"It's going to be one hell of a day" said my supervisor as she addressed the motley, bed-headed crew that sleepily formed a semicircle around her. It's never a good thing to hear that statement coming from a boss who normally doesn't use such language. She was saying this because 1) We were really, really busy 2) Everyone was hungover and tired from St. Patrick's day the night before 3) Several workers had called in 'sick' 4) Many rooms required extensive clean-up because of the holiday festivities. And she was right. It was a rough day. Nobody finished what they needed to do but they sent us all home at 7pm anyway so we could rest up for tomorrow. To cheer everybody up and to keep the motivation and 'blue energy' alive, we were given a pizza party for lunch.

When I'm not polishing toilets or making beds at the hotel, I have been teaching some classes at night. I can only teach private classes since I don't have the necessary NZ certification to teach at a school, but so far it's going fine. I am tutoring a Brit in Spanish and a Czech couple in English once a week for an hour. Dan wants to learn Spanish as he is in a serious relationship with a Chilean. They just had a child together and want to raise him to be bilingual. Dan was getting frustrated with not knowing any Spanish and put an ad in the classifieds for a teacher and I answered it. It's been interesting teaching Dan since he is not an academic kind of guy - he is a baker and a carpenter and doesn't like anything to do with school at all. He also speaks with a think British accent which makes his Spanish pronunciation all sorts of interesting. I'm trying to make the lessons fun, entertaining and very communicative but it's been a bit of a challenge so far.

Michal and Pavla are a young couple from the Czech Republic. They also have a year-long work visa for New Zealand and are working as housekeepers in another hotel. Before Queenstown, they worked in vineyards and avocado farms on the North Island for six months. They are frustrated in that they have been in New Zealand for over half a year but haven't practiced English much at all since they have only been hanging out with other Czechs (there is a large population of Czechs here on working holiday visas). They heard about me by word of mouth from other housekeepers and are trying to study and practice English as much as they can before they head back. Teaching Michal and Pavla is a lot of fun since we form a group of three and their English level is already pretty good. In many ways it's like teaching in China so I am using a lot of activities and material that I have already taught and prepared in the past.

I'm really enjoying teaching some private lessons not only because I like to teach, but also because it's fun to meet other people from different places and really get to know them. I would consider taking on some more students and advertising in the classified or something, but two nights a week already feels like a lot especially when I am really tired from working all day. We'll see how it goes, but for now I'm happy with one English and one Spanish class.

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