The Final Goodbye

It's my last night tonight. I had a lesson with Miss Kei. It is also our very last lesson together. When I told her that I was quitting, she immediately sent an e-mail to our office and said that they should stop me from quitting. How sweet of her...

And now I am quitting. She normally doesn't turn on her video. Since it is the last night together, she opened her video when we were saying goodbye. She was teary eyed.

I will miss her-- Miss Kei. I will also miss other students: Mr. Yoh, Miss Lin, Miss Ellen, Miss Eri, Miss Miyo, Mr. Mits, Mr. Ats, Miss Masumi, and many more! I will also miss my other co-teachers. Though actually, I'm only acquainted with some. I will miss this job. A home-based job, a comfortable job but not a ho-hum.

Tomorrow is the real world. I've felt it already but I will feel more of it. Goodbye....

Good Bye Another Time

If you have read my previous posts, you will know that I will leave this home-based online English teaching job very soon. I will end on the 9th of this month. It's next Monday already. I still teach for the remaining lessons which are very few already.

And I guess, with my resignation as a home-based online English teacher, this blog will come to an end soon also...

It's sad to say good bye but I have too.

More Goodbyes

Yesterday, I received more goodbye messages and wishes from my avid students. Let me share it here. One of my student, Mr. Yoj, told it to me in person during our last lesson yesterday. He said:

Today is the last day... I should say something. Thank you for the lessons. You are one of my favorite teachers. Ganbatte for new job.

The rest are already through chat message.

I got your message. I'm sad but at the same time I'm glad to know you could find another job. Your experience at GNA will help you with your job. I was really happy to talk with you in the lessons.
See you someday. Thank you a lot. --Miss Ellen

It's surprising for me to resign you GNA. I hope you will be happy. Thank you for every lessons. good-bye. ;(---- Miss Masumi 

Thank you for your message.I'm very sad not to see you anymore.I'm very happy to meet you.Good luck and see you in somewhere in the world!--- Miss Miyoko 

Thank you for your good-bye message! I really enjoyed with your lesson. I miss you. I hope your good future, Thank you so much, again.---From my newest student, Miss Kayoko 

Oh... I will miss being a Home-based English Teacher.

Goodbye Again

Unfortunately or fortunately, it's not my last of my teaching nights yet. The management would not let me go handling too many replacement of reservation in their hands. I have to help with that too because my offer has been very abrupt.

Anyway... I have told some students about my resignation. Most of them are sad. Some teachers who are also close to me are also sad about the sudden news.They knew from the students whom I sent a message to. I will miss them all!

Some students whom I gave messages replied to me. Fortunately that the first class doesn't have any students so I was able to cater all questions, students and co-teachers alike. Let me post some of their sad replies with my aliases for them:

I miss you I sent a mail to CNA..".I have a question. Does teacher Zed will leave GNA? I'm very shock! Please stop! She is a good teacher."I don't want to say good-bye.But I had no chice. I waiting for next lesson.--Miss Kei

ohh, I am so sad to hear that ;(.   in the other hand what winderful news to hear you have a new job, I am also very happy to hear that, congratulations !!! (F)--Miss Lin

hi! Congratulations! (clap)However, I am slightly lonely. ;(Please try even the next job hard. Please take care.thank you. (bow) :D (highfive)-- Mr. Melancholic Eyes.

Thank you for your message.
I was surprised that you would leave GNA suddenly.
I have always enjoyed your kind lesson and thanked your friendly personality.
I wish your success in your new job.
I will miss you. --Miss Eri.

I guess I can expect more of this.  Miss Kei's message hit me hard. I hope to see them, somehow.

Goodbye...

today is my last day as an HBOET. unfortunately? there were only two close students i have. i told them my resignation. ms.miu said she will miss me. that was very sweet. mr.ats gave his facebook acct
so i added him. i will miss both of them. for the others... i sent them s message in skype. i said goodbye to ms.aika too via her email.

i'm always bad at saying goodbye but i have to.

posted from Bloggeroid

A Student Cried

I rarely talk about my personal stories with my students, unless they ask me too. I also don't ask about their personal stories and they don't open about it. Some would not just mind and are curious to know some little personal things about their teacher and some would also share about themselves, even complaints.

I just remembered that last night's lesson was the first time for me to talk about a personal story about my Dad. The student somehow asked if what kind of a man is my father and I said that my father is already dead. She was surprised and asked why and how. So I told her about it. And it made her cry.... Good thing that her video wasn't on because if it was, I would cry with her too.

