A Year in the Life of a TEFL Teacher with Westies: First Two Weeks and I’m Still Standing….Just

My first week is down. I had wanted to give my immediate impressions of the week as it happened, but I was just too sick. My whole first week was marred by sickness and now my second week too. I suppose it is just my turn to be ill, but I will have to take it in hand.

Basically I crashed after week one. Week two has been a bit more structured and more fun, in spite of continuing diarrhoea and cramps.

All my anxieties had rested on my fear of being unprepared for classes. I never thought I would be battling volcanic upheavals in my netherparts as well. In fact I was fully prepared for all my classes as it turns out, with lesson plans, worksheets and games a-plenty and a couple in reserve as well. Some classes I got right, with others I missed the mark a bit, but that’s normal. You have to feel your way and get to know the kids anyway in the first couple of weeks. There is no sure-fire method of knowing how they are going to behave and interact before you meet them. Every lesson has its own dynamic also, even with the same kids. Some days they are in a good mood and on others they come with the devil inside…like the teachers I suppose.

I like the routine of school. I like to know that I have so many hours in the morning to do housework, shopping, devise games and activities and have fun with the Westies. When twelve noon strikes it is time to start the run-in to school. This consists of feeding the dogs and then me, resting up a little bit, showering and getting changed and doing any last minute bits and pieces to my lesson plans and activities. I usually sweep through the house then and collect all the rubbish from bathrooms, garden and kitchen. This gets dumped on the way to school. I’m out the door at 2.30.

I would like to say that I am slowly cranking back into gear. But teaching isn’t like that. You tend to go from nought to sixty within five seconds flat. There is no easing in gently.

Come Thursday (end of the week for us. Yay!) Beverley, (friend and colleague) suggested, or was it I? That we go for a glass of vino and a tapa or two to celebrate our first week down. This sounded like a wonderful idea, which it was. I had my two glasses of rather lovely wine and some rather less lovely tapas and we chatted for ages, sitting together in the square, which was positively burbling with life. Then we ambled back to mine to be met by gorgeous Westies, ecstatic to see me again, even though I had already nipped home before the drinkies to feed them and to let them out for a tinkle. Bev had a cup of tea and I had a pineapple juice with a shot of gin. After she left I poured another small drink, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I stayed up quite late watching reruns of Hawaii 5.0 and CSI Miami and so woke up late on Friday feeling slow, very slow. The plague I had been nurturing through the summer was reasserting itself though I didn’t quite realise it.

I have deleted further details of my stomach and its overactive workings to protect the innocent.

Week two was a good week and the cramps have subsided somewhat, though not completely. On the whole I am glad to be back and I will regain my saddle in time and get on top of my mysterious virus, doctor’s appointment has been made Helen (Mother)! Meanwhile I will keep my head down and just keep devising interesting strategies to try to get headstrong children to do what I want.

I will have a very quiet weekend, no socialising. Give the tum a good rest. Even though I am mostly vegetarian, tomorrow I will buy a chicken and make a big pot of chicken soup, like mama used to make. That will be my weekend diet and that should put paid to any lingering bugs.

Now what can I do with the left over boiled carcass from my broth? Where might I find someone to help with that.......?