Tortuga

Tomorrow I am off. For the first time in a while because of my erratic schedule. Summer break is almost coming to an end, and I haven't started to type that paper. I have decided to indulge myself a second chance for B.sc. and I will surely be less slacky this time. I can't afford it emotionally somehow, not worth it.

Work is fine. Did I mention that I am teaching again? And I will stop sending out my applications for a while (unless the job is math-related). Pupils are surprisingly cooperative where I work and the pay is good. I never thought that I would say this: but I sometimes take work home; although my career plan is the opposite of such nature.

Had a surreal experience with one of the job situations. I was asked to write a hypothetical letter and it turned out that they had wanted a research based letter. I am not sure how they interpret "hypothetical", but apparently I had been misunderstanding it for almost 30 years! Sure, these are elite-academic secret codes I was supposed to decipher, but really, don't they have a less condescending way to express it? They wrote back and said that I lacked the ability to identify them, but if they had said that their hypothetical situation were a real one, I would have done it differently.

It is like "Tortuga": either you already know it, or you will never know.

So I guess I will stick with after school coaching ... it is a rewarding job and the people I work with are really nice. Despite the teenager rebelling, I seem to get along with them just fine, although maybe a more authority figure was expected. I doubt that I will ever be able to pull it off, I weight as much as the pupils, if they are under 14.

Surprisingly enough that some of them spend 4 days a week in the after school coaching institute, and some of them stay until 8pm. We are talking about children cancelled their sport programs after school, and sit in a less crowded classroom to do math. We have children as young as 8, who just barely started elementary school and the parents wish for a perfect academic performance. I had children who got B's at school and the parents told me that the children should be getting A's. Besides math, which I teach 4 days a week, I do English, French and Physics as well. So we'd be speaking English/French or writing their English/French homework about their favorite sports (which they had to give up), or favorite food (which they seldom get to eat because they get home at 9pm) ... or what they would do when "it is all over" (after high school).

Oh yeah, high school time and the pressure of getting a better score at school. I can recall how terrible my school program was --> we had school from 6:40 am (I shit you not!) until like freaking 10pm; and our high school is still one of the worst in the province because you can't just send children to books 24/7 if their hearts are elsewhere. Half of my classmates slept during the day, who wouldn't?! You are compelled to focus on school 14 hours a day!

Well, the silly school program became one of the reasons I left. Now I ironically work in this very field. Children here probably don't have the same pressure as when I was growing up, but I still think it is difficult for them to be happy and enjoy the adultlescence.

Oddly enough, when the pupils asked me, what I had been doing during my high school and all; I had to admit that I also spent 90% of my time trying to get A's at school ... maybe at the beginning the pressure came from the family, but later on, I somehow developed my own academic ambition... but I would say that it came from within and not under the yelling of desperate parents.

Getting ready to go to work. Although we are in school break.

Oh, never mind, tomorrow I am not off anymore .... just got a call to sub for someone.