Busy week!

Since I can’t leave for my new adventure due to the coronavirus, I decided to see what I can do around my hometown and teach a lot of classes online this week. Thankfully, its really hard to quit my online teaching job, but really easy to teach, or not teach, classes.

I know, not the most exciting adventure, especially because I had been to both many, many, many times growing up. But, as I have only a few classes to teach, no lessons to plan, and nothing better to do, I went.

I started the week with only a couple online classes a day, but ended up teaching 2 hours every day. Granted that’s not as much as some other online teachers, but due to time zone differences, waking up earlier to teach more doesn’t really work for me. But, since I thought I wouldn’t be teaching any online classes this month, any and all classes are a happy source of unexpected income.

This week, I got to teach an overwhelming majority of decent to good students – those that do well but don’t really leave a big impression after class ends. They make teaching easier, as they can do the work, but they aren’t amazing or say anything interesting. They’re just kinda forgettable, even if they’re the kind of students that I’d like to teach more, because otherwise, I wind up with those students that make you rethink your life choices.

This week, I had my first student come to class crying. What do you do with a crying child on a computer screen? You can’t pat them on the shoulder and say “There, there”. All I could do was make my stuffed animals dance and hope that they were entertaining enough to distract from the crying. Then, I had, not one, but 2 students in a reading or phonics class that couldn’t read! Why are they in a class that requires them to read, when they don’t even know what sound the letters make? That’s just going to be painful for everyone.

That’s not to say I didn’t have great students as well. I did get to teach some students that speak English amazingly and I really didn’t have to do much besides hit the next button and ask “Why?”. I love it when I get to be the annoying little kid that just asks “Why?” to everything 15 times. It’s great! And, what is more adorable that a little kid that is literally vibrating because they want to answer the teacher’s question and they know they should know the answer, but can’t find the words right then?

After teaching all those classes, I went to the local aquarium and a museum. Who doesn’t love watching fish and seeing dinosaurs?

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And to top off my week, my recruiter, who was kind enough to set me up with my job in China (if COVID-19 ever goes away), just contacted me asking if I was ready to give up on going to China this year and look at all the lovely schools that would want to hire me in South Korea.

It’s not like I don’t have all my paperwork and visa for China all done and paid for, or anything. Oh, wait, I do. And they were expensive! I don’t want to have wasted all that money on my getting my Chinese visa to not go to China and have to spend more to do all the same things for a Korean visa. But, if things don’t improve in China soon, I also don’t want to not go anywhere waiting on one country that no one can go to.

Decisions, decisions…