Learn Chinese: How to say WHAT, WHO, WHICH, WHERE, WHEN, WHY, HOW, HOW M...

How To Find Friends In Singapore And Worldwide

Problem
How to find like-minded individuals?

By age:
STUDENTS
Student groups such as Toastmasters International at the NUS (National University of Singapore0 meets every week in term time.
Mother and toddler groups.
Ex-pat groups including wives attached to the clubs : American, British, Canadian, Dutch, Japanese.

By Language
Go to a Toastmasters club meeting speaking
English
French
Chinese (Mandarin)
Tamil

Francophone de Singapour, French speaking club in Cairnhill Community Club, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

By Games
Cards and Boardgames
Meetup has a boardgames section.

Belote or Baloot
Popular with Scandnavians, Europeans, Arabic countries.

Bridge
Bridge Clubs meet at some of the ex-pat and country clubs. At one time the American Club, the Tanglin Club and the Dutch club all had meetings. Tanglin moved the venue and closed the club. These things come and go. They might close down then open up again.

The American Club uses the American bidding system. The Tanglin club used Acol system which started at a bridge club in London, England. Some clubs let you use whichever system you and your partner agree on, so long as you tell the other couple.

If you want to practise bidding at home, save the free playing cards which you can get on Singapore Airlines. Revise your bidding on the plane.

Mahjong
Mahjong is also very popular, especially witht he Chinese and Asians. If you don't yet play mahjong, go to a class and meet other beginners.

Religious organisations
Christian
YMCA - the big branch in Orchard Road, another is the second YMCA, also the YWCA.
Many activities and classes meet weekly.

Moslem
Several Mosques.

Jewish
A synagogue with events such as Friday night meals. (High security so contact them in advance and take your passport and identity cards to get through the barriers.)

Indian Temple
The Toastmasters meeting which I went to at a Hindu Temple had four prepared speeches, at least one of which was about a religious story or myth, and spicy vegetarian food.

Museums
Become a friend of the museum for reductions in the museum shop, free entry or by-pass queue (line up as the Americans say) to exhbitions, and be emailed about events, and train to be a docent, go to seated lectures, or join walking tours.

Theatre and Performing Arts
Lots of events and courses and tours.

Wine and Dine Events In Restaurants
Many restaurants run wine and dine events. Find out if you will have a chance to meet other people. You often circulate with a sparkling wine or cocktail at the start. You might be seated at a long table which is ideal, especially if you are seated in the middle. Try to avoid being on the end or next to an empty place.

You might find individual tables set up in a foursome, or just two or a single. If you went out to meet people, being alone or with your partner is not very sociable. One method is to find  another chatty couple and either sit in a foursome of at two adjoining tables. With luck, if you can't hear what the other couple are saying, one of them will decide you might as well push two tables together. Failing all else, arrive early, ask where you are sitting. If you don't like it, ask to be moved. you have paid - you might as well enjoy yourself.

Websites
Board games so you won't be bored watching sleeping (nocturnal) cats at the Cat Café in Boat Quay.
https://www.facebook.com/CatCafeNekonoNiwa
https://www.meetup.com/Singapore-International-Boardgames-Meetup/
https://www.couchsurfing.com/events/
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Different Ways of Packing - the student way

Problem
How do you avoid packing on the last night if you have a late night farewell?

Packing
By Angela Lansbury

"How should I pack? Tell me, how do you pack?"
Chris says, "I pack light - don't care what I lack.
Who cares what you wear! I don't care what I wear
I pack like a student, rolled, creased or flat

"Every day I take out what I'll wear for that day
At night I put dirty clothes away
In a plastic bag carried home to mother
That's a handy trick I learned from my brother

"What's left in the case is labelled, it's mine
So I'm always half-packed for the next time
Oh, Angela, you make far too much fuss
Just throw it all in and do it like us!"
-ends-
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Learning languages - for the student, widowed, divorced, unemployed, bored, introvert or extravert

Problem
How much time can one spend learning languages? How much progress can one make? Can you do it free or cheaply?

Living In Europe Makes Learning Easy
I remember hearing that my sister-in-law's father spoke eight languages. He died and now he's the legend and the first thing I think of him is that he spoke eight languages. He was born in a country surrounded by others who did not speak his language. Every year, even every weekend, he could take a trip to another country and practice a language.

French For All
The French word for thank you is merci, and that also works in Romania and Bulgaria.


