by After six days of feeling run down, I’m suddenly feeling really good.
We had our first post-restructure team meeting today. That meant a new team. Prior to the meeting I didn’t even know who was in my team, or why. That’s probably bad. On Friday we visited a water treatment plant, in a beautiful location it must be said, not far from work, and not far from where I used to do some of my day tramps before tennis sort of put paid to them. Even though I was feeling like crap, it was great to get out of the office. We even got to go on a jigger – a small train – that runs alongside a water pipe through a two-mile-long tunnel. That was a lot of fun. Unfortunately most days at work (such as today) aren’t like that. The highlight of today, undoubtedly, was the ten minutes I spent at the language centre at lunchtime – I dashed in there to get some material for my student. The staff were so helpful – they even knew which sounds people from Burma tend to struggle with.
Last night I tried to stop my student from calling me Teacher – endearing as it is – and asked him to call me by my first name instead. It’s commonplace in NZ even for schoolchildren to call their teachers by their first name. My mum has always asked her kids to address her in the traditional “Mrs Smith” way, even in NZ, and asks their parents to do the same. I’m with her on this. Teachers should be respected.
