september 22 in twenty-eight

Mondays aren’t so bad, but this one was LONG. I had a surprisingly productive day at work and billed almost nothing to general admin (typically I bill about an hour or so a day, maybe two). After that I came home, where I spent ten minutes before getting a text message from my statistics student saying he was at the library early. It felt like he was asking me to come as early as I could, so I got there at 5:10 (it was scheduled for 5:30). We went until 7:40, when I had to leave for piano lessons. C dropped me off and then went to the store for dinner (which we didn’t end up eating because he decided he’d rather make it tomorrow when we have G) before picking me up. We took the dogs on a long walk when we got back and picked up McD’s while we were out. So by the time I actually got home and ate dinner, it was ten.

So, yeah. Long day.

I’m trying to think of a way to tell this statistics student that I don’t think we’re a good fit for tutoring. I don’t feel like our sessions have been that productive, and he doesn’t really seem committed to learning the material. He wants to find shortcuts and easy ways out and you just can’t do that with stats. It’s lots of memorization and understanding concepts. I’m not good at breaking up with people, personally or professionally. I’ll probably just end up tutoring him for the rest of the semester. I get paid really well for it, so it isn’t that I think it’s a waste of my time, but I don’t want him to feel like he isn’t getting his money’s worth. So far he has spent almost $200 on tutoring and I don’t really feel like he’s been $200-level receptive to what I’ve been telling him. This has nothing to do with my abilities as a tutor. I am a GOOD tutor. He just seems to be the kind of student that wants me to say things that will make everything magically make sense. No such trick with stats.

Last updated September 23, 2014