Living In England - it's easy
Wait a minute - did he have an advantage which you and I don't have? If you live in England, you can drive or hitchhike up to Scotland and learn Gaelic and Scottish or west to Wales. Or cross the channel to Belgium where they speak French and Dutch. If you did that every year, you and your children or widowed grandparent could pick up a few words of another language easily.

But you don't have to travel. London is full of foreigners. You could teach English to somebody else in exchange for them learning your language.

Look on any bus, not just in summer. You are surrounded by people who speak other languages. Lots of them would love a free English lesson from you, in exchange for teaching you a few words. In London, you have cultural centres for the French, German and Polish speaking groups. Toastmasters International has clubs which are bilingual in French and English, or are for those who speak or want to learn Polish.

USA
If you live in the USA you could cross to Canada and pick up or brush up your French, or go to Mexico and learn Spanish, or just spend a weekend reading Spanish signs from bilingual notices and learning Spanish. The USA has an online Spanish-English club. Look at their website for bilingual announcements.

Religions - Spanish, Hebrew or Arabic
If you are a church-goer, you could attend services aimed at or attended by speakers of Spanish or Portuguese.

Are you Jewish or would you like to learn Hebrew? Pop along to a synagogue or if you think there might be a security problem, phone them up and ask if they run Hebrew classes. Look in a Jewish museum or Holocaust museum or online for books on learning Hebrew. Go to an Israeli restaurant. Look for a bagel shop. A kosher shop. Read the labels on the kosher goods in your local supermarket.  You'll soon pick up the reversed c, the SH, and the reversed r for kosher. That's three letters of the Hebrew alphabet already, without any time or much effort.

Is Arabic something you would like to master? Try a local mosque, or the attached cultural centre or bookshop. Go to a halal restaurant.

Asia
It all looks a mystery doesn't it, Tamil, Korean, Vietnamese, hopeless! If you have nothing else to do, take a language class. Instead of doing flower arranging, or calligraphy, take a language class. Or if you would really prefer to do flower arranging and calligraphy, in the break ask the teacher or a fellow pupil to teach you a few words and write them down in a dedicated notebook so you can read them on the way home.  Tell the family, or your colleagues, ostensibly only to enlighten them, but actually in addition to reinforce your own memory.

Singapore
In Singapore, at first, it seems hard. You have Chinese which is impossible to understand or read, the same goes for Tamil. If you learn Chinese, then you find yourself have lunch in little India where Chinese is of no use. Tamil is not used in most of Singapore amongst the Chinese speaking people.

But if you lived in civilised Singapore, you hear the Chinese, Malay and Tamil announcements on the train system (MRT) every day. Malay (which is the same as Indonesian) is the easiest.

Join Meetups (free for you, the organizers of meetings pay to be listed). In Singapore in July 2018 I was notified of Meetups for English, French, German and polyglot (multilingual) social gatherings in coffee shops, bars and hawker centres (food courts).

Toastmasters International has meetings in all-French or all-Mandarin or all-Tamil and a small number of bilingual clubs. An Italian-Chinese club has been proposed by an Italian-Chinese couple.

Chinese and Community Clubs
You could join a Chinese class at a Community Club to meet local people. Alternatively, go to the YMCA, to meet more expats and those friendly to expats.

Mosques and Arabic
Again, there are the mosques for Arabic.  Many halal restaurants and food packing.

Synagogues and Hebrew
Singapore has synagogues and the synagogue shop for Hebrew or kosher food. Security is tight in the beautiful Orthodox religious buildings, so check in advance, be prepared to send details of your identity, and be prepared to show your identity documents to security on arrival. All over Asia, you will find outreach orthodox groups who have Sabbath meals.

All over Asia and the world, you will find little groups of Liberal Jews, mainly Americans, sometimes with a visiting rabbi for festivals, meeting in homes.

Polyglots
If I were to spend just five minutes a day, I could pick one the three other working languages of Singapore, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. Fifteen minutes a day, and I could pick up all three. Three hundred words a year would be a great start. After two, three, or four years, I could have a go at all the languages. by the end of ten years I would be fluent in all three. When I die, my family and friends will be in awe of me as a person who spoke four languages. (As I speak French already, that would be five.)

How To Make Time
So what can you do? Are you really so short of time? Do you have any other plans? Do you know anybody who is bored or depressed or could start on this programme, with you, or on their own?

