Hello my lovelies, glad you can join me for this week’s Weekend Coffee Share.
If we were having coffee today, I’d warn you that this is a very short coffee break. It’s going to be instant coffee, I’m afraid, but I’d also offer a bowl of cereal to those who’d like one.
It’s been a hectic week for me, and it’s not over yet.
If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I still have at least one university assignment and five modules to get through until Sunday night. I lost Monday and Tuesday to working late, and yesterday I couldn’t concentrate on anything long enough to actually finish a module as I was feeling a bit under the weather. And now that I caught up on sleep I feel like I wasted the entire morning and have to make up for it.
Luckily most of my family is not around this weekend, so hopefully I won’t get interrupted for once. Dad’s away on a weekend trip, and my sister is flying to London tomorrow. That leaves mum. I should be able to write and study well into the early hours tonight. I’ve already said that once I finish one of my university courses, I’ll take a weekend to do absolutely nothing in order to recharge and relax.
If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that from next week onwards, I’ll be teaching English again. Giving extra tuition is how I made my pocket money in school, and I’ve been asked to help someone with their grammar and pronunciation. Back in the day I even taught a couple. He was German, she was from the Philippines, and they didn’t share a language. So I taught him English and her German and somehow it worked. They’ve been married for years now and have a kid together. I like giving extra tuition, I just learned on my Gap Year that I’m not cut out to teach in schools. And I’ve tried. I’ve taught kindergarden/daycare in Ghana, primary and secondary school in South Africa and high school/college on the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador and I prefer to teach one to one or small groups.
I’m still looking for ideas for a case worthy of Sherlock Holmes. As I mentioned on Wednesday, I’ve been asked to submit a short story for a new Sherlock Holmes anthology! I’m really excited about this opportunity; I just need to find a spin for my story.
If we were having coffee today, I’d also tell you how gutted I am to learn of Sir Terry Pratchett’s death. I first really got to love his books when I was 16 and living in New Zealand as an exchange student for a year. My host parents didn’t read much, but Pratchett’s books filled their bookshelves. So eventually, I read my way through them. Pratchett had a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, so that he continued to write books almost to the very end is remarkable.
And then there was this T-shirt he wore to conventions:
I will miss his worlds, words and wit.
If we were having coffee, then this would be the point at which I’d offer you another cuppa, though I really have to get to my desk. Feel free to stay and look around though, as long as you don’t mess up the chaos on my desk. It’s chronologically sorted, you see, and the articles, journals, and stationery items I need today are on top.
The lovely Weekend Coffee Share initiator Part Time Monster is not up yet (and personally, I’d vote for “let sleeping Monsters sleep”) so I’ll link to the Linky once it’s up and running.
Until then: Wake up and smell the coffee!
Same time, next week?
Study. Read. Write. 
Teaching english…. That must be a real challenge these days! I can barely read and understand whatever language fills facebook and texts from my kids anymore. I honestly think I could learn Klingon faster.
Thanks for the coffee!
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I guess it is a challenge, but I’m just giving extra tuition to a girl in Year 11. Which means she’s been learning English for the past 7 years, so I’m not starting from scratch. She just needs help with grammar and syntax, as well as pronunciation. But having grown up in Germany myself, I know how horrible the “normal” German pronunciation can be. I’m lucky to be bilingual and that I was educated abroad, so I dodged the bullet on that one. Everyone thinks I’m from North West England with the faintest leftover hint of a kiwi twang in it here and there.
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It is so cool that you can help the couple communicate…language does rule!!! Sherlock needs something of historical significance…like an event in Britain that caused controversy..Are you open to changing his century?
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The two of them are my success story. She only spoke broken English and Tagalog; he only spoke German. So by teaching him English they could start communicating and once they got together and she moved here, I taught her German so she could go to the shops herself and ask her way around. But the first few weeks were tricky – I don’t speak Tagalog, after all.
I’m definitely up for changing Sherlock’s century. I’d love to make him modern, but I’m afraid to get too close to the current versions of Elementary and Sherlock on TV. Though I might set it in the early 2000 or do his first childhood case in the 1980s or something like that. I’ll have another coffee and think about it.
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Cereal is one of my favourite things – so thank you! Also, it is high time I read some Terry Pratchett. Many of my respected writer friends have been singing his praises for years and I just haven’t gotten around to reading any of his books yet. I will rectify that today.
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Terry Pratchett’s books are awesome. I still have quite a few to read myself (he’s written over 70), but I can really recommend his Discworld series (“Going Postal” is one of my favourites) as well as “Night Watch” and his collaboration with Neil Gaiman “Good Omens”.
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One of the most enjoyable group of people I taught was the adult group of parents that I taught English As A Second Language to. It meant spending an extra three hours a week in my classroom (time away from my kids…and I was a single mom) but it was well worth it, not only in the extra income but in the satisfaction. Those parents were there to learn. It was a voluntary participation, not a requirement, and that seems to have made the difference. I had Spanish speaking parents, Korean speaking parents, and Armenian speaking parents all together learning English. It was wonderfully satisfying!
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haha….Let sleeping monsters sleep. Cheeky—Yes indeed. 🙂
I’m not really cut out for classroom teaching, either. I liked the students individually, and I did really well as a tutor for writing and reading, but a whole classroom was overwhelming. I could do it, but I don’t like to. And liking to teach is what has to drive you, or you burn out, I think, very quickly.
I was also very sad to hear about Terry Prachett’s passing. He was a great imaginer.
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😉 Well, you are several timezones behind me, it seemed rude to wake you at 4am to get the linky 😀
I was a volunteer teacher in SA and my very first class had 40 kids in it and the regular teacher didn’t show up – “overwhelmed” didn’t start to cover it.
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I cannot even imagine.
But here’s what happened to me–Several years ago, I showed up for what I thought was a job interview at a local junior college. I’d never taught before and was nervous. I was handed a syllabus and textbooks and told to teach 2 classes starting in 2 weeks. lol
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