A Very Insightful Message

I have a student who is a volunteer worker in their local library.  I asked her about her job and good thing, she was enthusiastic enough to share about it. I told her that I envy her.

A part of me wanted to be a librarian. For the fact that I just wanted to sit around and check all the books. And also to work with books and be with books Mondays to Fridays. I guess I can say that I am more in love with books than with humans. From a bird's eye view,  but in reality, it's not. Being a librarian is actually a science.

So, when I told my student that I envy her work as a librarian, she told me, "You should have taken the librarian license?" And there was an eye opener for me.

A New Picture

After a year and so, I changed me profile picture in Skype.

And I got nothing but good praises about it. What do you think?

Annoyed

I don't know I've written something like this... but here it goes.

A student stressed me out a lot today. I thought we will have a fun lesson together but in the end, it came for the worse. I guess she was not that as enthusiastic as before. Perhaps, I have forgotten how irritable she is when she can't get what the words mean. Or maybe I expected so much of her because I know she knows a lot of words and reads between the lines and can understand even the strangest expressions. As always, in the end, she apologizes about that. But the hurt has already been inflicted.

I got annoyed. I almost lost my cool. I believe I have forgotten about handling those kinds of people.
And maybe, after a year and six months of teaching, I still don't know how to teach. Sigh.

I guess I do.

I am now on the point where I am to lax in my job--where the room of improvement is there but I'm not budging any step to take initiative and do it. I have gotten to lazy, pre-occupied of some thoughts. I was very different when I was just starting out as an HBOET. There was a drive to be better but now, I don't know.

There is something wrong with my outlook and there is something wrong now on how I look on things. I guess I need help on how to do this improvement. Another job perhaps? Or maybe teaching in our company office? I don't know. I'm constricted with my time and my mind wants to stay in this constricted mind.

No Voice

I am not working today because I got sick. I got colds and I lost my voice--the worst thing could happen. I don't mind getting sick as long as I can work. But work without the voice, that's a different story and it is one of the bread and butter of my work as a HBOET. Sigh.

I guess, I shouldn't complain. I can enjoy this extra holiday! :D

August Holidays

The staff posted the approved holidays for the month of August and it is my favorite month! One, it is my birth month. And two, August has a lot of holidays!

APPROVED HOLIDAYS for the month of August 2012
AUGUST 20 =  EID UL FITR  [ Legal Holiday ]
AUGUST 21 =  Ninoy Aquino Death Anniversary [ Special non-working Holiday]
AUGUST 24 =  KADAYAWAN [Davao Holiday - Special non-working Holiday but Tentative might change date]
AUGUST 27 =  National Heroes Day [ Legal Holiday]

Before I don't post the approved holiday schedules here in this blog but now, my notepad information has a lot of information of already. I'm too tired to scroll down or hit find. Sometimes, it doesn't find the right things or it shows a lot of unrelated things. I guess it's better here and you can see our Davao holidays too.

By the way, what's your favorite month?

A Present From Japan With ♥

Oh my! Today, I just received the parcel from my student. She sent me a Totoro Towel. How nice of her!

See, it really is from Japan!

My student lives in Osaka. Of course, the specific address is smudged for the privacy. ^_^

She put it inside a very cute box too. She said that she's going to put it in a tissue box. I guess this is not a tissue box. 

She put a note also. It said: 

Teacher Zed ♥ 

Thank you very much for teaching me English very well. I really like your lessons!!

Aika.

P.S. I hope you'll like it. :)

The towel is inside this lovely bag. I felt I was opening one of those Russian dolls.

See the embroidery? How can I possibly use this? 

A happy face.

I'm still speechless up to now, I don't know what to say or to say thank you. Hmmm.... I'm thinking of sending something Filipino to her too.

Sigh For The Rain

It's June again... time for the torrential rains to start. I suppose, it already has started at the end of May. For online jobs, I believe rain means intermittent connection, slow connection, choppy calls, or no connection at all. I believe I can also say that it applies both to wired and wireless connections. 

I just had a share of mishaps in my schedule. Since we had bad weathers, I experience such and sometimes to a point where my lessons had to be replaced because of a bad connection. 

