Tutoring

Since I quit my "real" job last September (well, officially, last July, but my last day of work was the end of September), I've been doing two things to make money-ish (I say "-ish" because I don't make more than $10/hour at either job, which hardly brings my "work" into the realm of making money). I work for the campus webmasters as an "accessibility consultant" (more about that excruciatingly boring job later), and I also tutor. Online. For people that I've never met before, know virtually nothing about -- not even their names -- for no longer than 40 minutes. I tutor in three areas -- English, essay writing, and career help.

It's an interesting job in many respects, although like most jobs, it has its share of pure, unmitigated frustration and moments of really quite exceptional anger, which sometimes even borders on rage. For the most part, however, it's fairly enjoyable, and certainly always a learning experience. It gives me an invaluable chance to peep into people's lives and psyches, if only for a minute, and reminds me of what it was like to be a teacher. (Yes, a long time ago, back in the dark days (okay, um, three-and-a-half years ago), I was a teacher for a brief-lived period of truly terrible time. I taught sophomore English. Never again.) When I was a teacher, it was shocking to me how intimately you become involved in your students' lives, even when you never meant to, and they never meant you to. The simplest English essay reveals scads about a person's character, things you'd never think would be revealed that way.

And it's the same with this job. Even though I never know the person's name with whom I'm working (and really, what's in a name?), only have the vaguest notion of their age (we're given the grade level of the student, so we can address them appropriately -- obviously you can't talk to a third-grader the way you would a college student, and that is definitely the age spectrum I encounter on a daily basis), and am given their state, so I have a general idea of their location, I find that by the end of the session -- even if the session only involves me reading their essay -- I know far more about them than they'd be comfortable with me knowing. I mean, who knew that spelling, punctuation, and diction could be so revealing? It's not just the topics on which they write, or the opinions they express, or the creative energy they put (or don't put) into their essays -- it's little things, like using one preposition for another, which gives their location identity far more successfully than the little "MA" or "CA" or "WA" that appears on their avatar. Their income, class, race -- yes! -- and other characteristics are often very easy to determine, too. It is truly much, much more interesting than I had thought possible.

When I began tutoring, I did it because I'm damn good at my subject (no, really, I am -- no false modesty here), and because I knew it would be pretty easy. I also thought it would probably be good practice for my future plans (which involve a Ph.D. and therefore teaching at some level). What I didn't realize was that it would challenge me, that I would find it fascinating, and that I would be deeply satisfied at the end of a tutoring session. That, more than anything, is what keeps me going back to it, and that is what makes me wish I could do that full-time, and bugger my "consultant" job. I've always, always, always felt that in order for any job that I do to be a worthwhile job, and a fulfilling job, it has to be a job that helps someone. It can't be a job that doesn't matter -- and this consultant job really doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of things. It's what kept me at my previous job for so long, and that truly was a situation from HELL. It was because I was doing something that mattered, that wasn't just pen-pushing. Of course, I have to like what I'm doing, but I've discovered that a not insignificant fraction of liking what I do is doing something that really helps someone.

The other fascinating part of it all is the fact that it really does challenge me. It makes me question -- almost minute-by-minute -- what it is I know about my subject, which is not something I had expected in the slightest. But when you have people coming to you with questions about things half-forgotten, and you have to be able to competently guide them through all the intricacies of language or essay-writing or grammar usage, you remember very, very quickly (and sometimes with the help of teh interweb). For example, I had a student come to me with questions about diagramming sentences. Now, I haven't diagrammed sentences since high school (which was over ten years ago . . . oh, GOD, I'm old), but I remember that I loved it then -- I seem to remember it being like a great puzzle. But this student put the questions up on the "board", and it immediately came flooding back. Of course, what came flooding back were the basic principles, not the more complex twists and turns, and naturally, that's what the student had questions about. So, can I just recommend, for anyone who wants a crash course in diagramming sentences, the web site http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm? It kinda saved my butt there.

