My trek to landing a steady job has been well, more difficult than the other Jet Set ladies. I haven’t been able to land anything in an English school here, but tutoring is becoming my preferred occupation. At first, I got a tutoring gig from the website couchsurfers.org, as a replacement for an expat leaving the country. It was only three hours of tutoring a week, but since I couldn’t seem to find anything more than that at the time, I was more than happy to undertake it. All in my first week, that three hours has multiplied to seven and a half, and I now am capable of not only covering my rent of $210/month, I can now eat about $50 of food without going further into the hole. On top of it, one of the mothers of the children I teach is just about the most helpful women in the world. She’s actively helping me look for an English school that will take me in, and has been the only reason for my increased hours.

Thus far, there are two significant reasons why I think tutoring kicks English teachings ass (in a school anyway)

1) Its more personal. You get to know the children better, and its becoming easier and easier for me to understand the culture here through my interactions with these kids. Not to mention, they’re all pretty awesome and well-behaved, which tends to help.

2) The dress code. I hate, and I mean hate, dressing up in any way, form, or fashion. Getting to wear jeans and a t-shirt to my tutoring sessions definitely beats having to wear uncomfortable shoes and a button down blouse. My boss in Los Angeles had a hard enough time asking if I had even ever worn a dress in my life, much less business casual clothing.

If this upward trend continues, maybe I’ll be able to make up some of the money I lost during my first jobless month in Saigon.