Standing a marathon

September 15
Well, actually it is currently September 16, a little after midnight. Tuesdays and Thursdays are my marathon days. I start with an individual lesson at 12-1:30, then I have 3 classes back to back from 4-9. That might not sound like much, but with lesson planning it adds up pretty quickly. I planned one lesson yesterday and could have planned a second, but the other 2 had to wait until today so that I could see how far we got yesterday. That means I came in at 11 and stayed, except for 15 minutes to pick up some lunch, until about 9:10. My Thursdays will soon be worse as I’m supposed to be picking up a group of 8 year olds which will begin at 1:35.
I’m kind of excited about teaching kids, but the way they’ve been described to me is less than appealing. I’ve been told they made one teacher quit in tears and that they are spoiled rich kids. I’ve also heard kids described as “little devils”. Of course, it was also mentioned how horrible the teenagers would be, and I haven’t experienced that yet. It should be fun to get to play lots of games and sing songs. I won’t have to do too much writing or grading of papers. This Thursday I’m going to meet the kids, to take over next week. I’m going to have to figure out a way to do a lot more of my planning on Wednesdays.
Before you think that my schedule is too severe, let me point out that on Mondays and Wednesdays I just teach 2 classes from 4-7:15. I have Fridays off and just have one class on Saturdays from 11-12:30. All in all, it is pretty relaxed.
The main reason I’m writing this so late tonight is that Sarah was kind enough to cook dinner for us tonight after we got off work. She had a few problems with her oven, so the meatloaf wasn’t ready for some time. When it was, though, it was very good.
The appliances here really are confusing to figure out. We feel a little silly sometimes having so much trouble with washing machines, ovens, and hot water heaters, but they really are different. Our washer, for instance, is top-loading, but the spinning action is like that of a front-loader. To make matters “easier,” the settings have pictures and symbols rather than words. That’s a bit frustrating as I haven’t yet found an icon-English dictionary to interpret what setting the picture of a puddle indicates.
Our water situation is tricky, too. We have a tank-less water heater, it appears. While this is convenient and means that we always have a steady supply of hot water, it is very hard to get the correct temperature. It seems to switch from scalding to tepid and back again as one moves the knobs, with a very small in-between. Added to this is the fact that it is located in the shower, which means the shower head cannot be mounted anywhere. We must hold it. I always get a little nervous about accidentally spraying the heater and extinguishing the pilot light. I don’t really know where the gas shut off is and, while I’m sure I could find it quickly, we’d have to figure out a way to get it re-lit before we had any more hot water.
Well, I’m going to try for some sleep now. I doubt I will have to try very hard.