Early Riser

It's 6am and I'm awake! I have become an early riser. The monks wake up early and have breakfast at around 6.30am, so they bring me my breakfast at this time too. It's only been a week and my body clock has already adjusted. I then feed my cats and plan my lessons for the day. I have free time in the mornings. I'm especially enjoying having the mornings again, after sleeping in for so many years in Singapore because I worked evenings. There are birds here (!) and they sing and it's incredibly peaceful. Lunch is at 11.30am. Then I begin my lessons around 1pm to 4pm. After my classes, I have a break until around 7pm as I've offered to do a homework class so that the monks have an opportunity to get more individualized help with any words they find difficult. Last night, this hour consisted mostly of helping them to pronounce words. I am a qualified English Literature teacher but I don't think I would have been able to do this as effectively if I hadn't spent one year teaching kindergarten phonics in Singapore. Every teaching experience is unique and helpful and you can acquire new set of skills in each context. Now, I'm really glad I know my English phonetics so well.