Teaching English

I started teaching English to adults last month while the boys are at daycare, a perfect job for me right now. I'm able to teach from home, over the phone. No dressing up, no traffic, no gas, no make up, no shower. Perfect for a mother of twins. For the ten minute break between classes, I'm able to do all the menial tasks that I hate...the daily emptying of the dishwasher, the daily washing and drying and folding of little clothes, the daily preparation of making sure a meal is ready for 5 and then another ready for 8. My students get an hour a week, spread out into 20 or 30 minute classes 2/3 times a week.

You get to learn a lot about people when you teach another language because you're always using the other person's life experience to build the vocabulary and conversation. Like Isabelle, that never fulfilled her life-long dream of being an architect because she dropped out of school to take care of her dying mother. And Sylvie, a member of the International Lego Association, with her 40,000 legos, that sleeps next to her end tables made of legos. There's also Luc, my philosophical contractor, talking each day on his cell phone in between job sites. He's just finished the Secret, recently translated into French, and now he's on a mission to have me using it as well. I'm the teacher and he's giving me the homework. My life sentence declaring what I want for myself is due Tuesday.