At the end of last weekend, I was enthusiastic and motivated to tackle new challenges and build on old strengths. After this past week of travel and the weekend of teaching that followed, my motivation and energy for the sport has suffered.

This past weekend was a series of unplanned lessons, increased class sizes, botched presentations, zero energy, and shots to the face. Each mentally planned lesson suffered severely due to my lack of sleep and with every failed activity my faith in the subsequent drills was diminished. The ultimate failure came when I found myself with a class full of eight adults, 2 of which I had seen the week previous, prepared with a lesson that required the dead office printer and 4 copies shy of books purchased in Beijing on Monday. Compounding this was the new dispersion of ability, new difficulty in understanding and the silent observations of my boss in the corner.

After class I packed my things, notified the staff I would be leaving and any unfinished business would need to wait until Sunday, whereupon Dan and I arrived home to cook ourselves a delicious meal, down a glass of scotch, eat some Oreos and swiftly fall asleep.

Except for the fact that my students on Sunday are no taller than a toad, it was no different. Class activities perpetually fell flat, air time silent, and students started off every class even more rambunctious than I could possibly comprehend. Lunch started when one child rocketed my marker at my face. I went straight home and fell asleep.

My last class of the day received very little quality in their lesson and it’s off to drinks now. Tomorrow will be our first real day off in a while and I think I’ll take it easy and slow.

I can do this, but I’ve got to have my rest otherwise the … “what is this?” .. “it’s a DRAGON!” …comes out.