It was my first day of teaching today...

Today was my first day of teaching. I am very tired. I must do better for my students. I must change myself to make them successful. I must be diligent to keep the rules and standards for everyone strong. I must alter my speech and mindset for each child. I must have tough love for all of them. I must adapt each lesson and my style to compensate for the nationalities (Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Singaporean) in my classroom. I must be swift and clear when talking to some children (who have about 5% English ability) and intelligent and complex to the others (who are native speakers of English). I must go to bed and stop thinking of what I didn't do correct today. I must accommodate the child who looks at me with eyes that say, "Ehh?...Even though you are speaking slowly, clearly, and with kindergarten style words I don't understand a word that is coming out of your mouth so I'm going to just shut your voice out of my head." and the child with eyes who says, "WHAT? You are speaking to us like we are in 1st grade with that type of English. Come on, teach!" I must be consistent with telling them to stop whining, to sit down, to listen first before they throw up there hands and say, "Teacher, huh?...(because they cannot understand English). I must challenge myself to learn new techniques in the next 10 hours (7 of which I hope to be sleeping, but probably not because I wish I had done better for my kids today). I must print out one student's name again on my printer because her passport name is not the one she wants to use. I must try to make many people understand that when I say, "Sorry I can't make it/Sorry, I have to go because I'M BUSY." that I really mean, "I'M BUSY." (One thing is for sure, i've learned that when people ask you to come over, go out to eat, or whatever and you say you're busy...for some reason...they cannot seem to believe it and try very hard to give YOU many reasons why you are not busy and why you should do what they say. Kinda like when someone asks, "Are you busy now?" and you say, "Yes." it is almost as if they have taken you to say, "I don't have time for whatever you're going to ask me." Shame...one really does get busy at times. I, for one, tend to believe people whatever they say. If they are lying, it's their own blood on their own heads...not mine. But I digress...)

Today was my first day of teaching. I am very tired...