28 students, 5 students, 1 student--no problem!

Today I seriously had a hard time waking up. Last night I set my alarm clock to 7:00 am. Surprisingly I managed to be half-awake at 6:59am and reset the clock to 8:00 am (which I then woke up at 7:59 am), yet it still wasn't enough for me but my conscience dragged me out of bed into the shower and out the door in 30 minutes. After taking the first few steps in today's below-30-degree-freezing-weather, I said to myself, "There better be more than one student today or..." I somehow didn't finish my thought and kept on walking to the bus stop.

You might be wondering what kind of class operates with only 1 student... Every other Friday or so, I teach English at a drop-in conversation class for adults at East Liberty. Well, the title of the class says it all--people drop in to study English and the number of people showing up for class really depends on many things. The harsh cold weather certainly affects the class' attendance. For the past 2 Fridays, it happened to be snowing and icy, and I had no more than 2 students in each class...

Student: We're like passengers here...

I couldn't stop thinking what my student said this morning, that she thought that they're (students) like passengers of a bus--"We don't stay here for long because someday we get off and move on..."
Is that so?

For the past couple of meetings, my students and I have been talking about the tentative times of when they would return to their country. I might have mentioned this in my previous note, at the moment I am teaching a group of spouses of graduate students of UPitt and CMU as well as wives of employees of multi-national companies in Pittsburgh. One of them has decided her departure date and I can tell that she has mixed emotions about leaving.

These spouses, including myself, know that living in Pittsburgh has never been a permanent thing, at least not for now. And we all know that someday, we all have to pack and say goodbye to Pittsburgh, a place where we all learned how to survive away from our family and close friends.

A present from students

I bet you teachers have a box at home or a designated corner at your desk to display presents you receive from students. I used to dedicate a wall to put up cards and pictures I got from my little friends. I still have a card from a little girl whom I taught in my first year of teaching--a picture of a woman wearing a crown and a girl rope-jumping with the huge colorful writing that says "Ms. Wulansari and Skye." :)

Well, having moved around so much, I couldn't always bring those treasures with me. When I was packing my stuff to bring to the States, I seriously wish I could compress the gifts in one of those vacuum traveled plastic bags :p

Due to the stupid immigration law of the States, I am not allowed to work. So here I am, school-less since I moved to Pittsburgh. I was pretty upset at the beginning, but I got over it as soon as I discovered different opportunities where I don't have to be student-less.

Since several weeks ago, I started tutoring at a night adult class where adults learn math, english and some other subjects to get their high school diploma. This organization that I work for is open to any adult who is interested in pursuing further education. They come at night to do self-study on topics that they have to work on for that week and a tutor is there to help--that's me! Some people come everyday, while others show up depending on their work schedule and family stuff. So far, I really enjoy this particular tutoring experience because I am required to know "everything"--one minute I might be studying fraction with a student, the next minute I would be helping a student with her reading comprehension, and at the end of the class time, I would end up with a student trying to polish her creative writing piece.

Ok back to the present topic...