Jimmy talked to me today and told me he had complaints from parents about me hugging the kids. I got a little defensive, unfortunately, as to me, it’s not a big deal. But I need to understand how the kids might feel if they are influenced by this culture and their parent’s understanding.

(Later) Fuck me, these kids drive me crazy. Fucking annoying obnoxious little brats.

What am I doing here? I feel like I’m wasting my time trying to teach them anything. Fuck – it was a bad day.

I felt a little better after looking at what I have prepared for them next week. I don’t know if things will go well enough but at least it has a little more structure than today. I need to try and concentrate on the ones who want to learn and ignore all the others.

I wish I could explain to the parents that their children (the ones who want to learn) are constantly held back by the rest of the class. I don’t know how much they would care. It’s a pointless thought anyway because it will never happen. So – I have to keep myself happy somehow and fuck everything else.

It’s not really contenting so I hope Amy and I can work out a way to get out of this position by developing our own classes – something that is somewhat fraught with danger due to work conditions.

Gratitude Journal

What a sunrise this morning. I am so happy and grateful to be able to view this every morning.

From commonplace book

…these fragments of musical expressions good as some of them were, stuck me as unpleasant because they were entirely unexpected and unprepared for. Gaiety, sadness, despair, tenderness, triumph burst upon the ear without any justification, just like the emotions of a madman. And, as with a madman, these emotions vanished just as unexpectedly.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, pg 789

To-do list

• Compliment everybody. ½
• What you read – read deeply.
• Write back to Lachlan. ✅
• Write to Kieran – anyone else?
• Look for nice things to do for others.
• Smile a lot – do not complain.
• Get books from Mohan.

I started today well by complimenting the teacher on gate duty. My first class went well too despite my initial worries.

Things got derailed from there though as Jimmy talked to me that a parent had called to complain that their daughter cried at home because I hugged her. Jimmy said not to touch the students or he didn’t know what would happen.

I put forward my case that it is my style and though I understood what he was saying that it could happen again. I know the benefit of hugs and haven’t come across any signs from the students that they are upset by it.

I tried to stay as neutral as I could but was infuriated, not listening or choosing to misunderstand me. I got annoyed when it looked to me as if he was pretending to take a phone call and just started talking to his phone, cutting off what I was saying.

I did notice myself quickly trying to think about the content of what he said and despite being a bit miffed I thought that I have to accept this if I want to stay working.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep it out of my mind and as I thought more I thought perhaps that no students had actually complained but that he (or another teacher) had made the complaint. This certainly made more sense in the context of the conversation as Jimmy was quite vague and evasive.

Still – there is the message that they want to give me either way.

I wrote out a few different thoughts and ideas and my approach at the moment is to push more to teaching students at home – no boss, no stupid systems to follow and kids actually interested to learn more. Teaching at home comes it’s own predicaments as it’s technically illegal without a work permit and I could get thrown out of the country. This left me anxious somewhat and unsure of which way to turn.

My thinking right now is to teach until the end of the semester and see where things are at. I feel like I have to be like a robot more now – which I think is what they want. Good little automatons that can be used when required.

My patience was tested and broke in my last class and that was quite upsetting but I have thought of a strategy to attempt to stop it from happening again. Let’s just hope it is acceptable.

I’m still thinking about all this so it’s not clear from my mind yet. I have the weekend to adjust.