Busy, working people, may have time at airports or on public transport. Students, the widowed, the divorced, the bored, the lonely, could find a new interest and join a club and feel proud and confident at learning a new skill.

Saving Money and Earning Money
In Europe you can take a one-week or one-month intensive course in learning a language or training to be a teacher of ESL (English as a second language).

If you don't want to spend the time and money, with a little determination, you could do the same at home. If you have a week to spare, or a year to spare, and you are a student, unemployed, or retired, you could spend a six-hour day starting a language.

You could spend 12 hours over a two-day weekend. You could spend 18 hours over a three day weekend of Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

You could spend 24 hours over a four-day long weekend. You could spend 30 hours allowing three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon, to teach yourself with a free online course.

Job-hunting
Maybe you need to get a job. You have studied long enough. If you are between jobs, job-hunting, allow one-hour first thing in the morning to send out applications. Or spend the morning on your job applications. Postpone until the afternoon or evening time for the languages. Then start learning.

Or run off a CV (resumé) to drop into local businesses. Use the fact that you are learning a language to get into conversation with the receptionist or shop or business owner. Then spend the rest of the day learning your language. If you get an interview you have a topic of conversation which makes you different from the rest and shows you are keen to learn new skills.

It takes your mind off worrying. You make use of your time. You have something to say at a job interview.

If you don't get a job that week, at least you have done something with your time. By the end of the year you will be able to look for jobs using somebody who speaks the language.

Parents and Grandparents
What if you are not working, stuck at home with children? As parents or grandparents, you could teach your children or grandchildren, or help them with their homework, listen to them reciting numbers, singing nursery rhymes, or watching language programmes.

House-sitters, Babysitters and Dog-walkers
As a babysitter, you can sing a lullaby to a baby in their own or a foreign language, entertain a toddler, keep them in one place out of trouble learning languages.

If you are walking a dog, the dog won't mind if you practise your languages. Or you can listen to a language tape, whilst still watching the dog whilst it runs around with other dogs in the devoted doggie corner of a park.

Esperanto and Hungary
If you are stuck at home, ill in bed, no good at languages, you could take up Esperanto and find a penpal. Esperanto is simple compared to other languages, only 16 rules. It's a language taught in schools in Hungary.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. If you want an entertaining and inspiring talk about learning languages, for a club or college, please contact me. If you want to learn a new language, I can give private lessons in person or on Skype. Make a note of my name in case you ever need it for yourself or a friend. 

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Learn ten Portuguese words from famished to fish

Portuguese - English
x is pronounced sh as in the Chinese place name Xian
I think I shall go to Portugaal to teach English. In Portugal a teacher is called a professor. I shall feel really important.

aluno - student (a loony alumni)
artista - artist

credito - credit
professor - teacher

modelo - model
ovo - egg

peixe - fish
quarto - room (think of the word quarters)

rei - king (like reign)
secretario - secretary

English - Portuguese

artist - artista
credit - credito

egg - ovo (like ovulate)
fish - peixe

king - rei (first three letters the same as reign, the same first two letters as rex and regicide)
model - modelo

room - quarto
secretary - secretario

student - aluno
teacher - professor

Bonus word
hungry - (like famished) com fome / faminto

Useful Websites
https://www.visitportugal.com/en
http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage
http://visitbrasil.com/en/
https://www.duolingo.com/course/pt/en/Learn-Portuguese-Online

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. teacher of English and other languages.

How Many Cities Have You Visited This Year? A Challenge. An achievement List. A Xmas and New Year Game.

Problem
A girl I spoke to in a restaurant said she loves travelling and had visited 25 cities in the past year. I was surprised that:
a) She had visited so many cities
b) That she had taken the trouble to keep count
c) That she had counted cities instead of countries.

If, for example, you live in either the USA or Europe, without taking a flight or changing money, you could easily travel to a lot of cities.

In the case of the USA, you might know only one country, the USA, but visit up to 25 cities in a year, just by driving and using your American dollars, no passport or plans needed. You could even visit near 50 (without flying to Hawaii or anywhere offshore).

Capitals and Other Cities
I've just realised I am thinking of capital cities. Taking just cities into account, reaching an impressive count is much easier. It's easier to visit more capitals when lots of small coutnries are grouped together or one country has split into two or three smaller ones.

