The working world

I have recently taken a job at Kaplan as an MCAT teacher. Because working full time wasn't enough and I was bored? Because I so missed physics and orgo and all that nonsense that I could not keep myself away for another moment? Because I want to foster the development of other evil young pre-meds? Hm... boh. 'Tis a mystery.

(Okay, fine, actually, it's not. It's so that I can put "teaching MCAT prep" on the 'activities since graduation' part of med school applications. Yeah, we pre-meds are very utilitarian. And evil. Watch out. For one, we may be teaching your Kaplan course, and it's probably not because we care.)

In any case, now I'm in their training program which is six kinds of boring and involves marking up your Teacher's Book with four different colors of highlighter. I kid you not. Each color means something different but I probably can't tell you what because it is a Top Secret Kaplan Strategy and I signed my freedom of speech away on a pdf file. Anyway. The point is that I'm preparing for my next training session and I am bored, so instead of exchanging the pink highlighter for the orange one and soldiering on, I will resurrect the time-honored tradition of procrastination and share with you my impressions on the working world. (If anyone is reading beyond this point, that is kind of sad. Did you know they publish books to occupy your time? Books by people who write well and actually have something to say. I recommend looking some of those up. Unless you're procrastinating, too. In that case, by all means...)

Firstly, on commuting. I have a random piece of advice for you. If it ever comes up as a choice, like when you are buying a house or something, I would suggest living in a place that is east of where you will work - that way you will not have the sun in your eyes when you drive. My parents did not think of this and as I am back at home living with them, mammone-style, I enjoy the sun in my eyes both ways. Probably this will contribute to blindness and wrinkling. Yay.

In the same vein, route 78 east is interesting in the mornings. It is like bumper-to-bumper traffic, but moving at 70 miles per hour. When I was learning to drive (a process that spanned from age 16 to roughly age 22), this used to freak me out and I never went on it. Post-Italy, I'm all ho-hum, eating my toast while merging from the ramp (or whatever that bit of road is called). (Side note: why is it that I never manage to eat meals sitting down at a table like normal people?) Also, I really should record the story of driving in Italy at some point - it involved a whole new level of ineptitude on my part. Perhaps this weekend...

Speaking of which: on weekends... after four years of round-the-clock, every-day-of-the-week studying/work in college and one year of you-must-be-available-14-hours-a-day indentured servitude as a teacher, I think I have acquired a job that allows me to glimpse at what the lives of "normal" people must be like. Essentially, you go to work during the week and come back and are kind of tired so you don't accomplish much at home, and then on the weekends you can do other stuff. It is interesting. I have not yet decided if I like it. In any case, it doesn't matter, because now I have acquired a second job and effectively done away with the free time. It's all like Erin Brokovich, single-mother-supporting-her-family over here, except I have no children and also I don't look like Julia Roberts. (Pity.)

On the work itself. Well, today a little guy crawled up my leg so I picked him up and he clapped and smiled and smelled like baby powder and was generally adorable. I wandered over to the other side of the room to grab a tissue to wipe his nose and caught sight of some pictures with a caption/sign reading something along the lines of "to utilize our creativity expression, we used musical instruments to express ourselves creatively", which made me cry inside. That's pretty much how my work day goes. Also, lots of children often cry and it is sad. Perhaps I will start singing that "raindrops on roses" song like in the movie with the von Trapps. This seemed to work even in the most dire of situations (e.g. thunderstorms, wicked stepmothers, Nazi invasions, etc.). Or maybe the "spoonful of sugar" one. It will be like Julie Andrews but with a crappy singing voice and minus the classy British accent and seventy billion octaves' worth of range. Or whatever it is that musician types call that sort of thing with the octaves and people's voices.

Yeah, now I'm making even less sense than I was when I started. Back to Kaplan's Oh-So-Secret test-prep strategies. (Gag me. Oh, med school. The things I do for you. Really.)