Hebdomadal in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

Well, I got through my first week.

I say “got through” but in reality it was fine. Yes, every class there was some problem, usually with the technology or some other thing that nobody in leadership prepared me for (although, at one point, I was sitting in the wrong class for 15 minutes before the other lecturer showed up and told me that my classroom was next door). The new classrooms don’t have internet or have a projector but no sound. At one point, I had nothing but an overhead projector. Yes, one of those contraptions that I haven’t seen in a classroom since 1989.

But all of that was just nonsense, the truth is, all of my classes went remarkably well considering how ill-prepared I was for the circumstances in each of my classrooms. Considering I have no email, computer access or ability to view my role sheets. Considering one of my classes doesn’t start for months down the line and nobody bothered to tell me.

Within 5 minutes of each of my classes, I was fine. This is what I do.

Ironically, all of my classes are subjects I’ve taught before. One of them even goes back to the first thing I ever taught, even when I didn’t think I was a teacher. One of my classes is English for Job Opportunities, and I wasn’t sure what exactly the class entailed because for that class, I didn’t get the textbook or syllabus until about 1 hour before the class was scheduled to begin.

Back when I was doing social work in the mid-2000s, I would give job search workshops to teens and young adults transitioning into the workforce either from foster care or incarceration. I remember asking why the hell they were asking me to do that job and they said because I was roughly the same age as the kids coming out of it, so they would respect me and because I already had a pretty lengthy work history at that point (I was barely 21 at that point) so I supposedly had all this knowledge that I wasn’t aware of.

20 years later, I’m practically giving the same workshop but to Thai students looking to expand into work in Western countries.

When I got the textbook, the deputy head of the faculty told me that she hates that textbook because it’s so vague. She said she didn’t know how we were supposed to spend an hour and a half on each section because she can get through it in about 30 minutes. I took that to mean that I can expand the material to my liking.

So I made some amusing observations about how it has a whole section in the book on the Classifieds Ads of a newspaper, so I started each class by asking how many of my students had actually physically read a newspaper. Out of 5 classes, only 3 students, all in the same class, had said they had.

I guess all of this is just to say - I know what I’m doing. I know that doesn’t sound like a huge revelation, but I’ve spent the better part of my life making it up as I go and fighting some kind of imposter syndrome, which I thought I would feel considering when I applied for this job I didn’t feel remotely qualified… but now, after week one, I know that I’m perfectly qualified.

It also helps that my schedule is actually incredibly light. I’m not joking. I work 3 days a week and make roughly the same amount I did when I was working long days at the high school teaching classes that were much more work.

I’m not out of the panic zone yet, there’s still a little bit of a gap with my paycheck which means I’ll have to crunch the numbers and try not to starve until then. However, once I start getting paid, I’ll be okay. It’ll still be quite a transition mainly because, although I will make more money, I don’t get paid as often.

My monthly salary is about half of what I was getting at the high school, but that’s only a base pay that is guaranteed and the excess pay from the extra classes comes in during midterms and finals each term. So that means I’ll be living cheaply on a meager salary monthly, but every other month or so I’ll get a paycheck that’s about 4 times the size of my salary. Which means I’ll have to come up with a whole new system of budgeting.

I was talking to my Spanish friend that I’d met in Bangkok when I first moved here. He’s currently in Vancouver and he’s discovering that North America is not as friendly as it had been advertised. He feels like he got scammed by the Canadian government to move over there only to be stuck in a twisty immigration system. He told me that he’s thinking about heading back to Bangkok because it’s so much easier here.

Then he asked me what I do, when I told him I’m a teacher, he simply said, “Oh, I can’t do that because I’m too much of an exhibitionist.” LOL

Don’t let him read my Sex Book.