A Week from hell

My part time job seemed to take on new meaning this week, which was our service week back to the grindstone prior to the opening of school. I am the ESL coordinator for our college, and the week was full of plenty of activity, mostly taking up much more than a part time job would normally take.

It started Monday with two new teachers coming in for orientation. Syllabi, tours of the campus, paperwork, meeting other staff members, we worked on things together for an entire day. The next day, was the same.

Wednesday, somehow I managed to come in at 9 and leave near noon, to prepare myself physically for the M & M's who would be coming to stay with me Wednesday night. Then Thursday, we met our new students from SE Asia.

It was a marathon day, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 when I returned home. We met the students, graded their writing, interviewed them and placed them in their classes. The program on my campus (one of three participating in this program) is small, and finding classes to place them in was a challenge. What really made this difficult is that most of them are very accomplished as English speakers, readers and writers, so my class that was supposed to have 15 in it ballooned to 28 very quickly.

But Friday was the biggest challenge of all--spliting this group into two sections and then finding a teacher to actually teach the session. So far, no luck! Then at three o'clock came the news that one of my teachers might not have the necessary paperwork in order to be hired! What else can go wrong?

I am in awe of my department chair, who faces these issues every semester, and after many years at the helm, he is very cool at this time of year. I guess he knows that this too will pass, and it will all work out OK.

At this time, my anxiety level cannot see that it will be OK. I'm not sure how this will work out. So, all you 7.2 million unemployed people out there, is there an ESL writing teacher among you who would like a job from 8-10:30 two days a week? You'd have a great person to work with (me!) and you'd love the students. All I have to do is find that needle in the haystack, and I have one long holiday weekend in which to do it. 8:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, we need to be on the job!