Vicky in Spain
Dec. 12th, 2010 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingSo after a month and a half of being the lousiest correspondent who ever failed to correspond (which is par for the course, really), I pulled myself together and wrote to Vicky -- partly about Christmas presents but partly just to say, "Hi, this is my life at the moment, how are you?"
It turns out she's not doing that great. The school has her working twice the hours she was told to expect, without any compensating pay increase. She is trying to make friends, but doesn't feel she has the time to really get to know anyone, so she has no local support system. She is constantly busy, has no confidence in her Spanish fluency and teaching skills, and is getting acne from stress. She's sharing an apartment with another American she met by chance; because she's the new tenant and doesn't have much in common with her flatmate (to borrow a term more accurate than the American "roommate"), she doesn't feel she can relax even in her own home. On top of all that, she feels guilty because people keep telling her she should be having the time of her life, and she's really, really not.
I am doing my best to lend a listening ear (insofar as one can listen by reading email), but I don't have much relevant life experience. I mean, I taught homeschool for a year and had moments of "What the hell am I doing? I don't know anything about this! I will screw these kids up for life!" but my reaction to that kind of stress is generally to panic briefly and then decide that I am doing the best I can and coherently presenting the information I am supposed to impart, and nobody ever said being cool was in the job description anyway. And so I soldier on and generally stop worrying. The thing is, that's a reaction based on my own emotional temperament and it would never in a million years work for Vicky, who is a lot more volatile than I tend to be.
So what I am asking, basically, is if anyone has advice on A) being a new teacher and coping with the emotional stress of the job, B) moving to a foreign country and establishing a support network, and C) dealing with a job that is not what you were told it would be, and perhaps negotiating for some changes (or at least a raise).
It turns out she's not doing that great. The school has her working twice the hours she was told to expect, without any compensating pay increase. She is trying to make friends, but doesn't feel she has the time to really get to know anyone, so she has no local support system. She is constantly busy, has no confidence in her Spanish fluency and teaching skills, and is getting acne from stress. She's sharing an apartment with another American she met by chance; because she's the new tenant and doesn't have much in common with her flatmate (to borrow a term more accurate than the American "roommate"), she doesn't feel she can relax even in her own home. On top of all that, she feels guilty because people keep telling her she should be having the time of her life, and she's really, really not.
I am doing my best to lend a listening ear (insofar as one can listen by reading email), but I don't have much relevant life experience. I mean, I taught homeschool for a year and had moments of "What the hell am I doing? I don't know anything about this! I will screw these kids up for life!" but my reaction to that kind of stress is generally to panic briefly and then decide that I am doing the best I can and coherently presenting the information I am supposed to impart, and nobody ever said being cool was in the job description anyway. And so I soldier on and generally stop worrying. The thing is, that's a reaction based on my own emotional temperament and it would never in a million years work for Vicky, who is a lot more volatile than I tend to be.
So what I am asking, basically, is if anyone has advice on A) being a new teacher and coping with the emotional stress of the job, B) moving to a foreign country and establishing a support network, and C) dealing with a job that is not what you were told it would be, and perhaps negotiating for some changes (or at least a raise).
