A NEW YEAR HAS DAWNED

It's the new year, everyone!!

Been so busy these past weeks. As expected. Mama's helper went home to the province for the holidays so I had to take care of chores around the house, not to mention attend to my family's needs so I was pretty much on my toes most of the time. Not that I mind.

Things are starting to slow down now that Christmas will be officially over on Wednesday. (Jan 6 in the Philippines marks the end of Christmas festivities, being the Feast of the Three Kings.) But I still have work tomorrow and from Tuesday til Thursday we'll be going to Palawan (woohoo!) and then Jan 8, Friday, Ruther will be flying back to Japan. Sad. So yeah, it'll still be pretty busy this week. But definitely exciting with the trip to Palawan... Can't wait!

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Work has been great! I started with 2 students. Ha Jung, a cute 8 year-old girl, is my 9-11 class. Chang Min, 12 years old, is my 11-12 class. Then last week, I was given another student, Hyung Jin, for my 8-9 class. So I have 3 students. The lessons are okay. I've learned to adjust to each student's personalities and quirks. Ha Jung is smart but get tired when I let her read all the time so we take shorts breaks in between readings. Chang Min always thinks his lessons are difficult (which in my opinion is somewhat advanced for him but we have to follow his reading material) so I have to create lessons or reviewers that are not too challenging for him and yet allows him to learn the vocabulary words. Hyung Jin is the smartest of the 3 but he's somewhat aloof and moody. The other day he refused to read the story he was supposed to learn. I would ask him questions and he would not say a thing. Finally, I asked him what the matter was and why he wasn't talking to me. He still didn't say anything. I prodded and told him we can't do lessons if he won't talk to me and finally he told me he was feeling hot in the room. I told him to tell me these things because it's not nice for him to ignore me like that. Sigh. I did not lose my temper or anything like that but the OC in me would want our lessons to be smooth-sailing, ya know? Anyway, I hope not to have episodes like that anymore in the future.

Going back to work, I find it nice and fun. I suppose that's probably because I decided to work part-time and this way, I'm not too stressed about lessons and I could focus on my 3 students very well. I guess I would want it to be like that. I want my work to be fun, especially since I would want to go home from work in a happy mood and not all cranky and surly. So yeah, I suppose this is a nice thing for me to do at the moment... :D

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So far the new year has turned out nicely. Ruther being home is a big part of it, naturally. I still don't know what's going to happen in the next few months, what more the rest of the year, but I hope that this year will be better than last year. If I could have that, then that would be enough for me.