Sometimes, dear reader, no matter what I do, I am not able to manage my time wisely. I think part of that has to do with the increase in admin duties, which don’t get me wrong, I like. Eventually, I’ll be able to handle it but right now it just feels like I am not able to figure out where I can make the best use of time. I am having a particularly hard time blocking out the hours that I need to work between teaching and admin. At the moment, teaching takes up about five hours a week and admin accounts for the other eight. That is, of course, assuming that it remains constant, which is not always the case. I’m supposed to be spending about four hours a week at Amstelveen doing admin work and that day is currently Wednesday. I find this a little bit difficult because I don’t have any students there at the moment as Yuka ended last week. I do have a new student that started last night and we will be meeting about four hours a week. The issue with that is that it is a hybrid in-person/online lesson. The in-person ones will likely be on Monday and the online ones on Wednesday. He seems to be quite a low level, and as he is an intensive client I have my work cut out for me. TEC seems to b guaranteeing a level jump in twenty hours. He also has a three-book budget. Which is a lot of books to try and get through in twenty hours over five weeks. I’m not necessarily convinced he’s going to use the books, either, which is another problem. That’s not the only issue with timing that I have, however. While Isabel and I have established a good rhythm over the last few weeks, I am struggling to finish my lessons with her. What I’m noticing is that we start a lesson and we don’t get a chance to finish it until the next lesson. The good thing is that she seems to like the lesson. She also expressed interest in possibly taking a group course, and I expressed that I thought that would be a good idea, but that I would hate to lose her. She then indicated that she might combine the group course while still having lessons with me and that would be the best of all scenarios. The other issue with timing is one that is looming a bit on the horizon. In my last post, I mentioned that I’d been picked with another woman to join the admin team of the Girl Gone International Amsterdam book club. I ordinarily don’t have a problem doing the book club on Tuesdays, except that Tuesdays are currently Isabelle’s timeslot. This might pose a problem for me for the mid-October book club, as I might have to host the book club if the main admin isn’t able to. It’s a couple of weeks away, so hopefully, I’ll be able to sort it out. But my stress level on Sunday night was through the roof trying to figure out how to get everything and everyone accommodated.
I never used to believe when my friends would complain about their tech going crazy. I have one friend you used to post her tech troubles about once a week on social media and I used to roll my eyes at it. But not anymore, dear reader, not anymore. You’ll remember that my computer has had power port issues three times now. On Saturday, I was minding my own business, as often happens with me, I realized there was something I needed to do on my phone, so I went to get it from my bag, only to see the black screen of death. Well, really it was the black screen of death with a purple flicker. It would not have been so bad if I did not have friends in town, who needed to get in touch with me. I found my friends and then ran to Vodafone only to be told that because the phone was a Samsung and I got it as a gift from my sister, I had to go to the Samsung service center which is all the way in the North of Amsterdam. My friends were great and came with me. I got to the shop and they told me that I needed an appointment to get service. So while I was there I made an appointment for Monday. I went to the appointment only to be told that they couldn’t fix the phone even though it is under warranty and that warranty is international. I was dear reader, fit to be tied. I then took my complaints to Twitter. We will see what happens. So I went back to the Apple phone I had in 2021, but my tech issues were not over, oh no. My Apple phone did not allow the voice to text on the WordPress site. So I had to physically type this blog post which seemed to take forever, as I usually speak into the phone and then edit on the laptop. It means that I am going to have to type my blog posts from now on. On the bright side, maybe I’ll get to the point where I write the blog post throughout the week instead of the day before I publish.
It was great to hang out with my friends who came to Amsterdam from Scotland. They stayed in a hotel, but I got the chance to be with them and do their touristy stuff. Like going to a cat cafe near my house, which I think Odhran (my Greek student) would love if we ever meet in Amsterdam. We also went to the Jewish history museum and the Portuguese synagogue, both of which were a bit difficult. These outings impacted my time management for the writer’s group because this past week I could not write. Instead, I actually did English Center work for the whole evening. I am hoping that I’ll get a better grasp of my time management skills in the coming week. I also hope that I’ll be able to get back to my own writing this week.
That’s all she wrote for this Inkreadable installment. But stay tuned. As always, there is more to come.
Inkreadable 