Non-capital Cities
If you want to count only cities, you can take city-hopping planes, trains, overnight coaches, buses, bicycle, hitch-hike (not recommended for safety reasons nowadays), taxis, uber, or share costs with a group of four or five friends or family members or colleagues.

Sponsors and Charity
You could also do it as a novelty exercise to raise money from sponsors for charity. Another way is to pick landmarks, such as cathedrals, or pubs or restaurants, or a trail following a theme or famous character, tourist boards being your starting point for ideas.

Weekends Away
For example, if you take a weekend trip to another city, setting off Friday night you have dinner and stay overnight in another city. Number one.

Home And Away In A Second Family Home
Now count your home city, if you live in a city, and you have now done two. If you have two homes, or stay with parents or family over Christmas, New Year, or any holiday, automatically two.

Long Weekends
Let's go back to our weekend travel trip. Next day, Saturday, you stop for elevenses, lunch, tea, and dinner on Saturday stay overnight at another city. Add five to your original one or two. That makes six or seven.

On Sunday, taking a triangular or circular route, you came back in a different direction on and see different cities for elevenses, lunch and tea. Add three. So that's up to ten on a weekend starting Friday evening and ending Sunday evening.

Take a four-day break, at the same pace as Saturday, and you can make your total up to 16 or 17.

New Year
That's an impressive start, if you want to begin your year with a New Year's Eve getaway. I find it easier to start counting travel trips from January. Your own diary or work appointments book will help.

American Holidays
Many Americans get less holiday than Europeans. Americans tend to get 10 days holiday a year minimum (in a new job, as a school leaver, university leaver, or somebody switching jobs and companies - unless they negotiate a special deal).

Long Weekends and Half Days
As a result, Americans often use their odd days to make a series of long weekends. Almost one a month. You can have one long weekend ten months out of twelve. If you are allowed to take half days, using four half days, you can extend that to four weekends leaving work lunchtime Friday.

UK and Europe Holiday Allowances
Check the allowances in the country where you are working or planning to work. In the UK workers tend to get a minimum of a fortnight's holiday (14 days). Anybody senior would ask for or be offered three weeks. Top management would get four weeks.

European Coach Trips
A famous film about Americans visiting Europe on a 'whistle-stop tour' used a phrase now in common use, which was the title of the film: 'If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium'.

Who Has The Time To Travel?
Many well paid, overworked sales and other executives are sent from one city to another with little time to see anything. Two ways around this: ask for a city centre hotel and go for a walk in the evening or before breakfast. Ask the taxi from the airport to show you two or three main landmarks en route. Tell the boss you need an extra day to recharge before flying on and use your day of rest for sightseeing on a pre-booked tour. Many major cities have a hop on hop off bus.

Students have long holidays. Teachers have long holidays. You can take a work-related course in another city.

Conferences
If you are booking a conference, look for one in a city you would like to visit, or one near enough for a side trip to two or more other cities. Many conferences organise a spouse programme during the day of arrival (trying to get everybody on site in advance to minimise the risk of VIPs being delayed and arriving late or too late on day one).

Retirees
Hotels in London frequently discover or tell journalists that their most expensive rooms, which make the difference between profit and loss, are honeymoon suites occupied by young rich honeymooners or elderly recently retired couples who still have the energy to travel.

To go back to the young woman who started my consideration of this city-hopping and city-counting project, she was a freelance teacher of both sports (such as pilates) and music (piano, violin etc). She travelled with other single young ladies in groups.

UK Groups
Hen parties and stag parties to foreign cities are also popular, with UK groups going to Europe or Dubai.

Off-Season Breaks
If you are retired or an empty-nester, you can take advantage of off-season breaks.

If you are going nowhere today, think about
a) Going to another city, maybe across the country or state border.
b) If you are taking a break and just want to stay home, you can amuse yourself by counting the number of cities you have visited in the past year, perhaps comparing your count with another family member, the number of cities you have vistied in your lifetime!

Here are some quizzes for Christmas and New Year gatherings?
How many capital cities have you visited?
How many USA cities have you visited?
How many cities have you visited this year? (Make the question 'your parents or family' - to include childen in this game).
How many cities have you visited in your life? (Compare the generations.)
How many cities did you visit before you were aged 21? After the age of 21?
To help contestants, you may wish to give each person a map marked with cities of your coutnry, continent or the world.

This could be a challenge, a list of achievements, or a competitive game.

