math

I find it funny when random people I meet try to give me tips on how to become a firefighter and tell me all the requirements I must meet. I don't know about you, but I usually do not try to tell people basic information I may or may not know about the profession that they are trying to get into. Like "Oh, what? You're trying to be a lawyer?" "Did you know you have to take your LSATs for that?" "You know one of my friends from back home is going to law school right now... he says its so hard to get into." "Do you really want to be a lawyer?" If you think saying that to someone who is trying to be a lawyer sounds pretty retarded, then you, sir, are correctomundo. Although, that is seriously what people have said to me but replace lawyer with firefighter and LSATs with something else they thought up. I just think it is common sense that someone who is trying to get into that field of work would know a little more about it than someone who isn't.

Anyways, I finally got a job teaching an SAT class. Two jobs actually. It's a pretty cool job except for the fact that sometimes it takes me a while to figure some problems out. The very first problem I did on the board during the very first class we had was a bit harder than I had anticipated. I recieve the problems at the same time the students recieve them so I didn't have any time to do them first. So anyways, I was doing this problem on the board and half way through I realized I had no idea where I was going with it. In my head all I could think of was "ohhhhhh shiiiiiiiiiit". This can not be a good first impression I am making. So I paused for a second and told everyone to flip their pages over and look at the answer key explanations. "Read the answer explanation first so you will get a better understanding of it while I do it on the board" I said to them while furiously reading it myself. Afterwards I asked "Okay, does everyone get it now?" Everyone said no. Damn it. Honestly, the explanation was confusing as shit and I was having trouble grasping it myself. Anyways, I had "memorized" the steps to take to get to the answer while everyone was reading it so I started doing it on the board the same way the book did. I purposely did not look down at the key so it wouldn't have seemed like I was using it. I ended up forgetting all the steps and got stuck again. So I took the most obvious approach out of this dilemma which was, of course, ask the students. "What would you do now?" Oh okay, "Now do it on your own paper." Seemed like a good idea except for the fact that they couldn't. Eventually I just told them I received the question at the same time as they did so I would need a couple of minutes to figure it out first before I showed them. I ended up figuring it out during break and succesfully showed them how to do it. Phew, thank god. For the rest of the class, I just gave them minimal time to work out problems and then taught them how to do the ones they couldn't finish on the board in order to make it seem like they really needed me. That actually worked out pretty well.