it's not life that matters but the journey...

Ah, yes, I have finally joined the ranks of the working.  At least temporarily.  I still don't know how long I will stay at this school, but they seem to want to keep me busy until they can sort out their teacher dilemma.  Basically the biggest dilemma seems to be that this owner can't organize her schedules, and can't find a teacher who will work nights.  This week they have asked me to fill in for a teacher who quit, so I have to teach Tuesday through Thursday nights from 5 until 8 p.m.  I might actually have to teach until 10 p.m. on Tuesday!   The money will be nice, even if I do spend half of my life on the wonderful Japanese trains!!

I had my first full day of working on Saturday, and it was exhausting.  I left my house at 10 a.m. and met my former student, Aiko, for lunch around 11:00.  Unfortunately I wasn't feeling so good that day, but we ate at a Chinese  restaurant and then went to Starbucks where I had an iced mocha (which cost more than $4.00!).  Anyway, I was at the school from 1 until 6 and didn't have even one break!  I had to teach a private lesson from 1 to 1:40 and then since my next class cancelled, they asked me to make a lesson plan (for which I will be paid less than half what they pay me to teach!).  So I spent the next hour or so figuring out their system and making a plan and typing it into the computer.  and then she tells me that since it should only take an hour to make a lesson plan (hello? only one hour?  even when I had to spend nearly an hour figuring out what they wanted me to do!!) that she wants me to make another lesson at home, so that she can pay me for two hours of work!  I can't really argue - this is not my country, and I'm just a part time teacher - but its kind of ridiculous!  its a good thing that they pay me lots of money to teach so that it makes up for the other stuff!!  Just before I was to start teaching another class at 4, the owner asked me to do an evaluation of a potential student - basically just interviewing in English for 10 minutes to determine the level.  But I hardly even had time to look over what I was supposed to be teaching!  And my final class of the day was primary school kids - from age 6 to age 12. Usually they separate kids by age, but this is two pairs of brother and sister, so they want to be together.  it was the first class for all of them (and for me - I've never taught kids!!) so it was kind of a chaotic mess.  the older girl was translating everything I said into Japanese, and the younger boy wouldn't participate at all, and none of them (except for the 12 year old girl) even knew the alphabet, even though I was supposed to be teaching them about actions:  "What are you doing?"  " I am sleeping" etc.  So I will have to start from the beginning next week - from the letter A!  Wish me luck!!

By the time I got home on Saturday, it was after 7:30 and I was dizzy!  I slept for over 12 hours that night and had nightmares about the ABC song!!

Tomorrow, in addition to teaching in the evening, I also already had plans to meet my former Japanese teacher in the afternoon- she will take me to this other school which wants to use me as a "substitute."  I don't know if it will work, but its nice to have a backup plan in case I lose this job in Shizuoka.

So this week I will not be bored - no time for writing my book, which has been put on the back burner.  I am reading (lots of time on the train) and Masahiko and I are releasing stress watching "Beavis and Butthead" DVDs which I just ordered.  Apparently these are out of print now and are going for enormous amounts of money on Ebay.  People are paying almost $200 to watch almost 10 hours (6 DVDs) of B and B.  We watched just one DVD and already felt our brains becoming numb!!

oh, and its raining again today.  we had two days without it, and then it came again.  it has been much cooler, though, so I am thankful for that!!