150th Post! Flash Stories & Poetry Day 39: Autobiography "I Am A Tutor"

 

Hey, everyone.

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. 

 

But anyway, that's it for today. If you want to use the wheel I made, you should be able to access it here. And if you have the time, please check out my books for sale on Amazon which you can find through my author page. The link is below. Also, I reworked my Patreon page, so why not give it a look and consider becoming my patron. I would appreciate it.

Keep writing, my friends.

More About Bryan C. Laesch:

My Works:

Amazon: My Author Page, My Influencer Page
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A Writer Must Write or Following Your Dreams

When I was younger, I thought I would be an engineer because that's what my Old Man was. And I seemed perfect for it, too. I had an interest in science and I was very good in math. They were my favorite subjects in primary school while history and English weren't. I did enjoy history and social studies, but English... I didn't get it. Why was I studying the language I spoke?

When I started high school, things seemed to be leading even more in that direction as my high school counselor offered me the chance to take honors science and math. Instead, I chose to take Honors English because how hard could it be? And when I took Latin, I suddenly learned what my English teachers had been trying to teach me. But the turning point came when I was a Sophomore: I had my first real run-in with creative writing when my teacher Mrs. Ayrault had us work on a number of creative writing projects that included short story and poetry. That's when I discovered that I could write, but I was still really good in math and science.

Mr. Wagner, my Sophomore Biology teacher, was shocked to discover that despite the fact that I didn't like Biology, I was still acing it and told me I should've been in Honors Biology when I was a Freshman. Misters Tocco and Szuminski, my math teachers for both Freshman and Sophomore years, were also impressed with my skill. Mr. Tocco made me "Checker" of the class, and after more Checkers were added, I was still the Checker of the Checkers. When I was a Sophomore, Mr. Szuminski had devised a formula that calculated how we had to do on the final in order to keep our current grade and what we would get in the class if we didn't take the final. He then called us up to the podium in order of highest to lowest grades. I was in the group of the A's and he had us line up around him in descending order--I was the left most one. (Meaning I was the best.) In order to keep my A, I only had to get a 64%, and if I didn't take the final at all, I would've gotten a B. (I took the final anyway and even did the extra credit question.)

But when Notre Dame was closed and I started attending Bishop Foley, things changed. My grades in science slipped a little in Chemistry and Physics, and when I tempted the fates by taking Honors Trig Junior year, I almost failed the class. I took regular Pre-Calc in Senior year and kicked its shit in. But I also became a history buff Junior year and continued taking Honors English courses. I struggled a little at first because BF had higher expectations, but I still took AP English as a Senior and took the AP test passing with a 3 out of 5. Not the most impressive victory, but considering I forgot some of the names of characters for my essay portion, it was actually really impressive.

Bishop Foley also had a literary/art publication called Rhapsody that I joined both years and submitted work to. In my Senior year, I was Editor-in-Chief, a position, that if I'm honest, I didn't deserve. But I also took Creative Writing Senior year--that's where it became abundantly clear to me that I had a gift and that people were impressed. I won an award for being the best, and my Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Sienkiewicz, who was also the faculty moderator for the school paper, told me that if she had known a student of my skill had existed, she would've hunted me down and made me write for the paper. Talk about a feather in your cap!

But not everyone was enthused to hear about my success in writing. Senior year our counselors called us into one-on-one meetings to ask what we planned to do with our futures. When I told my counselor, a woman that I was already at odds with, that I wanted to be a writer, she told me "That's really starving artist" something or other. I didn't listen obviously. But when I started at Macomb Community College, I double majored in English and Math because I wanted to capitalize on both of my primary skills. But! As time went on and I continued to Wayne State University, I focused on English and the pull to be a writer felt stronger with each passing day.

But college wasn't all that good to me and I still question whether or not I should've gone. Just six months after graduation I felt lied to and cheated. Not just because I bought into the idea that having a degree would make things easier for me, but also because I had accumulated a load of debt and I had no desire to work a regular 9-5 five days a week for the next 40 to 50 years of my life. When I got into college, I learned how liberating it was to be an adult, but because I had the safety net of my parents which included not making me get a job so long as I was in school, I didn't learn any of the responsibilities of being an adult. I didn't learn the value of time and pissed away a lot of it. Time that I could've used to write. And now, I'm 28 facing a high school reunion in November and I don't have much to say for myself. Which is one of the reasons why I'm so gung ho to publish shit left and right so that I can brag about something. But that's not what's important here.

Last night, my Old Man and I were watching Last Man Standing on the Hallmark channel. It's that Tim Allen comedy that was just cancelled. Anyway, the character Eve, played by Kaitlyn Dever, who is Tim Allen's youngest daughter on the show, a few episodes previous, was rejected by West Point and had hit a low point in her life. Feeling lost and confused, she settled on music and started writing songs. In the episode we saw, she performed a piece solo and brought the house down, but she told Allen's character that the house's manager said she sucked. After figuring out that the house's manager had said the opposite, Allen confronted Dever. Dever posed the rhetorical question of why would she lie about being told that she was good. Allen suggested that it was because music was very important to her and she was afraid of failing, and that the failure she felt at being rejected from West Point would be all the worse with music. But Allen told her that she only lives once and that life is too short not to pursue her dreams and so, she should run directly at whatever scares her the most.

I took it to heart because being a self-publishing author is scary. But, my Old Man had a different take on it. He said that he wouldn't have told her that because being successful in music is more about luck and politics than it is about skill, and that's no way to live. I had always had the feeling that my parents didn't believe in me, but that pretty much confirmed it. A few weeks when I told him I needed to cash a few savings bonds to give myself room to breathe to think about a few things, he laughed maniacally (also sarcastically), and said "You'll be working at a pet store yet." (I'm a certified dog trainer.) But the derision was clear. So, I wasn't shocked to hear him say that he wouldn't advise a kid to pursue music.

So, what then? Well, despite what my parents think, I'm not going to give up. In the past few years, especially the last couple (after college), I've learned what I want most and I've learned what's really important to me. I've decided I'm going to pursue everything I want which includes being a writer. (It also includes being every girl's wet dream, so that I can find the girl who's my wet dream.)

But I'm not just going to be any writer, I'm going to be big. I'm going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Stephen King, JK Rowling, and Shakespeare. I'm Bryan C. Laesch, the Writer. But if I had any advice to any writers just starting out, it's that a writer must write--that must become your creed. Don't waste your time. Write as often as you can, especially if you have a great safety net. Never stop moving forward.

Keep writing, my friends.