A good month to you, dear reader. Happy February 1st. I hope that the coming month is a productive one. Greetings as well, from the US. Jasper and I arrived on Saturday. The weather forecast was quite dire for the US East Coast with blizzard conditions up and down it. As a result, we told my dad not to pick us up and that we would make our way to Jasper’s parents’ house on our own. It was a little bit difficult because I think my dad really likes picking people up from the airport, and I think he was a little hurt. Of course, sensationalism won out and nothing actually happened in DC in terms of snow. So I felt really guilty because of course my Dad could have picked us up. I made up for it, however, by making him come to pick me up on Sunday morning. We had some lunch and went to see my sister, Taty, who is in quarantine due to covid and DC group home safety measures. We got a chance to see her very briefly and from far. It was great to see her even for just a little while. Since Jasper and I will be here for three weeks there will be plenty of time for us to see her together. I’m sure Jasper will have lots of tech issues that we can help her with 30 Maybe mentally and physically disabled but she’s super smart and understands that Jasper is The Tech Guy.
Last week, dear reader at incredible, Mark the closure of my 12 hours with Henny and with Eleni. Both of them are my pronunciation students. On Friday last week, before I left, Eleni indicated that she might want to continue but would let me know. Due to some shake-ups at work, she is not sure about continuing classes as yet has there been some trouble with her work. And her workload is quite significant apparently. I’m going to miss my classes with both of them as I really enjoy teaching pronunciation. The prep is actually quite easy. It actually involves isolating the pronunciation mistakes Learners make in English. A Dutch speaker does not make the same mistakes as a Greek speaker but once you have isolated the mistakes that they do make, it becomes easy. Words, then sentences, then reading. Turns out I really liked pronunciation.
I also finished off the 10-hour package with Karina, who seemed to like the lessons, and then confirmed it by telling me so I invited her to keep in touch by a what’s up and let you know how she gets on with her Idols both prep and exam. I’m not sure I’ll ever see her again but also offered to keep in touch in person if I’m ever in Ukraine or she is back in Amsterdam. Yesterday, I woke up to a very amusing query from my friend Despina at Lexis Amsterdam. She contacted me because she might have some work for me in English. The catch is, the student asked how long it would take her to be fluent. I’m always amused by that question because it takes 1500 hours to go from B2 to C1. I got the feeling from Despina’s text that she was sorry for the question as she also knows how difficult becoming fluent is. We will see what happens with that and as always my dear readers, I will keep you posted.
In terms of my private clients, I am again kind of on hiatus with George Jerry as it’s Chinese New Year and kids deserve to have a little fun. I will not see them until the 8th of February. Sander’s on hiatus until March because he’s on vacation and also I didn’t feel like waking up really early to teach him. But I am still teaching my online English Center clients as well as Greek. So I will be working a couple of hours a day most days. I will have to share the space with Jasper’s sister who is also working but she’s actually working the whole day. I feel a bit of a negotiation.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always there is more to come.
Inkreadable 