My Job

I started working again about 6 weeks ago. I don't work a lot (about 15 hours a week), but it's at night, so it has completely thrown any schedule we did have completely out of whack. But, I really love my job and I think it is such a blessing in our life right now.

For a while, I had been thinking about getting a job on nights or weekends, when Jason is home, but I am a teacher and there aren't a whole lot of teaching jobs on nights and weekends. So, I feel very fortunate to have found this job. I teach English over the internet to kids in Korea. It is really cool how it all works out. I teach 14 classes a week right now and each class has, at most, 10 students in it. My students are ages 7-12. The classrooms are set up so that I can see all the students at the same time and they have a big screen so that they can see me. There is a Korean teacher in the room to help with discipline and translating when needed, but I am their main teacher. I love that I found a job that allows me to work at nights while my kids are both asleep AND teach. Right now, I have to go into the office to teach, but after another month or so I will be able to teach from home, so that will be even better. It has been really fun so far. The kids are great. The curriculum is really organized with lesson plans already prepared, but I can still add my own little games and personality to it. I'm excited to get teaching experience like this too as I think there will be more and more opportunities for online teaching in the future. It's definitely different than what I am used to because I am limited in the things I can do since I am not actually in the class with them. But, it's a fun challenge trying to think of fun interesting things to do and show them so they aren't just staring at my face the whole lesson. I'm amazed at how interactive I can still be. We play games all the time and I show pictures and objects and bring props. They really are a blast and they love every silly little thing that I can come up with. The technology is really amazing and I'm learning so much. Another thing I love is that from month to month, I can work as little or as much as I want. So, I can go down to one hour a week for a while to stay in the company, if needed.

Even though I really enjoy my job, it still has been a major adjustment for us. I don't get home until 3 or 4 in the morning most nights. Luckily, Jason works for himself, so he has started getting the kids up and ready and taking Britton to school at 9 on his way to work. That's when I usually get up to be with Haley. But, still that's a lot later than I used to get to sleep in. So far, it's working. I sometimes nap after Haley goes to school. Also, if I'm extra tired or know I have something important in the afternoon, Jason has been able to stay home all morning and be with Haley so I can sleep. One day my mom took Haley all morning so I could sleep too. So, I at least have options so that I can rest enough. It has really helped me be a lot more organized and prioritize my time a lot better. I have had to let go of a lot of things that I used to do so that I can get the day to day home things done. And then some days, nothing gets done because I choose to just sleep the whole 4 hours that Haley is at school. And that's okay.

Mostly, I'm just grateful that this job came along right at the perfect time.