fatlouiearts
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Where I'm at
🕑 Added 2023-04-26 17:46:59 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
Hope you’re doing well. It’s been quite a while since I’ve made one of these update-type journals. So here it goes.
2023 has been an interesting year so far. Plans that I had made are going along fine, but there were others that sprung up, and I've been thinking on how to carry them out.
Teaching
Some of you might know, but for those of you who don’t, I teach freshmen in high school as my IRL job. The system in Mexico is a bit different from other parts of the world so I wouldn’t know how it would apply from wherever you’re from. To get a better sense of it, I teach students that at around 15-16 years old. The age of rebellion, ha. With that in mind, sometimes there have been situations where some students get mad for getting a failing grade after not doing the work. Or them not keeping quiet and allowing a smooth class. I’ve grown to learn how to manage them, but on occasion they spill over to my life outside the school, and it’s beginning to affect other aspects of my life. This semester one got so bad that I even started questioning if teaching was for me after all. After talking about it with some teacher friends and colleagues, they told me to work on letting go. My coordinator told me: “You might have problems with your students, but only have them while you’re on the clock. After that, go home, play some games, pick up your hobbies. Or else this job is going to become too taxing on your mind.” After almost 2 years of teaching, I‘ve come to realise that this job has more highs than lows. I do enjoy it, and even if I see just a single student learning something, it’s a job well done, but still has its gruelling moments. All this leads me into my next point: my salary. I’m hired and paid by the hours I teach. So I come in, teach my classes and go home. It’s considered a part-time position. In theory it could give me time to work on other things to add to what I’m paid, which is not that great overall. I mean, it’s good to have a constant salary each month, but it barely covers monthly expenses. Sometimes I do commission work to cover that gap, but one thing they don’t tell you about being a teacher is the job is not only teaching a class. It’s working outside that allotted time to prepare your classes, assignments, grading, taking courses, helping students with tutoring sessions. All this does leave you tired and it’s not considered in your “working hours”, so it doesn’t count for your monthly salary. I’ve managed to keep working at home at a minimum, using my free periods in the teacher’s lounge to grade, as to have as much “me” time at home. It’s gotten better over time. All that said, I plan to teach another full year, to at least watch the group of students that I welcomed to high school graduate (High school in Mexico is 3 years).
New job
As I mentioned in the previous point, a teacher’s salary is not that much to cover my expenses, which has led me to start thinking about looking for a higher paying job while still teaching. Maybe reducing my hours, but it would depend on the job. Recently I caught up with an old high school friend, who used to be a teacher colleague of mine as well. He works remotely 100%, and when asked he mentioned his company is looking at opening up some spots around September. The company specialises in HR and he says it pays well, even at an entry level position, so that’s starting to look attractive. Also, his fianceé has a friend that works as a translator. My friend is not too sure what it entails exactly, but knows it also pays well. It could be a good use of my C1 English certificate.
Moving out
One of the decisions I did not plan to make this year was to think about moving out of my parents’ home. At least not at first. There hasn’t been a fight or anything, just let me explain: A good friend of mine had approached me a couple years back to be his roommate. At that point I was mainly sustaining myself through commissions. I was flattered that he had asked me, but told him to wait a bit, until I could manage to procure a consistent monthly “salary” so he wouldn’t have to carry the expenses of the household. Eventually he moved out on his own and rented a single room. Due to some family emergency, he had to move with his mom, out of town, but he told me he would be back later this year. In my case the jobs I've had so far have been amazing in the things I’ve gotten to do and the stuff I’ve learned, but the pay has never been great. It never made financial sense to move out. Nowadays, I do pay my parents some “rent” to help with monthly expenses, cover my part of the utilities, groceries, etc. But what’s left is not that much, not even to save in the bank for emergencies or the occasional treat for myself. Been living like this for a while and it feels like just surviving and making it to the end of the month. Commissions do help, and I’m eternally grateful for all the lovely people I’ve gotten to work with. But mixed in with school work, it has led me to burn out on several occasions, hence my art output is somewhat inconsistent.
Living at home with your parents can be a gift and a curse. While you grow older, you start seeing things a bit more from their perspective. But you cannot always escape the fact that they’ll see you as their son and treat you like you were still a kid. We get along just fine, do some movie nights, watch series together, sometimes my brother and I would do the cooking to help out mom. I’m grateful for those moments and the fact that we’re still together. But on occasion some friction tends to arise, especially with my father. No matter how good you do something, it’s never up to his standard. Also the fact that “my house, my rules” still apply, leads to some microaggressions that then stack up over time, hence why I started thinking it’s time for me to leave. Mostly for the emotional sanity of us all. Back in late 2018 I went to Canada to look for work. At the time I thought that was it, the start of my life on my own, but unfortunately it didn’t work out so it landed me back home. The whole ordeal left me in a bad emotional state, but with the help of friends and keeping me busy with drawing and other hobbies helped pull me back up. I’m still rebuilding from that time. Which leads us to this point in time, where I need to do something on my own and break from the nest. Told my friend if his offer on being roommates was still standing, to which he said yes. We agreed that around September we’ll start seriously looking for apartments to rent, to possibly move in around the end of the year if not at the start of 2024. Which leads me to the next point.
Summer WG bracket
I’ve got some money saved in the bank for emergencies, but for moving out, it would basically dry up all of it. Hence I plan on making a WG drive over the summer to build a buffer. The actual rules of it would be published when the time comes, but it would involve an elimination bracket of characters. The final two will duke it out to see who can become the largest eater of all. I’m still trying to figure out what would be the most efficient system to cast votes to eliminate contestants. So far, what comes to mind is Twitter, but with the site in its current state and the fact that not everyone that follows me on FA has a twitter account makes it a bit complicated. If you know of a system I could use, do let me know. I’ve already decided which characters to use. What's left is to design the bracket itself and draw the character profile images for it. Due to the time consuming nature of this project, I won’t be drawing a Patreon early access pic in the coming months, but I will upload the full resolution images of the drive there, in case you’re interested.
So I guess that sums up what’s been going on for the time being. Thanks for reading this far!
TL;DR: Teaching can be taxing but it still has its rewarding moments. I plan to stick with it at least for another year, while also looking for a higher paying job. Plan to move in with a roommate by the end of the year, so to build a cash buffer I will develop a WG drive over the summer.
Thank you so much and take care!
Comments
Louie Arts
Thank you so much for your offer, Wales! For the time being I'm just thankful for your continued support. Guess I'll take it one step at a time. It's a big step forward after all.
Wales
There's so much here I can relate with. If there's anything we can do to help, let us know!
