Admittedly, dear reader, my week could’ve been a lot worse. I have taken every precaution that I can to be able to not have any teacher IT’s when it comes to VIPKid. I have an ethernet cable that I always use when teaching as well as my phone near me if the internet goes out. At least then, if something goes out there is plausible deniability when the firemen says your Wi-Fi is unstable. I can then hold up the cable and go “no it isn’t not on Wi-Fi”. Still, one cannot plan for every circumstance. Such was the case when I was teaching my last lesson of the week on Wednesday, and my mostly reliable Dell had a black screen of sleep. I could do nothing to get it back. I duly had to fire up my horrible back up HP, and was treated to 20 minutes of why it is a back up and not my main computer. I’d forgotten, you see, how horrible the screen is. Still I managed to avoid the dreaded teacher IT and was able to teach my last class for VIPKid. Still it is traumatizing when all of that happens and it takes me a couple of days to actually get over that it happened. I was able to use the Dell for every other class that I had over the week. But on Friday I had another tech issue. Actually it really wasn’t a tech issue, I did not take my charging cable for my headphones on Friday out to Amstelveen, having forgotten that I actually had a online professional development that evening and was staying late to attend. I discovered that in a pinch my headphones that are wireless that I use to listen to music with, will work with my Dell and people can hear me. Which still continues to be a problem is that when we use zoom as the platform I am not well received if I don’t use headphones. People simply can’t hear me. And I am not sure how to resolve the issue because that should not happen. If this continues to be an issue I’ll just have to call Dell. After all that’s why I have They are premium support plus.
This week showed me that I really do have a lot to be thankful for. My Greek lessons proceed and are wrapping up with my kid in Ireland, and it seems that he wants to continue. So that means I get to continue with him on Sundays and Tuesday afternoons. Scarlett’s mom contacted me last week and has asked that I do a book report with her for 15 minutes each class. She also said that I didn’t need to prepare so basically she wants me to get Scarlet to talk more rather than read. At least for 15 minutes. I welcome such parents suggestions because they really help me to focus my teaching. George and Jerry continue to be on my schedule and we continue to work through The National Geographic books. I am also finding that it’s a really good book for my student Karolina who really seems to enjoy it. Because she’s quick we are able to extend and have a conversation about the material and finish each chapter every class. What that does for me is because I teach George and Jerry after that it gives me a preview and I’m able to tailor the lesson in a different way for them. With them I’m only able to do half the chapter. Because their lessons are only a half an hour. My friend Regina also contacted me on Sunday and asked me if I wanted to work Tuesdays and Fridays and we would split a student for TEC. Unfortunately with my schedule being swiss-cheesed by travel, I couldn’t do it but I was supremely happy that she thought of me. Hopefully in the future we can collaborate further. Whether for TEC or ourselves.
Another friend of mine who works at a school, gave me the tip that I should send my resume to the school because they sometimes look for English language teachers to teach the teachers and since that’s where I think my career path is going, it was a supremely helpful tip. I duly listen to my resume out yesterday, and got the sharpest rejection I have ever received. it was all of two lines.
This week’s critique group was quite interesting. In that only one other person and I attended. It ended up being an hour conversation about his work that he submitted. If this continues maybe the critique group is going to die, I hope that’s not the case and maybe I need to be better and more proactive about reminding people about it. We have lost our bookstore as well. We are now going to have to find a new home for the bookstore once we’re able to meet in person. The bookstore is no longer opening late on Thursdays. They’re going to maintain a consistent 6 PM close throughout the week. So it seems that our home away from home is no longer and then we need to find a new one. I am certainly not looking forward to that.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment but stay tuned. As always, there is more to come
Inkreadable 