And you know, it isn't enough to just know what you know. It's a whole different can of tomatoes (?) when you have to explain -- coherently and logically -- what you know to someone who doesn't give a toss or is totally confused and lost or wasn't paying attention in class and now has homework due and is panicking because they don't know what the hell they're supposed to be doing. And it's not just doing the work for them. It's explaining the concepts to them so they can do the work -- successfully -- and it's explaining the concepts to them in a way that even a toe-rag could understand (yeah, isn't that a great epithet?). It's breaking down your knowledge molecule by molecule, atom by atom, until you've found something they can understand, and then building it all back up again until they're in possession of some compound that they can use. It's almost intoxicating when it works.

Anyone, enough of the high-horse discourse. What I meant to say is that when I'm tutoring, I'm really discovering so much about people, and it never ceases to amaze me how people in a group infuriate me to degrees that it is difficult to express, but that individually they have the ability to touch me so deeply it brings tears to my eyes (yes, I've cried once or twice during a session). People are funny creatures, aren't they? Bloody buggers. . . .

The Beginning at the End

As my life has changed substantially in the last seven months or so, it seems appropriate to abandon all prior attempts to rationalize my old life, and begin trying to understand my new one. Of course, despite the beginning of the new life, much of it is still in limbo at present, which accounts for the title of the blog. I haven't yet determined in which direction I wish to, er, direct my life, and I'm hoping that in this blog I can begin to figure these things out.

Furthermore, as the title also indicates, I've decided that it is time to finally take my writing seriously. I have four chapters of a book just sitting there, waiting for me to finish it, and I've had this book just sitting there for almost five years now (God, is it really five years?). So, I have a goal: to write at least 500 words a day, whether it is for the book, or for this blog. I have no idea what form these words will take, but I imagine it will be personal exploration, external observations, and bits and pieces of creativeness that float through my mind. It'll be interesting to see how it all develops, but the point is, at least I'll be writing again.

So, now what? I don't know. . . . I suppose I should say something about what has changed in my life. Where to start? I guess with the biggest change: divorce. I'm getting divorced. After eight years of marriage, and ten years of a relationship, I'm getting divorced. I have to say that, one year ago, this was really the last thing on my mind. I had wanted so much to make things work with my husband, and had even started a blog to track my resolutions . . . and one of those resolutions was to be a better wife. And then . . . what happened? What ever happens? Why does one decide that life would really be better without a particular person, when all you'd ever thought about was how life would be -- the rest of life -- with that particular person?

Of all the decisions I've made in my life, this is one that I know is right, yet wish so, so much that it weren't. I wish more than anything that this decision weren't the right one, yet every time I think about what led to the decision, I am entirely convinced that it was the right thing to do. But the pain that has attended that decision is enough at times -- many times -- to make me call into question the rightness of the decision. That I have severed a bond that was so many years in the forging, and that was so central to the shaping of my character and personality and self as it was -- in so many ways it's like I've severed part of myself. Like I looked at my right leg one day and said, "Yes, you're useful, and I'm not sure how I'm going to get along without you, but I don't think we should be together anymore, because we just aren't working."

I know the question -- why did I make the decision? For reasons that I could not possibly go into here, no matter who never reads this blog, it was clear to me that neither of us were good for each other, and that neither of us were making the other one happy. And isn't that what it's all about? Happiness? I mean, I'm not sure, when I look at the future, what I'm going to do without him -- I really don't know, and it terrifies me beyond belief to think of it -- but when we were together, we weren't happy. Because of a strange historic accident, as John Cleese would say, we met, and we found each other, and found immense joy and happiness in each other for a time, and helped each other, and helped each other become the people we are today, but also hurt each other irreparably, so that we are where we are now.

I sometimes think of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The movie might seem ridiculous to some, but I understand it, because I feel that if we were to have our minds erased, we'd keep finding each other, again and again and again. Would we be doomed to be continually unhappy? That I don't know. But I also don't know how my life will work without him. It has to, though, because if it doesn't, then I'll have made the worst decision of my life, and I can't believe that it was the worst decision of my life, but I'm almost 100% certain (call it 99.99%) that it was the right decision.

Bugger all this. I'm about 300 words over my goal, and all I've done now is depress myself.