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myurbandreamwork today was... Very Strange.
i really can't describe it any better.
the day started normally enough. i met with eva (my original student) at 4:30pm in the library's 24-7 lounge, which is where we normally meet. we had just finished working on her MBA application's statement of intent, and i was prepared to do some more traditional tutoring work - writing and reading exercises, pronunciation exercises, etc. (i had eight pages of tongue twisters prepared with which to torture her.... such a let-down.) but eva wanted to work on this survey thingee that she has to do for her employers, so we did that instead. and actually a lot of valuable pronunciation practice came out of that, since i could make her read all the instructions aloud as we worked on it.
about half-way through my meeting with eva is when things started getting different. for background, last week i was approached by a guy who had seen me tutoring eva (i remember seeing him in the library, so, yeah). he wanted to know if i could give him some tutoring as well. i said sure, told him how i operate, and we agreed to meet this past monday after my meeting with eva ended at 6:30pm or so. my monday meeting with eva comes and goes, but he doesn't show up. so, whatever, i move on with life.
i don't normally tutor eva on fridays - we have a monday-thru-thursday arrangement - but she couldn't meet yesterday so we rescheduled for today. i don't now if that was a good thing or a bad thing, considering what happened. the guy from before happened to walk by eva and i in the library today, and interrupted to ask if he could talk to me afterwards. (apparently he completely forgot about our agreement to meet on monday, and didn't remember until he coincidentally happened to pass us by today.) so after eva left for the day, i packed up and he joined me at the table.
so, this guy's name is ov - i find this out about fifteen minutes into this, our second conversation. that's pronounced "OH-vee", i don't know why - maybe it's a nickname? whatever. anyway: ov is awkward. i mean terrifyingly so. there were actually a few moments there where i thought he was trying to get me alone to, idk, molest or rob or kidnap me or something. but my neighbor eric knows the guy (come to find out, as i was discussing it over dinner with him) and he apparently is genuinely just that creepily awkward. *shudders* so anyway, ov and i talk. he's a very overbearing kind of guy - he asks me questions and then keeps right on talking, and i can't get a word in edgewise - and eric says he's also arrogant. he doesn't want to work at all with me as a teacher. he wants us to meet, make a schedule of exactly what we'll be working on, and then in subsequent meetings stick to it no matter what, which is not at all how i operate as a tutor. you have to be flexible about these things - there's no way to anticipate what issues may crop up unexpectedly or how long things will take because they're more/less difficult than anticipated.
i digress. ov wants help studying for his gre, but really he just wants me to time him as he does the practice exercises and then go over his writing responses. i won't really be teaching him anything, but i made that clear to him and, hey, if wants to pay me eight bucks an hour to time his writing samples, i'm down with that. ovand i talk talks some more, and i get him to settle on a meeting time and place. (btw, one of those creepy-awkward moments? he doesn't want to meet in an open place, he claims because it's distracting. he says he'll reserve one of the library's study rooms for us. i don't know if i'm down with that.) he leaves, and i'm thinking, finally!
i get up to leave myself and i'm stopped by another guy. he says he also wants me to tutor him, and would i just step back inside the library and talk to him for a minute? by this time it's about a half-hour after i'm normally leaving, but this second guy doesn't look at all creepy, so i'm down.
guy number two is named juan, and the first thing he does is introduce himself and then pull out his license, student id, and military id. i am very comforted by this, in comparison to ov. juan is from peru, but has lived in the usa for almost 25 years and is a member of the military (reserves, if i remember correctly). he wants to know if i have time to tutor him as well, and also cautions me that the guy i was just talking to kind of sets off his protective instincts, so i should be careful around him, okay? juan is very nice. he is fairly fluent in english but, like most spanish-speakers who learn english late in life, he has trouble distinguishing and pronouncing vowels. (for the uninformed: there are exactly five vowels sounds in spanish - one for each letter. in english there are two primary pronunciations for each vowel letter, plus some minor variations, and then all of the possible vowel combinations (ei, ie, ai, etc) also have their own primary pronunciations - and of course the letter y complicates things. and then there are the exceptions to all of the above. yeah, english is effed up.)
as an aside: all of my students and potential students are a generation older than me. yeesh.
so juan and i chat about meeting times and agree to meet in the lounge next week, same day as i'm meeting ov. i'm a little intimidated, though, because juan already has a degree from nyu and is doing his post-bac at st. thomas and uh and st. mary's all at the same time, and he's a spanish/esl tutor. like, professionally. so i had to let him know that i've only been tutoring in this capacity for, um, three weeks, and i'm not sure how much help i can really be to him. but he's down with that, so we agree to meet.
and then i go home.
it was a very weird day.
i really can't describe it any better.
