Happy Koningsdag Or Kings day, from the Netherlands! It’s a uniquely Dutch holiday celebrating the Kings birthday. His official birthday, that is. When the Netherlands had a queen, they also celebrated Queens Day on 27 April. The streets swarm with people wearing orange, and setting up stalls to sell random old stuff to people walking around. It is the nation’s biggest flea market. The last King’s day wasn’t much of an affair as we were all in lockdown. One year later and we are still in a lockdown. This year, it will not be possible to wander around Amsterdam looking at people hocking their wares on the sidewalks, in the parks, and sometimes even from a canal boat. One year, dear reader, I even saw someone selling not a pair of shoes but a single shoe. I wonder to this day, if he ever sold it.
Over at Inkreadable, dear reader, it’s been a week of lasts. I had my last Lingueo lesson with Delphine and my last (for now) lesson at TEC with a student there. She says she wants to take more lessons with TC, but is unsure whether she wants private or group classes. I was honest and told her that she would do fairly well in a group class and recommended that she take the fluency course. It’s not particularly business focused but rather is more of a speaking course and I think that would be good for her. Delphine and I have agreed to keep in touch and maybe we will schedule some Skype conversations on occasion. I also scheduled my lessons with the nearly native speaking financial Executive who wants help with writing reports and business communication. We Had our first lesson yesterday and I think it went all right. Though I spent the first half hour feeling like I had pitched t too low. I did spend the weekend doing some extra prep and talking to her previous teacher. All things being equal, I should be able to maintain a fairly flexible attitude. We will have to see what happens with her once I start teaching in Amstelveen.
Speaking of Amstelveen, I sent all of my information and signed the contract for The Conversation Playground mid-week last week. So now it’s a waiting game. We are going to begin on 11 May and there is still no word as to the time. I prefer, (and have my fingers crossed for) starting at 2:20 and not 3:20. 2:20 will allow me to get there on my own and get back from there without having to rely on the owner of the company for rides. But I’m a little bit conflicted, because if I do ask for rides home at least, I can then offer my English Center client more flexibility. I am leaning towards getting to the school on Tuesdays on my own and then accepting a ride home after the class is over. We will have to see how it all works out.
Over at rPeply, things got kind of interesting mid week last week as I had a booking for Friday, 23 April at 9 PM. I contacted the student who asked me for my Skype as they wanted to do their trial lesson on that platform. . The student proceeded to make me an offer on Skype. She claimed that she did not need the English lessons from Preply and that her work was paying for them. She then said that she and I could set up lessons that she would confirm on Preply and when I got paid I would give her half the money from her lessons. Needless to say, that was a hard no from me and I also reported her to the company. I called it a prank in the title for the sake of alliteration but really, it’s fraud. And in the EU if she was found out then\n I’d be on the hook too. Yeah, no thanks.
There is still no word from Lexis as to whether we’re going to start courses in June and September but I am kind of busy doing research and prepping for that as well. I hope that that does turn into something because then we’re talking about real money. And possibly no VIPKid which is the goal.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
Inkreadable 