Since June of 2011, I have renewed the Rivertyde.com domain each year with the intention of resuming this blog at some point. That time is now — for some reason.
The last post on Rivertyde was soon after Borders Books, my previous employer, went bankrupt. At the time of that post, I had been out of work for 2 months and was focusing on making a career change from retail back into education.
That transition lasted about 9 months, during which time I did freelance work and took on two volunteer gigs. One was at the Philadelphia Zoo and the other at the Free Library of Philadelphia. To this day I still volunteer at the Zoo.
It was the English tutor role at the Free Library that eventually led to my current job at a Latino non-profit. It was through the coincidence of acquaintances that I was connected to the agency where I now work. A branch manager at the library knew someone who was looking for an English as Second Language teacher and introduced us to each other.
That’s how I became a part-time, temporary ESL instructor for 4 months. Although I was let go when the program ended in August, I was brought back as a regular ESL teacher the following October. A lot has changed since then. Now I am an administrator and proudly support the work of many teachers and case managers.
After Borders, and before getting a full-time position, I worked as a freelance German teacher for a series of eager, but short-term, students. I also did a year as a freelance editor for a friend hoping to publish an historical book about Philadelphia. His commitment eventually waivered and my services as an editor were no longer needed. It‘s just as well. The work I now do is highly rewarding.
I cannot explain why I am picking up this blog again. It’s probably that I want to brush up on my writing skills and share my current enthusiasm for becoming a polyglot. Recently, I have endeavored to push myself beyond the English and German that I already know toward fluency in Spanish and Hungarian.
Many of my previous posts were about birding, various natural history topics, and Philadelphia. New readers can expect some more of the same. Yet, as my interests in language learning have deepened, there will also be a focus on Spanish and Hungarian as well as on the general process of learning languages.
Thanks for joining me. I hope you find some interesting reads in this blog. As the tag line says, it’s a confluence of (many) thoughts. Check out some of the archived posts for a perspective on where this blog has been.
[Photo by Jason Schuller on Unsplash]