Friday – the end of the school week. Yeah. Even though I only taught for three days this week, I’m still tired. This teaching situation is about as optimum as you can get. The students are respectful, the parents are respectful, the class size is never more than 5. But the hours are long, so long. Supposedly that’s only for the winter intensive session, which lasts until the first week of February. The administration is just a bit unorganized, but I guess that’s to be expected for a brand new school. At least once a day everyday this week, the director would come into the teacher’s workroom and announce the schedule had been changed. Not just the addition or deletion of students from the class roster, or changes in the location where classes would be taught, but actual changes in the teachers’ courseload. And often with just 10 minutes notice. I thought I was teaching elementary reading and bam! I’m now teaching advanced writing. What books do I need? What room am I in? At least twice this week I walked into a classroom, introduced myself to the students, took attendance, then realized I was in the wrong class. As gracefully as I could I smiled, bowed, told the students to have a nice day, and exited stage right. Then looked for a classroom without a teacher and hoped that was mine.

There are three sessions a day: morning, afternoon, and evening. Each session lasts about 3 1/2 hours and has four courses – reading, writing, speaking, and listening. So far I’m only teaching reading and writing, but at all levels – elementary, intermediate, and advanced. In between the sessions we have about an hour break. During that time I try to correct papers, grab something to eat, and catch up on email. In my evening advanced writing class I have a particuarly precocious child, James. He’s only 11 but his English is pretty flawless. I learned that he lived in the States for several years, which not only explains his fluency, but also his sassiness as well. Friday evening he entered the school a few minutes early; I was working at a computer. He said to me, “I *knew* you were wearing a red sweater today!” Which I was; Friday is considered “casual day” so we don’t have to wear our school uniforms. I asked him how he knew that. He said, “Because I’ve been watching you on the computer all day.” Damn web watch. One of the other teachers turned to me and in his best Mr. Rogers voice said, “Class, the word of the day today is voyeur. Can anyone tell me what voyeur means?”