Tutoring, Good Money?

So, I've been tutoring to make some money to keep my lifestyle alive. You know, the binge drinking, the expensive dinners, and definitely the flashy cars. Yeah right.

Anyway, I took a junior college student this week. I'm helping him with Math and Physics for his A levels, which is the equivalent of the final examinations for 12th grade. I was quite scared when I got the assignment. Why? Coz I'm rusty with a lot of this math and physics. I got the assignment on Wednesday last week and the first lesson was on Sunday night.

To prepare for this assignment, I spent a lot of time just reading through and understanding all my old notes for both subjects. I didn't make it all the way through. I finished Physics and barely started Math before it was Sunday. It took much longer than I thought it would. There's a lot of material covered over both years of Junior College, and I had to do all that in 4 days. I didn't even try to solve any of the problems, but rather just went through the conceptual stuff. I was not confident of Math and was thinking maybe I should tell him that we should concentrate on Physics instead of Math on Sunday.

When Sunday came along, I was definitely kinda stressed. I was tired from the lack of sleep and extremely fun clubbing. Although I had a long nap that afternoon, I was still a little edgy. I got my parents to send me to the place so I didn't have to waste time taking the bus.

When I got there, I showed Ken (my student) my qualifications as I was supposed to and settled down to answer his questions. I was kinda jittery, mainly because it kinda sucks if I showed him all my qualifications from Stanford and couldn't answer his Math or Physics questions. Furthermore, I am charging a higher rate for my qualifications.

The first question was Math, on trigonometry. I got stuck. After some effort trying to solve it and couldn't, I asked to move on to the next question while I think about it. At that point, I was really worried. The second question was not too much better. I was definitely struggling, trying to push my brain through. I was suddenly so ready to just tell Ken that I couldn't do it and just leave. It would have pretty much been the most embarrassing moment of my life. But I didn't leave. I took a mental breath and tried to relax. After a little thinking, I got the answer. I showed Ken how to do it and tried to get him to follow along.

The next question went much smoother, and the next and the next. Suddenly, I was on a roll. Whatever he threw at me, I steamrolled through it and explained everything carefully. Ken's slightly slow in understanding, so I had some leeway in the explanation process, being able to take it slow. My brain was finally co-operating and I was feeling a lot better. We moved on from Math to Physics and things got even better. When the 2 hours was up, we arranged to have our next lesson on Tuesday night.

When I left, I heaved a sigh of relief. It was tough starting out. I'm really rusty. But somehow, my brain pulled through and I didn't embarass myself. I just needed some brain exercise, which I got after those 2 hours. It was tiring, and I was drained. But now, I know that as long as I relax a little, I can do it.

Things became much better on Tuesday. Ken called earlier to arrange for a 3 hour lesson instead of 2 hours. It would prove to be tiring as usual, but I was no longer afraid. It wasn't a breeze and I was tired after the 3 hours, because I did most of the problem solving and just explained the ideas to him. He seems really happy with my teaching, or really desperate, because from a twice a week lesson, we are arranging for 3-4 times a week, 2-3 hours every time. Now that it's getting easier for my brain, it's actually pretty good money. I can actually teach well now, just after those two lessons of warming up. So I feel pretty justified to call my rates, slightly higher than the normal tutoring rates.

Yeah! Good money rolling in for my expenditure!