The alarm goes at six, although I'm often awake before it. But I'm still a slug-a-bed at heart and sometimes the snooze button is put to good use! We all get up at the same time, usually early-bird Amy is the first up, with Daddy, while the lazy ones, me and Lena, sleep on!
From the time I get up until the kids leave for school, and sometimes until quite some time after they're gone, I clean up the living room and kitchen and do laundry. I'm getting fat-bellied and heavy so I often do the laundry now sitting on the computer chair, watching CNN. I can grab the clothes off the mini coat-hanger clothes-lines, fold them and put them on the low table without having to move much.
After that first bit of work is done I write in my blog, check the email and write email, and read the online news (Stuff) and have a cup of tea and some breakfast. I don't usually work until the afternoon, so I schedule some things to do for myself in the morning.
Today I plan to work upstairs between 9 and 10, organizing the tatami bedroom a bit. Yesterday I bagged the winter bedding in vacuum bags, but I have to wait until Kanji has a few spare moments to get the bags into the closet. A lot has to wait until Kanji has a spare moment! The Spare Room waits until the Shed is done, and as Bec can vouch, the Shed is a shambles. Most of it is still full of the junk the prior owners left, with our stuff piled precariously in a heap at the door. I need Kanji to help me move our stuff, so we can toss out their stuff, and finally get our stuff along the walls. Then I will move the old carpet in there, the spare room wardrobe, and the round table, heaters, spare clothes and a few boxes of toys that will probaby become really exciting again once they move position.
THEN I'll be able to move my trade-me flea-market things to the spare room, and have a fairly clear tatami room! But for today, it's a just a bit of re-arranging piles, cleaning up, and starting to pull down the baby things to see what I have and what I need. I'll be able to go through the clothes soon now that the baby is 'probably' a girl. Every month she gets more probably a girl!
At 10 I have scheduled a break! I have a long day today and I don't want to get exhausted. I am going to cook some apples for my lunch, then settle on the sofa, tidy through the girls' school notice folders (you wouldn't believe the volume of notices they hand out!) and figure out some kind of scheme for teaching them English. At 11 I'll showerd and have some lunch, then pick up Lena at 12 and take her to Baachan's.
I start work at 1:10, and it's my least favorite class, a very challenging 'junior university', meaning it's a two-year rather than a four-year course. The students are scraping the bottom of the barrel, they're the ones who didn't get in anywhere else, and they are pretty much coddled through. We can't fail them. They just sit the test over and over until they pass it! You have to be really determined to fail! So they learn that they don't have to put in any effort, and most of the teachers are too afraid to discilpine them, they just ignore them and keep talking, so the students tend to ignore the teacher, and keep talking while you try to explain something or give instructions, which is very frustrating. I tell them to shut up. I'm quite stubborn and I tell them to shut up, but they don't always, and if they do, it's not for long. They are not all like that - half the class work really well.
Between 12 and that class starting, I either go home and rest (again, I'm good at that. This is one pregnant lady who will not get over-taxed!) or I go to the office, if I have prep to do. I do today - we are starting unit six, and I need to copy the teacher's book. Unit six is the last unit I teach! Yay! Only three more lessons! I also need to see how the other teacher is going with the test - we talked yesterday about what to put in it, but he took the job of putting it together, as I had a million things to do at home, while he had compulsory office hours to fill.
After that class I come home just in time for Amy to arrive home from school, and I take her to Baachan's. There is just enough time to check the email, plan what I'm doing in the class and get going again. The next class is at the hospital, I teach the residents. Jo and Bec came to this class with me, and will tell you how un-responsive they can be! Many students get that it's a 'conversation' class, and conversation goes two ways - this class doesn't, possibly because it's compulsory. So it turns into a question and answer session, with me asking questions over and over and over, and them bluntly answering, or me talking away and them nodding. I always have to have things prepared for them to do.
I have about an hour and a half after that class until I have to leave for my evening class. Enough time to get a meal ready, eat and look over what I will teach tonight. I think we are doing time and morning routines today, for which I have just been inadvertenly practicing in this blog! That class is two hours, but it's voluntary students with good study habits and enthusiasm, so it's a pleasure to teach. I get home around 9:20 and pretty much collapse into bed! A few chapters of Harry Potter (I've pre-ordered the 7th book and I'm half way through book 4) and I'm sound asleep
No comments:
Post a Comment