How do you feel after a day of work?

[Baas Babelaas]

I feel CRAP. Tense (tension headache, tense jaw), irritable, tired...

I teach Oral English 3 days/week at uni and do IELTS examining 2-3 weekends/month. That means I have lots of free time - no excuse that I'm overworked.

I can't believe how chipper my IELTS colleagues are after a weekend of examining - chatting all the way home in the taxi. I just want to STFU and be in a very quiet place.

After I finish teaching the best thing for me is a shower, followed by a couple of beers, at home.

Can't figure out why. Burnt out? Depressed? Fed up with life in China (three in Taiwan, seven in China) and/or the work?

TBH both jobs bore me to tears but I'm earning just shy of 100k NT, so I should be laughing all the way to the bank.

Your thoughts? Your experiences? Your advice?

* This is not a winge. This is a genuine request for feedback and advice.

[NonTocareLeTete]

I sometimes have the same problem and I think it's just my personality - I come off as outgoing, but the truth is that I LOVE BEING ALONE. I love working alone. Having people staring at me, waiting for me to tell them what to think next, me directing their attention - it makes me miserable.
My answer was to teach no more than 2-3 hours a day. I edit and write for extra income, and find that this solitary work recharges me.

[tomthorne]

Burn out (or whatever people want to call it) is a funny thing because it's very difficult to spot any obvious build-up.

My main advice would be to take a break as soon as possible. Preferably quite a long one - 3 or 4 weeks if possible. You should be coming up to your uni break reasonably soon, no? And the IELTS can be easily dropped for a month or so.

[achdizzy1099]

Personally, I like to go online and lie about my salary.

For instance. Sometimes when I get done teaching my 2 hours a day at kindy, I'm get so sick of the constant dribble from my colleagues: " Where are you going to spend your bar of gold Dizzy?" or "Lets spend ours on hookers and booze T!"

I just don't know what to do with all these gold bars and bags of diamonds they pay me in?

lately I've been thinking about cutting back to just 1 hour a day.

Teaching English is such a drag.

T

[Baas Babelaas]

My answer was to teach no more than 2-3 hours a day. I edit and write for extra income, and find that this solitary work recharges me.

The teaching is only seven 90 minute lessons/week. Re. staring - besides the students in class staring, which I guess they need to do when I'm instructing them, I get stared at by 1000s of students on campus. And 100 000s of people on the streets. And It aint cuz I'm Brad Pitt's brother in China.

Re. solitary stuff - I've become much more insular in the last ten years. Not sure why..

Burn out (or whatever people want to call it) is a funny thing because it's very difficult to spot any obvious build-up.

My main advice would be to take a break as soon as possible. Preferably quite a long one - 3 or 4 weeks if possible. You should be coming up to your uni break reasonably soon, no? And the IELTS can be easily dropped for a month or so.

Could be burn out. Every time I have a month back home in SA, or even a few days in Taiwan (like last month) I come back and feel charged up .... for about three days. Uni holidays are coming up - four months of them (unpaid), and yes, IELTS can be put off for a month.

Where do go Mr Tomthorne? Somewhere in SEA? I got some loot in the bank that could roll a vacation, but there's times where I've left Thailand earlier than expected, out of mmm, boredom. One solution would be to spend more time with quality people and they're not that easy to locate in this neck of the woods.

I remember leaving China in frustration after my first six months here. Flew to Bangers, got a cheapo room in a guesthouse near Koh San, and ended up hanging with the coolest crew - a Brit, a couple of Americans, a Dutch dude, a Class A South African dude whom I'm still good friends with (became a flight steward recently). Before I knew it two months had rolled by and I was happy camping again (my credit card wasn't happy though). I think I need a (support) crew...

[Baas Babelaas]

Personally, I like to go online and lie about my salary.

For instance. Sometimes when I get done teaching my 2 hours a day at kindy, I'm get so sick of the constant dribble from my colleagues: " Where are you going to spend your bar of gold Dizzy?" or "Lets spend ours on hookers and booze T!"

I just don't know what to do with all these gold bars and bags of diamonds they pay me in?

lately I've been thinking about cutting back to just 1 hour a day.

Teaching English is such a drag.

T

That NT547/hour is mad good cash bro, raking in the dough. Rolling. This hater be hating..

[Ducked]

Sweaty.

No aircon.

(This is a genuine whinge, not a request for feedback or advice)

[tommy525]

Visit SF , spend a week with tommy (you will be glad when you got back) and be good for another six months .

[Baas Babelaas]

Go halves on the ticket and I'll head that way. Always wanted to visited that neck of the woods!

[mups]

Like I need 2 beers and 4 showers.

The reason it can be extremely tiring for me has nothing to do with my not wanting to talk all day or not liking the job. What gets to me are the students who have zoo-animal levels of listening and interacting ability. I mean you could put rockets on your legs and grow a 3rd head, and these students would still be busy staring into space with mouths agape. They're basically overgrown infants who have never been made to pay attention to or focus on anything other than a TV for more than a few seconds. Nobody holds them accountable or interacts with them at home, it's always painfully obvious when this is the case. These are the same kids who run around supermarkets screaming and running into people's legs while their parents shuffle along, simply too lazy to do anything about it.

And it only takes 1 or 2 in the class to exhaust you. You gotta repeat stuff like 3 times to them before they even start listening (including simple instructions like 'be quiet' or 'look at me'...sometimes you can even give them the answer and they look at you with blank faces, forcing you to repeat...sometimes they find something funny while you teach and laugh, which is ok of course, but then they can't stop giggling like idiots with no self-control. Just abhorrent levels of focus and attention (especially when it's older children)...as I mentioned you can even be playing a game or teaching them something cool and fun using pictures and video, still zero response. They don't have to pay attention to or respect their parents at home so why should they do that with their teacher? I'm not so easy but it drives me crazy to see their Chinese teachers playing nice with them and babying them even more, asking them politely to stop doing something then getting ignored..and then being ok with it.

So I guess that's how I feel..putting 100% into not only teaching English (which I find extremely easy on it's own) but also doing my part to raise some respectable kids with the tools to one day turn into respectable adults...knowing all the while it's pissing into the wind. But in good conscience I can't stop trying, because that would make me feel infinitely worse.

Also it's too hot.