I can categorically say, dear readers, that it has been the week from hell here at Inkreadable. I find that with COVID-19, the days are blending so that I don’t know which way is up. I am also finding that while my work being online is no trouble, my social life is in great difficulty. And by this I mean, not seeing my friends necessarily, but my physical health as I can’t go to the gym. It is troublesome and causing me to forget time.
No where is this more evident then with VIPKid. The students in my classes are starting to feel all alike and all making the same mistakes, from level 2 through level 5. My feedback has no change or interesting content, and I can barely remember the things that I’m doing well in the classroom. It’s fortunate that I’m naturally able to act like an ass for 25 minutes as that seems to be good for my students and I keep getting five Apple reviews as a result. But still, problems are on the horizon as the holes that we are seeing are on the upswing. For example, of the 20 hours that I booked the previous week only 15 of them filled and they slowly dwindled to 10. I have been able to open more hours this week and possibly next week as I am not currently teaching for the English center except for Mondays. I hope that this trend does not continue and I’m able to have some bookings. Particularly week after next where I am not planning on opening anything until sometime later this week.
I will say that my discombobulation has been at its worst and at its height with the English Center. Which brings me to the thought that I hope that nobody there reads this post. But honestly, I would be honest if they did and tell them that the days feel like they are blending together and that every days the same. I don’t think in this situation they will count it against me. But, you never know. With the English Center, the issue has been trying to figure out when in fact my class is ending. I and my students, were under the impression that the class ended for everybody on 23 April. I was wrong. It ended for two of my students on 16 April as they had already had four hours with Regina before they were transferred to me as overflow students. I did contact my boss because I suspected that one of my students would give me push back and be upset that he wasn’t getting the last two lessons. But they aren’t his lessons to receive. They belong only to the student who started with me on 24 February. My boss actually said that I could go ahead and get free lessons to this client if he gave me trouble. So I sent one email saying classes were ending for the two people on the 16th. Then sent an email saying never mind they could take the class. And then sent a third and final email saying that in fact I was wrong and the class was over. I did get an annoyed email from the student, but explained that I was getting information from two different sources and still got a little bit confused. I haven’t heard from him so I’m assuming that he is OK with stopping classes. In the meantime, I have offered to switch the schedule for the last student so that she can start taking the B1 course that Regina and I campaigned so hard for. So it looks like Regina will have at least one of my students, possibly even three. This is my hope anyway. Because we were told that if we did not have five students in the new class it would not go ahead. Fingers crossed that it does.
While all of the group course back-and-forth was going on, I checked my schedule and happened to go too far back in the year and got confused as to whether one of my students had taken a class, canceled the class, canceled on time or canceled late. I decided to leave it alone and not worry about it as it was back in February. I’m going to have to figure out how many classes he is owed once we start meeting again. We literally haven’t met since 9 March. Or possibly the 16th. Who remembers now. See what I mean about the days are blending together?
Which brings us to the second part of my title today. Confirmed is in quotation marks because while I was perusing that self same calendar and getting confused with my student, I noticed that I had been scheduled for a pre-intermediate English class that starts on May 7. But confirmed needs to be in quotes because as of last week there was still only one person interested in the class. If we keep to the model of five students make a class, they are 80% short. Fingers crossed that this also goes through and that I do have a class on 7 May. It will solve a couple of problems for me. In the first place, I got another class to teach which is always good cause I can always use the hours,the practice, and n the money. It will also allow me to give a more consistent schedule to VIPKid when I open the same slots that I have been opening essentially since January. Fingers crossed that that kicks off as well and then I have a little less VIPKid and a little bit more normal adult interaction.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
Inkreadable 