The Chinese class has gone half. I felt quite exhausted. As there were no text book or any hands-on teaching materials that we can use straight away, each time before the class I need to prepare the stuff myself. Sometimes there is quite a lot of work to do. And, I can’t ignore it like what I did during my student time. I have 15 students looking at me in the classroom and they are ready to get something from me. It’s not the case that I was one of 45 students in a Chinese classroom and whatever I do would not really matter to other people anyway.

Also, I am a 35 hours/per week full time working woman and an almost 24/7 housewife at home. Most of my spare time after the work, I need to cook, clean, wash up, etc. Generally speaking, I only have very limited time left for myself each day, where I use it to have a shower, do a bit of grooming (no more than 15 minutes per day) in front of the mirror, knit a couple rounds while watching the telie and sleep at night. Well, if you insist asking me why I can’t make best use of these only left personal time to do something, I would not argue with you. But I will never give them away, as I know, if I did, I would almost be living out a life nearly being inhuman.

So when the friends who initially invited us to teach Chinese at Erindale rang and asked if we can start another class called Chinese for Business for next semester, I was really worried. I really don’t have time to start over to prepare some new materials for a new course at all. If they asked me keep doing the same course, I probably would do it, because for the second time, it would be much easier as I will have all the stuff ready and the time spent on preparing the class this time would be saved. But a new course？Let’s forget about it. I don’t even have the experience about business and Office Chinese. And, I didn’t realize Chinese is such a difficult language to learn until I actually teach it. I would definitely push my kids to learn it no matter s/he likes it or not, as being able to speak Chinese itself, is a great achievement for a person.

I admit that I did enjoy the whole journey to teach Chinese, and the interaction between me and my students are huge. They inspired me a lot and I, also gave them what I have and widen their eyes. I can see this evening when I talked about how to read a menu and order dishes in a Chinese restaurant, their faces were shining. That’s a kind of enjoyment that only teachers can have and nothing would be able to compare to this, though I only get paid $35AUD/per hour, and after paying the tax, I only get no more than $29AUD/per hour, and the petrol cost and my personal spare time spent on preparing the class not counted yet.

So we have made the decision, next semester I will have to pull off. No more Wednesday night driving to Tugger, no more Sunday morning preparing the stuff and no more small money coming into my account. There will always be some people who are able and willing to do that