Teacher Brian - Private Online Tutor - He Loves Math!
He used to be an Engineer, now he travels the world!
Turning your intense hatred of math into a mild dislike for over 10 years!
Museum - 1980 to 2017
Teacher Brian's hometown is Edmonton Alberta, Canada. It has it's charms! We have a wonderful river valley, a great Fringe festival and get to see spectacular Northern Lights sometimes! As long as you don't mind 8 months of Winter it's terrific!
I breezed my way through High School, but had a much more difficult time getting my Engineering Degree from the University of Alberta. I needed to cure my Lazy Teenager Syndrome, but I did it! This was first time I tutored math, part-time in the evenings.
I had an even harder time getting my professional engineering designation, but I did that too and got my Iron Ring! I mostly worked in power plants, fabrication shops and equipment distributors designing oil processing systems. I produced 30+ page calculation reports, checked design drawings for accuracy and supervised Jr. Engineers. And I went to meetings... so... many... meetings...
Including school and work I spent about 17 years as an ok engineer; my skills definitely lend themselves to other occupations. When an oil price crash hit, I lost my job and had absolutely no desire to go and compete with 10,000 other unemployed engineers for a job. But what else could I do? I liked tutoring in University... maybe?
Museum - 2017 to 2022
Teacher Brian first started teaching English online to little kids in China. I wanted to teach/tutor and anybody can get hired as English teacher. It was a great place to start out. Turns out I was actually a very good English teacher! They put me on the trial lesson conversion program because I performed and hammed it up like a pro.
At the same time I also taught for minimum wage at the Kumoxford Mathing Brainaisuim Academy - "0/5 stars would not recommend". I learned what I could there (mostly how not to do things) and quickly moved on.
I began in home math tutoring through a private agency and did that full-time for a few years. Something happened in 2020 through 2022 though. It's kind of hazy but I do remember being forced to shift to online tutoring for "reasons" and having a lot of clients very quickly.
Museum - 2022 to 2024
The dark times ended, people left their homes again but Teacher Brian remained working online. It was finally time to enact the plan I first developed while teaching English online. The ultimate Canadian dream, total and utter winter avoidance! I just needed to pick a destination. I decided to give Vietnam a whirl for two reasons: Low cost of living and I really like the food.
First time there I spent four months in Saigon. Uhh.... not may favorite city in the world. How would I describe it? Its: Dirty, Smelly, Crowded, Noisy, Hot and Sweaty. But the food is wonderful, I met lots of fun people and I got the heck away from there at every opportunity. During one of those escapes I found my two favorite Vietnamese locations. Da Lat and Hoi An.
Da Lat is a mountain town that's about a 7 hour (5.5 if your driver is a maniac...) drive away from Saigon and it's where everyone goes to escape the heat. Lovely place! Forested, great weather, awesome food, and I found a wonderful homestay cat café that serves as my yearly winter escape. Every time I go back there's a new litter of kittens to play with! Teach math, sip coffee, play with kitties all day, it's rough going but somehow I manage.
My other favorite place is Hoi An, a very, very old trading port town who's whole deal is that it's remarkably well preserved! And famous for tailors! And delicious food (noticing a pattern?)! There are about 110 tailor shops there (give or take and I spend a few weeks there every year to eat like a king well while getting clothes made., I own tuxedos, plural!
Museum - 2024 to Present
Canada is nice and all, but after Teacher Brian graduated, he tried to teach English in Japan on the Jet program... and got soundly rejected. I guess they thought that engineers couldn't make good teachers. Proved them wrong, Ha! In Vietnam I was able to gather enough students to attempt living in a more expensive country, so time to scratch that goal off the bucket list!
I visited Tokyo for one week. Lived just outside of Osaka for two months and finally after two months in Kobe I settled on that as the city I want to return to. It's lovely! A 30 min train ride away from Osaka and Kyoto, but smaller and quieter. And so many fancy pastry shops! Ask me about the Ramen restaraunt I have to hike up the side of a mountain to get to!
Museum - exit through the gift shop
Teacher Brian will be teaching math until he can't teach no more, ain't no way he's going back to Engineering now! I get to decide where to go and what to see! I generally set up for 3-4 months at a time in a given place. It allows me to really get the feel of a city and it's less disruptive for my students. Summer in Greece? Math in Costa Rica? I get to choose and travel the world! Enthusiasm for life and math has gotten me to a very good place and I hope to see you in a lesson soon so I can share my expertise and good fortune with you!