放假: Taking a Vacation

在夏天, 老师们几乎都放假,大概放两个月. (Zai xia tian, lao shi men ji hu dou fang jia, da gai fang liang ge yue.) In the summer, almost all teachers get to take a vacation for about two months. I'm not that lucky; since I work at a training center, my school winds up being just as busy as usual (if not busier) during the summer.

Nonetheless, I've scored something like a vacation, because I have a fixed class on Saturday afternoons, one that can't be cancelled, which means that I can't work a set Monday through Friday schedule. I've enjoyed that fixed class since it started, and it's been my favorite class for a while. Now, I think I'll never like another class as much again.

Why? Because, since I have to work Saturday, it means my schedule is the least suited to the new summer camp classes that began today--the summer kids' classes. This means that I won't have to teach anyone under the age of eighteen or so until (probably) early in September. So my schedule for the foreseeable future includes just two fixed classes (one a corporate gig) and a bunch of flexible adults' classes. Sometimes a change really is as good as a break.

Independence Day may have officially been last Friday (which a few foreign teachers--three of us actually American--and I celebrated at my place with burgers, chips, pasta and potato salad), but today I feel a much greater sense of freedom than I did three days ago.