Which cities have I visted and written about on my blogs?
In 2017:
Brasov, Romania
Bucharest, Romania
London, England
Perugia, Umbria, Italy
Siem Reap, Cambodia
Singapore (city), Singapore (island and country)

I could immediately think of six.

Going through my blog posts I can expand the list of places I have described this year to give you a guide as to where you might like to visit:

Brussels, Belgium
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Edinburgh, Scotland
Fishguard, Wales, UK
New York, New York, USA
Paris, France
Rome, Italy
Rykjavik, Iceland
Stratford, England, UK
Venice, Italy
York, England, UK
Washington, DC, USA

Useful Websites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_cities_by_country
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City Defines cities by size or type. Analysis of city development. Half the world's populations lives in cities.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Students Need Jobs, Teachers need jobs, Schools need teachers. How to work and permits at home and overseas.

You speak English. Can you teach English? At what level?  At what level are you either qualified, competent, and confident? What about your family, friends and colleagues and those you teach or advise?

Problem
The problem for students is how to get money. Should it be from the bank of Mum and Dad/ The problem for Mum and Dad is when can I stop paying.

Answer
The newspapers today, May 18 2017, report that a judge in Spain has told a woman who was demanding parental support that she should go and find work to support herself. Your first move when finding a job is to take any job, whatever the hours and pay.

That way you network, find out from somebody if another company pays better, if a friend of theirs is leaving a job which you could take.

You might find that at your new place of employment you find another job. You might even be upgraded at the interview. I went for a job as a simple typist in an advertising agency. At the interview I was immediately offered a higher ranking, higher paid job as secretary / Personal Assistant to the late author Eric Webster (who wrote How To Win The Business Battle). I worked for him until he died.

When I left university I found it hard to find a job in teaching in London. Luckily, there was an agency, alas, now gone, called Graduate Girls. They could not find me a job teaching, However, they found me a series of temporary jobs.

Agency Jobs
The last work from the agency was in publishing, at Marshall Cavendish in London, working on editing articles in part works, shortening and simplifying science article adapted from an adult artwork to one suitable for German seven year olds.

I had to find, or reposition and expand any German scientists and inventors, instead of making the English one the focus of the article with the German as the footnote. Articles on WWII had to be changed so Germany was - well, you get the idea. An interesting challenge.

The other hurdle was trying to understand articles on relativity, the engine of motor cars, a suspension bridge, or a sewing machine, and then simplifying the language and concepts so that they could be understood by small children. I was taken on for two days and this extended for weeks.

The work at this company only ended when I went into hospital to give birth.

Home Tutor
Some weeks later I switched to teaching English conversation as a home tutor. My first pupil was a Japanese lady.

American students needing money to finance their period studying famously go to work in McDonalds.

When I was in America, I did not take a job because I did not have a work permit. The same happened when I went to Singapore.

Then a miracle happened. I was talking a lady at a dinner party and her husband joined us and told me he worked as a teacher of English to foreign students in a school for adults. I said that I didn't have a work permit and he told me that the school would get one for me. He said he knew a teacher was leaving, so phone up.

Having a British accent was a great advantage. Not that it was necessary. Several teachers at that school and others spoke with Australian, New Zealand, American or other accents.

When I told a Singaporean friend that I was teaching English, she introduced me to her old school. I went to run a course in the local school. My English, with an authentic English accent, and perfect grammar, was way ahead of the local teachers who spoke Singlish.

I have taught English in Singapore for many years and I am active in Toastmasters International. I have met hundreds of people, including several who gave excellent slide shows on English grammar, but inevitably had one or two mistakes of their own. I hesitated to tell them, fearing they would be upset with themselves and crestfallen or angry and resentful towards me. But people who go to Toastmasters International are there to improve and are grateful for the free proofreading and instruction. Most were delighted that I was able to correct their slides.

I have also worked at translating packing for a beauty company, and on websites. If you speak English, you will be in demand in the countries as a teacher.

You can buy textbooks and workbooks for various levels in big bookshops. Some of the workbooks have answers at the back.

Tips
My tips are:
1 Children and Adults, take a first job, any job.
Encourage your children to take any job, just to network. The same applies to you. It gives you the confidence to say you are in work. You can find your way around town on the bus or train network, or drive in rush hour. You get in the habit of going to bed by midnight and being up in time for breakfast.

The determination to get a better job will overcome your fear of approaching an agency or potential employer. Perks may include free meals. You will have friends who are working, rather than friends who are unemployed.