Internet connection is a very important tool when working online. It is the base of your bread and butter. No internet connection= no work= no pay. It is very different here in the Philippines. As would some people say, internet connection here is like a dial-up connection in first-world countries.  Unless, you would want to pay a hefty price for your sole internet connection. It's impractical for home users to pay such.

We're strongly considering now to change our provider. But we cannot just do that since I don't want to be absent even for a couple of days. Sigh.

If you think working online and home-based doesn't give you any stress, sometimes it can. 

Thoughts.

My last post was ages ago, right? I'm getting too lazy and pre-occupied with other things that make me not to care about posting something here. Oh well... excuses as you might say. 

Anyway, I mentioned from my last post about one of my avid students. Apparently he did not leave our online school. He said he misses us, his favorite teachers, so he's not going to quit. That's one good news! Another good news is that, he just found a job as taxi driver and he doesn't like it. Too bad but he doesn't have much of choice because he is already way beyond his younger years.

 He realized that it was a bad move for him to quit his previous job. He quit because he's getting too tired doing the same thing. Now, he's going to be a taxi driver and it's way too unrelated with his previous or his skills. He doesn't have much of a choice now since he has been rejected by some of the companies he had been interviewed with. I guess this is his last choice. I just hope him for the best with this new career.

Regarding to me... I don't have much of a news, I guess. As everyday unfolds, I'm beginning to dislike my schedule. I start late which gives me the chance to spend a lot of time with my baby and do things I'm supposed to do. But I end late and that makes me stay up late quite longer than before. It's tiring and sometimes the reservations don't come a lot. I'm now hoping for a better and different job. If that's the end of it all, I won't be posting here anymore....

I'm just ranting out of my head here right now. I haven't organized the things I learned so far because of the laziness. I hope I can reorganize and hope to share it with you. :)

Bitter Sweet

Hi! Nice to see you again! Maybe you'd think that I have resigned from being an home-based English teacher or HBOET already. Fortunately, not yet. I'm still here! I have just been lazy or there isn't any news to share lately, good or bad. Well not today. :)

On the lighter note

So today is the second day of the second half of the Golden Week in Japan. The first half started last April 28th until April 30th. The second half started yesterday, May 3rd, until this Sunday. The Golden Week is a (sometimes) week long holiday in Japan because it consists of national holidays consecutively and sometimes happen in a week, including Saturday and Sunday. It's a good chance for Japanese to travel, relax, and take lessons on the Golden Week. It's a good chance for teachers too because there are a lot of reservation in these days.


On the darker one

I have lost another avid student again. He is a beginner student but has a great enthusiasm when learning English. He struggles sometimes when talking but he always say the English is a hobby for him and enjoys it. He was always kind of down during his last days in our online school. His last day in our online school was on the 30th (of April) and he said that he would be back after everything is fine.


The Golden Week is ending. A student leaves... and another student comes. Let me tell more about it soon. :) This is it for today.

Happy April Fools...

It feels like ages since I wrote something. It's already April and inspiration and some news just came up to me. Have I been busy? No. I was just lazy and was catching up with finishing my favorite American series. And yes, to reiterate, inspiration just came to me.

I guess I mentioned this before... I changed my schedule to a later one. I thought I could get more reservations than my second changed schedule but I was kind of wrong. I still have the average vacant two spots on most days.

Recently, it got worse for the love of humanity. I get more unreserved slots on most days. Though, my night schedule always is full booked. It makes me sad. Like what I mentioned before, no reservation, no pay.

This is like mediocrity...

New Sched Again!

I have a new schedule again!

I start late and end late now. I start at 1630 JPT and end on 2200 JPT. It's a very laid-back schedule because it gives my more time to do all the things I want before the lesson. But, I already get sleepy and sooo hungry when 2100 strikes.

For the compensation part, hmmm, it seems the same with the last schedule though. But I hope there would be some improvements.

The good thing about this schedule is that I can meet my old students before and get to know some more! There are more men in the late schedule hehehe.

I guess I'm loving it. XD

You Look Good!

Recently, I have been putting my bangs up before it's getting longer. And because, I don't wash my hair everyday. LOL. When I do pin my bangs up, I get compliments from students. ^_^

Sometimes, it cannot be helped for us to get comfortable with the students. Especially those who always reserve us for their lessons. It's an icing on the cake to get compliments, especially if they empathize with your feelings. Of course, we're teachers, we still need to observe professionalism and not let our emotions rule out our lessons.