Well, dear reader, it happened once again. I’m not sure if you remember from my US posts in February but just before I left my computer died and I did not have enough time to fix it in the States. Once I got back to the Netherlands, the repair was scheduled, and I got a new motherboard. palm rest, and audio jack. In essence, a new computer. Everything was fine until Friday. At least I thought it was. On Friday, I went to teach my penultimate class with Harumi in Amstelveen. I didn’t use my computer with her as we did conversation and a bit of grammar that didn’t require the computer. Once I got back home, I had a bunch of time to kill before I had to pick up a friend from the train station and so I thought I would get some work done. I went to turn on my computer and nothing happened. There were blue lights on my cooling laptop stand and the backlight remained lit, so I knew that the computer was receiving power but it wouldn’t turn either on or off. I managed to get it to turn off and then never got it working again. This is the third time that I have had a problem with my Dell in two years. But this is also why I got the super expensive repair package. Basically, with my warranty, Dell has to come to me no matter what happens to my computer. I called tech support and spent 20-minutes on the phone explaining what was going on and they diagnose a bad motherboard. At this point I think I should be getting a fully new computer, as I’m convinced they’re using old or bad parts. They would have been able to get to me on Saturday but unfortunately I was not going to be home as Jasper and I and some friends went to see the 2022 Floriade Expo which is to horticulture what the world’s fair was to technology. It only happens every 10 years in the Netherlands is definitely worth it.
When I first started working for Vipkid, I started a Facebook group for teachers working for the company in the European Union. That Facebook group grew to about 870 people. In that time, I had hosted several teachers to stay at my house and slowly got to know a bunch of teachers in person. During the pandemic, I formed an additional group of teachers who meet every Sunday evening from about 8 just to catch up. One of those teachers came to visit me and especially to see Floriade. So we met up with a couple of other teachers who live in the Netherlands. who are also part of the Sunday group. I didn’t take a lot of pictures figuring that I would go back and there would be plenty of time to take pictures. Below are a few of the pictures of the flowers near the Chinese and Indian Pavilions.
Teaching has proven to be quite difficult since my computer’s not working. I do not like being on my backup because it really is much worse in terms of the screen then the one that I normally use. My girls in Palestine continue to be a challenge. I got some great tips from a teacher at the English Center regarding the British Council and their websites for children and teens. I kind of had to wing it with the younger of the two girls and see if she could handle the lessons. The kids lessons were too easy for and I suspect the teen lessons are going to be too difficult but I will try to make a lesson for Wednesday and see how it works. The plan is to do the thing with her sister and maybe only focus on the exercises for teenagers. I also have a new student starting this week and she is business English client who needs help with writing. I wrote her an email asking her for a writing sample, but as of the writing have not gotten anything. I’m going to have to do my own intake with her even though she’s done an hour-long intake with the English Center. It’s always this way with a new student. You don’t quite know what to prepare and just have that the lesson you do prep matches what the student wants.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there’s more to come.
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