Best Regards, Feli

Chapter 2

Their bedroom had only one double-deck bed adjacent to the wall. Fatima called dibs on the top bed so Feli occupied the lower one. And when J.R. was home, he slept on a mat on the floor.

She had a kulambo, or mosquito net, hanging around her bed but it was not to prevent mosquitoes from biting her when she sleeps. She put it there to protect her from cockroaches, especially the flying cockroaches.

There were also two durabox cabinets for their clothes, an old radio cassette, and an electric fan that makes way too much noise when turned on.

Despite the tiny space, her work area was always neat. The only thing that was on the table was her laptop, pencil case and lamp. She plopped herself on a monoblock chair with a throw pillow cushioning her butt and another one serving as her backrest.

There was a plain yellow curtain behind her. It served as a good background, hiding the old wooden walls and worn-out poster of Maroon 5.

She logged in to her teacher's account. Usually, she opened time slots for her classes a day before the schedule. This way, her regular students could reserve a class with her. But sometimes, new students take the slots so her regular students didn't have the chance to get her class.

In this case, the students could choose other available teachers during their chosen time slots. The students could freely choose tutors; but the tutors, such as herself, had no choice in the students.

"Good evening! Can you see and hear me?" she asked the new student once he entered the virtual classroom.

"Yes," the student replied.

"That's good. My name is Feli. Please call me Feli or Teacher Feli, okay?"

"Okay."

"What's your name?"

"Yuuta."

"Yuuta. Can I call you Yuuta?"

The student nodded.

"Is it okay if we have a short introduction first? We can say something about ourselves," she suggested.

"Okay. I'm Yuuta. I'm from Japan. I'm junior high school. I like basketball, video games, movies, and sleep."

"Thank you for that, Yuuta. As I said, I'm Feli. I live in the Philippines. I like watching movies just like you. What's your favorite movie?"

Yuuta paused to think about his answer. "Kami-sama no Iu."

"I like that movie, too," Feli smiled. "It's about high school students playing a game of death, right?"

It was the first time that the student smiled. He was warming up to her.

"Yes. Wow, you know it."

Yes, she knew the movie Kami-sama no lu or As the God's Will. But she had never watched the entire movie which would take two hours of her time. The truth was, she saved time by watching it through a 15-minute movie recap on YouTube, with a 2x playback speed.

"Yes, the movie was also popular here."

And that was her goal during introductions. She usually asked about something that the students and she have in common. Like now, their common ground was movies.

If there was nothing in common, then she would just ask the students to elaborate their hobbies. This small talk was a must so that the students could feel at ease and they could establish a comfortable teacher-student interaction.

After the brief introductions between them, they proceeded to the main lesson.

"You chose a grammar lesson for this evening. Shall we start?"