A Day in the Life of a 40 Year-old TEFL Teacher

 

textbooks, cookbooks, laptop, star pants. very typical day

Last week I gave my students an assignment to write a blog about their daily lives while studying in Dublin. I showed them my "Day in the Life" blog from when I was living in Thailand. I then launched into an impromptu lecture about how we shouldn’t only capture the “great moments” —adventures, parties, and milestones--but that we should also record what our average day is like so that when we reread it, we are transported back in time. When I reread my "Day in the Life" blog from November of 2012, I can smell the sea air, the complexity of the curry, and the ever so musty damp smell of some of the classrooms. I see the students in their pressed white shirts and black trousers or skirts. I sea the greenish blue sea outside the classroom window. I hear the “sawadee ka’s” and motorbikes and tuk-tuk horns. I taste the chillies and cheap beer. I’m there.

So now that my life has fallen into a comfortable, stable rhythm here in Dublin, I’d like to do the same because who knows how long everyday will be like this one.



O'Connell Street art

 The Day Begins

I awaken at 5:00 am and trudge to the living room in my soft and yet to be washed turquoise robe with big blue stars. The seagulls seem to be in a drunken rage and the drunks are cooing to one another on the street below. I make my instant coffee, thinking as I do every day, that I should take the extra three minutes to make a quality cup with the caffeterria I bought in Bologna. I sit down and torture myself by looking at facebook. In the span of 15 minutes, I am disgusted, amused, and bored senseless. I no longer even look at memes.

At 5:30, I either run or plan my classes for the day. In the last year, I’ve experienced running in total darkness in winter, to midday like sunshine in summer. The extremity of the length of days in Ireland has been quite an adjustment. I run on busy streets to avoid being raped, mugged, or murdered, knowing full well that there’s a higher statistical probability that I’ll be hit by a car, bus, or the LUAS.

part of the morning run, often accompanied by the smell of roasted barley

After the run, I make my second cup of coffee and say good-bye to S as he heads to the gym. I quickly get ready, somehow always seem to be putting on my shoes at exactly 7:20. I put on a podcast (BBC, Freakonomics, Radiolab, WTF, etc). If I’ve run and/or the weather is crap, I walk to the bus stop on O’Connell Street, passing hordes of tourists who are queueing for various excursions in Ireland.  I try not to scowl at them. If the weather is nice as it was this entire past summer, I walk 45 minutes to the schwanky southside Dublin 6, where people drive Porsches and send their kids to private boarding schools. The difference between Dublin 1 and Dublin 6 can easily be seen by just looking at mothers and their prams. In Dublin 6, coifed hair, coordinating gym gear, expensive runners. Dublin 1, severe make-up, cigarette in one hand, and a lot of loud shouting (while pushing said pram).

view when crossing from north side to the south side

My school is in a lovely old Georgian house and nearly every classroom has a fireplace. Walking up the stairs, you can hear the creaking of decades-old wooden stairs. I’m always one of the first to arrive. I make my copies, go to my room, and run through the lesson in my head. Most teachers stroll (or rush) in at about 8:55. This goes against the grain of my Midwestern upbringing. Even living in Thailand didn’t beat the punctuality out of me.



my first classroom was the little one on the far left

Behind the old and lovely Georgian house is a modern building with more classrooms. This is where my first class is. From 9:00-11:00, I teach grammar. My current class is Intermediate Level and has a mix of East Asian, South American, and Saudi students. I adore them. Sometimes the dynamic of a class is just perfect and it’s actually a joy to teach. Just for fun, I’d like you to imagine how you’d explain when you use "the" and when you use "a/an". Just try. If it makes you want to stab your forehead with a fork then you know how some days are for me….



staff battle for a place to sit in the staff room

At 11:00 we have a break. The staff room is located off the main house and is the size and shape of a single trailer. It’s a narrow and cramped space and you can’t walk 5 feet without running into a person, chair, or bookshelf. This makes me feel nuts, so I usually go to my next classroom and just enjoy a bit of solitude and quiet. I try to make up for my anti-social behaviour at lunch, but not sure how gregarious I am there either. I’m just an introvert and I’ve found that not only can I not change my spots, I’m not sure I even want to. For the first few months, I found I could barely follow the conversations about world politics, film, books, theatre, and football (no surprise there). The teachers at my school seem to be mutant hybrids of academic scholars and pop culture experts.I often felt my brain was overloaded. I hadn’t had this level of workplace banter in years due to being the only native speaker where I was teaching.



how I feel amongst my brainiac cultured colleagues

The second class involves more speaking, listening, and vocabulary. Students generally regard this as the “fun” class, but I try to make my grammar classes and after break classes equally stimulating. By 1:00, we’re all starving but push through to 1:20 and lunch time. We have a canteen at our school where you can fill up a small plate for 4 euro with a lot of delicious looking things like pasta, ribs, potatoes, salad, sausages, etc. But in the one year I’ve worked at the school, I’ve never gotten food from there. I bring leftovers from what I cooked the night before. For two reasons: One, it’s cheaper and allows me to spend more money at the weekend and two, my leftovers are small portions which allows me to control some of my calorie intake. However, Nighttime Erika is such a bastard to Lunchtime Erika when it comes to putting part of the dinner away for the next day.



Lunchtime E will be lucky to get one meatball

After lunch, there are sometimes additional classes available to teach such as General English/Culture or IELTS. At the moment I’m teaching an IELTS group T-Th and though the extra prep makes for a long day, they’re a good group of 4 and the extra money is being squirrelled away for a holiday.



next trip: Lyon, France

At 4:15 I either dash out the door to catch the bus or take my time walking home. I listen to a podcast and try not to let my mind wander too much about what I’m going to cook for dinner or what I’m going to teach the next day. I’ve been trying to improve my listening skills. I heard in a TED lecture that people whose minds wander generally tend to be unhappy.

Every day I go to Moore Street, Tesco, or one of the many Asian food shops to get some things to make dinner. I know that most normal people do all their shopping at the weekend or in some cases, order their shopping on-line and have it delivered (this is way too weird for me). I like to be surrounded by colourful food and inhale the aromas of produce and spices. It calms me. Someday I’ll do a whole other blog about my culinary creations and adventures.

At home, if it’s not a gym day, the best moment of the day is removing the bra and changing into my "star pants" and t-shirt. If it is a gym day, I begrudgingly put on the gear and go to sweat it out amongst the thin-legged and oversized-armed boys. Back at home, I plan for the next day and then head into the kitchen for a little meditation and wine. Somewhere in there, S arrives home after his long 9:45-5:45 day. When dinner is ready, we eat while streaming The Daily Show, Colbert, or more recently, John Oliver’s new show. If an addictive series is on like Mad Men, Game of Thrones, or Orange is the New Black, we watch the latest of that. Then it’s back to work planning or for me usually, off to bed. Sadly, I go to bed about 8:30 to read or look at cookbooks and drift off around 9:00 or 9:30. Since I started running so early, I’ve no problems falling asleep. Sleep is a delicious, beautiful part of my day.
 

The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make in living in an English-speaking country other than trying to actually have intellectual conversations and not having a cat, is working a full Monday to Friday workweek. Looking back at my “Day in the Life” blogs doesn’t elucidate what I did with all my extra free time. Whereas before Saturday was just another day when I may or may not be teaching, now it is the weekly pot of gold at the end of tiring rainbow. The Weekend. The Days of Hedonism. Ah, another blog someday just for that.



getting served pate. a lot more delicious than it looks