You will have a little money to get better clothes, text books.  Your new colleagues, or employer, may advise you on suitable clothing, cheap clothing, smart clothing and shoes.

Your new boss may be willing to give you a reference. If your boss leaves to work for another company, he may find you a better job at the new company. The same goes for colleagues.

The same goes for the Personnel manager. Even if he is not allowed to recruit you, he might hand you a newspaper containing an ad placed by the new company (whose name he can't mention). You apply for three jobs. Lo and behold, one is your ex boss!

2 Go into any and every employment agency.
Even if they have nothing available or you are totally unsuitable they may be able to direct you to an agency or a company which might employ you.

3 If you don't have a work permit, tell the agency / employer.
Ask the boss how to get one. (If they can't help, speak to other teachers in the staff room or even on the stairwell. Swap phone numbers and phone them for advice.)

In Singapore I was amazed by how soon the boss got me a work permit. I did not need a teaching qualification. All I needed was a university degree and to speak English as a native language. My fellow teachers included a gym teacher, an art teacher, a science teacher. After a year or two teaching English, they were pretty good at it. They were also good at the reassurance they offered routinely to pupils and therefore automatically offered me.

The school had been paid money in advance by twenty pupils and needed a teacher. All my school did was give me twenty Singapore dollars from petty cash for the taxi trip to and from the government office supplying work permits and send me off with a letter on school headed notepaper.

In one minute the school head had dictated a one line letter to the agency on headed notepaper. It said simply, "We have a class starting today, thirty pupils learning English, and this teacher needs a work permit."

The government office was empty. I was called forward straight away. The whole process took ten minutes.

The interviewer could tell the moment that I opened my mouth that I was well qualified! ("Speak better than local, lah? Correct." That's Singlish from a Chinese speaker, direct translation from Chinese, all present tense and no present continuous, in common with German and other languages. "You are teaching English, isn't it?" That would be an Indian, perfect present continuous until you reach the last two words, asking a question, where the verbs don't match.)

The official was bored. He was not hostile and suspicious, which I had feared. He was pleased to see me and happy to chat.

His job was routine. All he needed to do was fill out the form with my name and address, the school address, and passport details. He stapled on the school's letter. I was downstairs and looking for a taxi.

Then I was back in a school, signing receipts for a pile of textbooks to teach my class. I had no idea what to teach. Never mind. The school did not want me interfering with their plans. I started with lesson one on page one.

Was I nervous. Yes. I walked into a class. The pupils crept in anxiously. The pupils were more nervous than I was. English was so difficult for them! I was too busy reassuring them to worry about what they thought of me.

Ask the dictionary, a friend, a teacher, the internet
 The pupils weren't interested in me. Their problem was, 'Please, Miss, what is a subjunctive?" If you don't know the answer, look confident, tell a pupil to open their dictionary (or the answer at the back of the workbook) and read the definition to the class. Ask who understands. Out of twenty, one person does. Ask them to explain to the others.

No time to correct homework? Get the pupils to swap books and correct each other's work. You don't know the answers on day one, but you do by day ten.

If you don't know, ask the internet. The same applies in any job. I went into an Apple Store for a one to one lesson. The teacher kept going into the store room at the back. I was worried. Did I smell bad? Did he hate teaching? Eventually I had the courage to ask why he had gone to the back room. He said that Apple had their own FAQ for teachers which was better than what we would find on the internet.

The same applies to other jobs. Firstly, you can sneak off to the toilet, or in the break, look up the answers on the internet. Secondly, in addition to public forums, every profession has forums for those in the business.

Electricians, Plumbers, White Goods Repairs
Your electrician can go back to his van, ostensibly for tools. He can look up the website of the brand he is installing. Another website is a forum for others in his business telling him answer to problems.

Primary School Teachers
Teachers in the USA have all sorts of free material to share with their colleagues, pupils and fellow teachers worldwide. Arts, crafts, science and seasonal activities. Everything from how to make a Valentine's Day card, Mother's day card, or Christmas Card, with templates showing folds and pop-ups, to how to explain the life cycle of a snail, frog, robin, or oak tree, with pictures, animations and a checklist for a field tip.

What if you fail and get the sack? Never mind. Immediately apply for ten more jobs. You now have much more experience than you did in your first job.

You might even fail twice. But it's highly likely that by the time you get to your third job you will be teaching other newcomers how to succeed.

Author
Angela Lansbury