All Work and No Play Makes TBL....

....a bit of a grumpy, stressed out mess!

 Another pretty park that allowed us access to a wonderful bike trail along the Santa Ana River.

Not that I have been slaving away teaching masses of classes and walking lots of canines, but getting it all up and running and started has scrambled my brains a bit.  Especially when trying to figure out my schedule using Japan time!

Most of the "rivers" I have seen in Socal have been very  dry, but this one had lots of greenery growing in it and flowing water.

A lovely bike trail in great condition.

It's got me all mixed up!  I almost missed teaching my first two classes thinking for days that my first day would be yesterday, Monday, afternoon.  Good thing I took another look and discovered my first day was Sunday afternoon, which is Monday morning in Japan.  They are 16 hours ahead.  So, I greeted my first students on Sunday afternoon with a "Good Monday Morning!" You can imagine how I might be a tad confused - we won't even talk about how I messed up my availability for future weeks, having to use Japan time on a confusing work schedule.

Okay, we'll talk about it.  One of my trainers emailed me that I had put down that I was available for times there weren't even classes! I "fessed" up and told her I had trouble with the time conversion and would do it all over, but that I was balking at having to wake up 2:30am Pacific Time to teach a shift of classes.  Trainer responded that I did not have to do the entire shift, I could do the latter part meaning I could teach between 6:30am and 9am, which is night time, same day in Japan, 9:30-midnight, their most popular class time. 

Oh, and we have the time change coming soon don't we?

Fun!

A very busy highway on one side, a peaceful oasis on the other.

My first two classes went really well.  I had two students in the first class who appear on my screen as avatars - they get to see my lovely face, poor things, but they didn't seem scared by that vision.  The 45 minute class flew by with little problems.  My trainer, who was spying observing, came on after the students logged off briefly and said I had done well except I had talked too much and had "talked over" the students sometimes which is considered rude in Japan.

I think that was my nerves showing and I resolved to do better in my second class.  I don't want to be thought of as rude!!

Lots of water birds enjoy this place.

Second class, one student and we were practicing some "business phrases".  "Brainstorming" was the title of class, so you can imagine it started out with a long discussion about what that term actually meant.  He had never heard of it before and wondered at what age children in the US are taught brainstorming.  Yes, it was an interesting 45 minutes and was actually fun as we did some role playing and he thanked me very much at the end.  I wasn't as rude with my interruptions and babbling, so said my patient trainer.  Who by the way lives in Mississippi.  Another time zone!

I'm looking forward to teaching four classes this Friday morning, doing a dog walking gig over the weekend as well as a Saturday evening class.

In between that Mr. Tennis and I will get out and see some more of this beautiful new area we live in.

Have a wonderful week!

P.S. We are the lucky recepients of free movie tickets thanks to The Maven who generously shares the free passes she gets through work.  Here's a very good one we saw over the weekend, directed by Ron Howard:

Don't let the Formula One racing subject scare you off, this had a great story and some pretty spectacular film work.