the day started normally enough. i met with eva (my original student) at 4:30pm in the library's 24-7 lounge, which is where we normally meet. we had just finished working on her MBA application's statement of intent, and i was prepared to do some more traditional tutoring work - writing and reading exercises, pronunciation exercises, etc. (i had eight pages of tongue twisters prepared with which to torture her.... such a let-down.) but eva wanted to work on this survey thingee that she has to do for her employers, so we did that instead. and actually a lot of valuable pronunciation practice came out of that, since i could make her read all the instructions aloud as we worked on it.
about half-way through my meeting with eva is when things started getting different. for background, last week i was approached by a guy who had seen me tutoring eva (i remember seeing him in the library, so, yeah). he wanted to know if i could give him some tutoring as well. i said sure, told him how i operate, and we agreed to meet this past monday after my meeting with eva ended at 6:30pm or so. my monday meeting with eva comes and goes, but he doesn't show up. so, whatever, i move on with life.
i don't normally tutor eva on fridays - we have a monday-thru-thursday arrangement - but she couldn't meet yesterday so we rescheduled for today. i don't now if that was a good thing or a bad thing, considering what happened. the guy from before happened to walk by eva and i in the library today, and interrupted to ask if he could talk to me afterwards. (apparently he completely forgot about our agreement to meet on monday, and didn't remember until he coincidentally happened to pass us by today.) so after eva left for the day, i packed up and he joined me at the table.
so, this guy's name is ov - i find this out about fifteen minutes into this, our second conversation. that's pronounced "OH-vee", i don't know why - maybe it's a nickname? whatever. anyway: ov is awkward. i mean terrifyingly so. there were actually a few moments there where i thought he was trying to get me alone to, idk, molest or rob or kidnap me or something. but my neighbor eric knows the guy (come to find out, as i was discussing it over dinner with him) and he apparently is genuinely just that creepily awkward. *shudders* so anyway, ov and i talk. he's a very overbearing kind of guy - he asks me questions and then keeps right on talking, and i can't get a word in edgewise - and eric says he's also arrogant. he doesn't want to work at all with me as a teacher. he wants us to meet, make a schedule of exactly what we'll be working on, and then in subsequent meetings stick to it no matter what, which is not at all how i operate as a tutor. you have to be flexible about these things - there's no way to anticipate what issues may crop up unexpectedly or how long things will take because they're more/less difficult than anticipated.
i digress. ov wants help studying for his gre, but really he just wants me to time him as he does the practice exercises and then go over his writing responses. i won't really be teaching him anything, but i made that clear to him and, hey, if wants to pay me eight bucks an hour to time his writing samples, i'm down with that. ov
i get up to leave myself and i'm stopped by another guy. he says he also wants me to tutor him, and would i just step back inside the library and talk to him for a minute? by this time it's about a half-hour after i'm normally leaving, but this second guy doesn't look at all creepy, so i'm down.
guy number two is named juan, and the first thing he does is introduce himself and then pull out his license, student id, and military id. i am very comforted by this, in comparison to ov. juan is from peru, but has lived in the usa for almost 25 years and is a member of the military (reserves, if i remember correctly). he wants to know if i have time to tutor him as well, and also cautions me that the guy i was just talking to kind of sets off his protective instincts, so i should be careful around him, okay? juan is very nice. he is fairly fluent in english but, like most spanish-speakers who learn english late in life, he has trouble distinguishing and pronouncing vowels. (for the uninformed: there are exactly five vowels sounds in spanish - one for each letter. in english there are two primary pronunciations for each vowel letter, plus some minor variations, and then all of the possible vowel combinations (ei, ie, ai, etc) also have their own primary pronunciations - and of course the letter y complicates things. and then there are the exceptions to all of the above. yeah, english is effed up.)
as an aside: all of my students and potential students are a generation older than me. yeesh.
so juan and i chat about meeting times and agree to meet in the lounge next week, same day as i'm meeting ov. i'm a little intimidated, though, because juan already has a degree from nyu and is doing his post-bac at st. thomas and uh and st. mary's all at the same time, and he's a spanish/esl tutor. like, professionally. so i had to let him know that i've only been tutoring in this capacity for, um, three weeks, and i'm not sure how much help i can really be to him. but he's down with that, so we agree to meet.
and then i go home.
it was a very weird day.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-29 02:12 am (UTC)Well, think of it this way: MONEY!
YAY!...money?
I'm compiling a fanmix for Spn. DeanxCas (WHO YOU HAVEN'T MET YET GAH WHYWHYWHY?!)
DUDE. When I was done grabbing any/all songs that made me think of them I'd collected twenty songs. So...I will have a two-disc mix.
ME
no subject
Date: 2010-05-29 12:41 pm (UTC)