+Keeping On (2)

OK, more random notes.

The job is slightly different than before.  There’s about the same amount of bureaucracy, but it’s in different places. 😛  Like, I don’t have to have my students sign for each session, and I don’t have to keep notes of how they’re doing, but I have to record my hours pretty much in duplicate and give them to two different people.  Ain’t working for the gummint fun?

One odd thing is that a lot of my students now aren’t particularly inclined to use up all the hours they’re entitled to.  This is weird!  It was a rarity before.  Rather annoying to have two hours blocked out for someone and they say after 45 minutes, “Well, that’s all the questions I have.  I’ll see you next time!”

On the other hand, my boss can throw as many students at me as I can possibly handle, and then some.  I don’t have to worry about running out of work, that’s for sure.  On the other hand, she wants me to tutor people in groups wherever possible, which I think isn’t nearly as effective.  The good news is that schedules are so tangled that I’ve only managed to form one actual group of two.  (Yes, I sincerely tried.)

I’m still tutoring Alex, but Juan and a couple other of my favorite students have been reassigned. 🙁  Some of them say they’ll be sure to put in for me next term, though!  I miss the spontaneous talks with Juan;  I hardly see him any more.  (We’re trying to get together on the weekend, but it can be difficult.)

Speaking of Juan… I do believe that things are turning a corner with him.  Shortly before the term started, he hired me for a few more hours of math-stuff.  During that time, he (as usual) out of the blue started telling me how things were going for him spiritually.  Get this.

A coiuple months ago, he’d been talking to me about how much trouble he has wrestling with (what I would call) sin.  And how frustrating it is.  I said, “You’re not alone.  There’s something about that very thing right here in the Bible.”  As I got it out, I could tell he was skeptical, bracing himself for boredom.

But when I read from Romans 7 to him (“I do not do the thing that I want, but I do the thing that I hate. … Who will rescue me from this mortal flesh!”) he looked shocked and said, “That’s in the BIBLE?!”  I think that he, like so many people, thought that there’s nothing in there that relates to their actual, real lives. 🙂  I said, “You’d better believe it!  St. Paul went through the same thing you’re talking about.  But he did have an answer to it:  ‘Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!'”

Anyway, the other week he started saying how he was down in the dumps about this sort of thing and couldn’t stop thinking about that passage from Romans I’d read to him the month previous.  And that he’d started praying spontaneously on his own.  He just realized he couldn’t keep on doing everything by himself.  And he tells me he’s still doing it too, off and on.  Plus, he still keeps going to Mass on Sunday.

Wow!  I’m very happy for him.  Keep him in your prayers, I feel sure he’s gonna need them.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to write about, but I can’t think of it right now.  I’m a little under the weather today;  I hope I don’t get sick.