Greetings, dear reader, from a swelteringly hot dc. The first few days of my trip were about 100° Fahrenheit which translates to about 37 or 38°, which is not normal, even for the district. I’ve been trying to find inventive ways to get around in that heat but only managed to give Uber quite a bit of money over the week. But transport has been like that since I left the Netherlands. I booked a bulkhead seat on the trip to the US and back as well. And paid for them. But my trip going to the US had me in the very last aisle seat in the very last row of the plane. On the bright side, I was near the bathroom. Not so bright side, I was near the bathroom and the galley. I don’t think I’ve ever sat in the last row of an airplane. I was able to feel every swing of the plane. It was okay in the air and at takeoff. But the landing was another story entirely. It was rough in the way that roller coasters are rough. And while we weren’t screaming like we would on a roller coaster there was this one time (not at band camp) when some people did. I would have found this fun if I was five, I think. But I’m not sure because the 6-year-old who was sitting next to me was absolutely terrified and it was her first time on a plane. When we touched down the landing was rough and I have never felt a plane swerve as much as this plane did on the runway. It felt like the airline pilot was a Formula One driver with much less expertise. Thankfully all is well that ends well, but I hope to never sit in the back of the plane ever again.
It’s been a little bit difficult trying to get into the swing of things in terms of the work that I’ve been assigned from The English Center. I am in charge of answering vague inquiries on the website, which means any variation of “I want to learn English”. I’m also in charge of telling foreign students that we cannot help with a Visa or by extension housing in the Netherlands. Where this becomes a problem is when the person coming into the Netherlands has bought such a big package that The English Center takes it upon itself to say “Hey we can help you look for housing”. I find it’s best to leave The English Center to deal with all of that. I find that The English Center has a tendency to go beyond its own policies when the package is big enough. The third thing that I’m supposed to be doing beyond my typical scheduling and room booking work is making sure that people pay for and get access to the Oxford online placement test. It’s a $30 test and so when someone sends a request I have to send them a form letter saying “If you want to take the test please pay for it first”. Once they confirm they’ll pay for it I have to coordinate with Finance to actually have them get a invoice out to the customer. And then I have to get the test taker credentials and make sure they take the test and get the results, which I did for the first time on Thursday. While it was complicated, I do love it when teachers write directions because when teachers write directions they are clear and concise. Still, it was a little bit stressful because the people that I need to ask questions of are all away.
I also had to have a second meeting with Enigmart over the website because they couldn’t get access. I guess they changed the domain name server protocols on their end and that caused a problem for my own website. Which is still not up. I had hoped to start advertising in August because the private teaching market seems to follow the academic year. Adults can’t learn a language if their kids are at home. So the summer tends to be a little bit slow and then the fall ramps up to quite a bit of business. It may take more time than that but I figured that starting the advertisements in July or August would have been an ideal time but I’m dependent on other people so I’m dealing with their schedule. I will keep you posted. As soon as I know you will too.
The trip to DC has been extremely tiring it’s been a whirlwind of seeing some friends, seeing my sister more, and waking up every morning at 5:00 to do some work. Essentially it means that I’ve been passing out this whole week at 9:00 p.m. I am looking forward to being home in the Netherlands, though I am not looking forward to the overnight flight to get me there. There were lots of high points to the trip but there were a couple of low points as well. I lost my Kindle this trip and had to replace it and a pair of headphones. I also got caught in a terrible thunderstorm on Saturday. It was Hurricane force winds for about 15 minutes and I came home soaking wet. I mean the kind of wet where everything squelches, (shoes and handbag) while the clothes I was wearing were linen and so took 20 minutes to take off and ring out. The storm had rain that pelted you at a 30 to 40° angle and I had to dodge some flying tree debris and some lightning that got really close. It was a pretty scary quarter of an hour but I made it back to Jasper’s parents and took it easy. Needless to say this afternoon, I’ll be sitting at Dulles Airport, probably having some wine and browsing duty-free which is way worse than European duty-free. Next Tuesday I’ll be coming to you from the Netherlands.
That’s All she wrote for this Inkreadable installment but stay tuned. As always, there’s more to come.