So, this post is late. How late? I'm writing it after midnight. This is supposed to be a daily exercise and I technically missed the day this is supposed to be on. Why? Because things have gotten complicated in life recently. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, and that fat, little bastard doesn't exactly waddle himself around.
The other problem is we got hit with a huge snow storm yesterday, so I spent an hour-and-a-half today clearing snow because we don't have a snow blower. My bicep is still sore and I ended up taking a nap this evening for an indefinite amount of time because I wasn't paying attention to what time I fell asleep. I only know that I didn't get up till 9:30. And then I had to waddle that fat, little bastard closer to Christmas. And I had to work today. I have a tutoring student. So, things are all farkakte.
And "today" is a non-fiction day. And my 150th post. Well, not technically, but who really cares?
Wheel of Genres, turn, turn, turn! Tell me the genre I will discern!
Today's genre is... Autobiography.
Now, like I said a few days ago, I actually prepare these in advance and I was kind of excited about this one until I started writing it after midnight. I'm also forced to ask the question how does autobiography differ from creative non-fiction? I don't think it does, and if it does, it's some splitting hairs BS like an autobiography is a book composed of several entries of creative non-fiction. So, I guess I'll be taking that out of the wheel. Anyway, I mentioned how I tutored someone today, so I think I'll tell you the story of how I got into tutoring.
Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go.
Let's wind the clocks back to the fall of 2010. No, we have to go back even further to that. Probably back to high school in order to tell this story properly. So, let's do that. Back when I was in high school, I remember people being all a titter about going to college--I was not. I didn't care. Fact was, I didn't want to go to college, and these days I think I should have followed that instinct, but I essentially wasn't worried about college. Why? Because I didn't care if I went. I was sure I would, but I didn't care where, how, or when. I don't have any allegiances to any colleges anywhere for any reason, and no one ever built college up in my head.
So, as you can imagine, because I was so "shrug" about college, I ended up at a community college. Now, don't get me wrong, Macomb Community College is a great school. It's cheap, it's small, it's staff is fantastic. I loved going there. Now, transferring out was a different matter altogether because as you know, in order to transfer from community college to a university, you have to either have a degree or make sure you take all the right courses. Going to Macomb, I had two main choices: Wayne State or Oakland University. I chose Wayne because it was the cheaper of the two and required a more diverse background in Gen-Ed's which I thought would help my writing whereas Oakland was much more focused on English coursework. Looking back, if I had thought to investigate the classes Oakland wanted me to take, I may have chosen Oakland instead. Yes, it's more expensive, but it has free parking, it's not in Detroit, and living where I do now, Wayne and Oakland are equal distances away.
But anyway, going to Wayne State meant that I had to have three semesters of a foreign language. This was tricky because interest in a third semester of any foreign language except for Spanish is almost non-existent not at the community college level. Believe me, I tried. I tried to recruit people to the cause of getting a third semester of Italian, but no one was interested. Speaking of which, that's the foreign language I chose at Macomb since I had had two years of Latin at Notre Dame. And as a result, I excelled at Italian. I was the envy of my first semester class and I was way up there for my second semester class.
So, I finished my second semester of Italian, I did very well, and here I was facing the fall semester of 2010. I don't think I took a foreign language that semester, but I did eventually end up taking Spanish... along with French, German, and Arabic, but let's not talk about that last one. I did eventually get my third semester of foreign language with Spanish, but in the fall semester, I received news through the wire that my former Italian tutor had to take a leave of absence since his wife had fallen ill which meant Macomb needed a tutor. They actually ended up hiring two tutors: one was myself and the other was another Italian student. Both of us were recommended by professors in the Italian department. I didn't even have to interview for the job. I just showed up and they started throwing paperwork at me. The next week, I sat in on an Italian tutoring session just to see how it was conducted, but it wasn't wholly necessary.
At Macomb, they did foreign language in an interesting manner. See, not only did you meet twice a week for an hour-and-a-half, but every quarter, you were required to attend at least five tutoring sessions at any time because there were multiple sessions, and if took more than that, you were given extra credit toward your midterm or final. And as you can expect from the average college student, most people blew off these tutoring sessions until the last minute meaning that while there may be an average of five to ten students per session, that number could explode up to from eight to fifteen, depending on the language. I eventually moved into tutoring entry-level Spanish, and there was one time, there were so many students at one session, they took up two whole tables. Must've been half the class. One time, I tutored during the summer semester which is much shorter and as a result, the class meetings are either longer or more often, and a couple of times, I had the whole class show up for a Spanish session. But, because I had lived through this tutoring experience, I already knew how it was done and I could do it no problem. (Sorry, I lost the plot there for a second.)
So, how did I get into tutoring? By being exceptional at my skill and knowing the right people. Unfortunately, tutoring for Macomb never really took off. There were too many tutors and the Dean of Humanities assured me that class sizes had dropped at one point. I actually think there may have been some foul play that saw me bumped off the roster. Why? Well, I was a young man and I tutored a lot of young women. (You can see where this is going...) I did ask once if it was okay to date the students, I was shot down of course, but I do wonder if they were looking to replace me after that or if someone complained about me being leery and the department blacklisted me after that. It's strange too because I still have the official professor's copy of the Italian textbook, a Macomb employee ID, and a key to the tutoring room at South Campus. The last time I worked for Macomb was Fall 2012, and they still haven't asked for them back, so it's possible I'm still employed there and I'm just blacklisted, or they just don't give a sh*t.
So, here I am several years later and finding myself in dire straits. I hope every day for something else to come down through the pipeline, but for now I need a job. My friend John is trying to hook me up with a warehouse gig and while it's a decent opportunity, $11/hr, 40 hours/week, and I get to wear jeans everyday, I'd rather have a position where I get paid $20/hr and work 20 hours/week so I can devote more time to writing. And, I did manage to pick up a tutoring student through an agency, but who knows if he'll stick around, number one, and number two, his parents might think I'm no good. But, I did manage to pick up a Spanish student recently. I'm seeing him Tuesday, so this might be fun.
But what I wanted to mention was that when I was tutoring this young man this afternoon, it gave me a sense of accomplishment, passing on my knowledge to someone who really, truly needs them. I don't know, maybe I should become a teacher or at the very least, look for a more lucrative tutoring gig. I've got the tools and the talent, I'm just worried that I'll let my writing slip and follow the easy path and end up forsaking the dream. Hence, my plan is to allow myself not to get too comfortable, which will also decrease my chances of getting a girl, and allow me a better opportunity from which to get really serious about this writing thing. Same sh*t, many different days ahead.
***
Stop the clock! Two seconds left. Phew. That was a lot of writing, and I still have a bunch to do before I go to bed tonight. Good thing I took that indefinitely long nap. Sarcasm intended. But, if any of you though are looking for a tutor and you live in the Macomb county area and you or your child needs help with their Maths, English, spelling, Spanish, or Italian, feel free to drop me a line at bryanclaesch@yahoo.com or reply to this post, and we'll talk it out. I charge $20/hr.
Keep writing, my friends.
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