A typical day goes roughly like this:
7:20 am Get up
7:25 Shower
7:35 Get dressed
7:40-8:00 Make and eat toast. (We have neither toaster nor oven, but a toaster oven, which fulfills the functions of both in triple the amount of time.)
8:00-8:15 Brush teeth, put on shoes, laugh at the idea of makeup.
8:15 Leave for work
8:30 Arrive at work having cheated death for another 10 hours. Wipe off the approximately 2 liters of sweat running down my face. (Actually, there was a typhoon off the coast for the last few days, which makes it considerably drier and windier. Very nice.) Review lesson plans, knowing that the plans and the actual activity never match.
9:00-11:00 Teach small (4-6 yr olds)kids English. Half of them will not speak and the other half will have been doing the class for a year and be bored. One of the children will cry and another will have his mother sitting in the back, which will prove to be a big distraction. If I can keep their attention on a single activity for 25 mins, it is a MAJOR victory.
11:00-12:00 pm Plan for afternoon classes or be in meetings with the principal.
Noon Lunch. It is usually rice with a meat and vegatable sauce. Sometimes tofu and carrots, sometimes goat meat and potatoes. Occasionally, it is curry (mild) or chicken dumplings.
12:30 to 1:30 More meetings or prep.
1:30 to 3:30 Teach more small kids.
3:30 to 4:30 More prep time.
4:45 to 7:00 Tues--go home. MWF--Teach 3rd grade. The kids are very well-behaved and I like them a lot. Next week I will teach them cursive. Th--Teach first grade. The kids are hellions, but the principal lectured them today, so maybe they'll be better.
7:00-9:00 More prep.
9:00 Go home
9:15 Drop off bike and walk to iced juice place. (I will try to take a picture of it, BTW. It is run by 3 sisters and the youngest is Tressa's age. She reminds me of her.) Maybe buy some ramen noodles from 7-11 or the corner market or buy dinner on food street.
9:30 Watch a movie or X-Files with roommates.
10:30 Watch Simpsons in bed with Paul.
11:00 pm Go to sleep.
It seems like I have tons of prep and I do, but I have random blocks of free time each day within the general prep hours and a lot of prep time is taken up giving placement tests to new students.
5 comments:
What would we do without the X-files to watch. I feel so sorry that you have to deal with the first grade class from heck. It's nice to know that someone there reminds you of me.
On the other hand, it means I am no longer one-of-a-kind. Darn
Cheers again!
I'm going to try to take the sisters' photo tonight so you can properly compare. I think you'll find the resemblance to be mostly nostalgic.
You miss me already? Wow. It's going to be a long year there isn't it?
Cheers!
Yummy - goat meat. Are you losing weight? I assume that the school provides lunch? Your day seems to be a long one. Is Paul's pretty much the same? Keeping young children on task for 10-15 min. is a real victory. Can you break up the lessons with the activities? Kindergarten, here, is done with 15 minute rotations. Love You.
Yes, I am losing weight and the school provides lunch. Normally, it's edible (sometimes it's even good), but every now and then you get a "goat-meat" day. Paul's day is pretty much the same, only he has less prep and more teaching (he teaches kindergarten, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade.) We try to break up the activity into smaller tasks, but the focus is on language, not the activity, so it can be rough. The afternoons are the worst because two of the kids are in the morning and afternoon kindergarten, so they've already done everything. Also, because there's only one afternoon class, one teacher teaches four activities in a row. That's not the way things were originally, but the principal had to redo the schedule on the fly when she realized that she had reversed the morning and afternoon schedules and now some teachers were supposed to be teaching two classes at the same time. The current schedule is pretty lousy, but we only have to make it through August and the schedule will change again to accomodate the Chinese schools.
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