if it's discouraging, I have to keep some fun injected into the lesson, because after every class there is a possibility that someone from Elite will come in to ask the students how I did, so the key is to make every class a great class. Since I'm going to continue teaching at Elite, I have to keep this in mind so I can get more classes and possibly raises in the future.

As far as other little anecdotes go, I can't really think of anything. Yesterday, Uyen and I went to a place that had Bubble Tea, which I had previously fallen in love with in the States. She referred to it as milk tea, which confused me until I saw it and I realized what it was. Apparently they use "bubble tea" to refer to just another kind of iced fruity tea drink that's kinda bubbly. I looked into it, and Bubble Tea was invented in Taiwan and spread to the rest of east asia from there, and in Chinese it has the name "pearl milk tea", so I guess that's more accurate, but now it's popping up all over America, at least in cities where there are a lot of Asians, and everyone calls it Bubble Tea over there. Oh, for anyone who doesn't know, it's like a fruity cold tea drink that has little balls of tapioca in it, and you drink it with this big straw that lets you suck up the balls as you drink. It's a strange feeling but it's delicious and I hope to drink it more often. It only costs about a dollar.

They tell me that the rainy season is on its way out, but currently it's pouring rain. Hopefully it will let off before I go to work. The downside to driving a scooter is the only protection between you and the rain is a flimsy jacket or poncho that will inevitably still leave you wet.