The main problem with teaching chess is the incompatibility of it with my current lifestyle.

I'm just living on the wrong side of town. All the schools that want chess teachers are not near Fitzroy. Fitzroy has other appeals, but proximity to expensive schools who provide optional chess classes is not one of them.

Another problem is the occasional, bit-by-bit nature of the work. I'm now teaching four days a week, but only one or two hours on each of those days. It's not really enough work to justify how much time it takes to get there. Today I covered for another teacher, and got to teach Three Entire Classes. By the standards of this industry, that's a full time occupation. By my own standards, that makes chess teaching a frustratingly weird industry.

I spent more time today listening to JJJ than I did teaching chess. Which is a fancy way of saying that I spent more time in the car than in the classroom. And I really don't want that. Goddang it: if I'm going to pay the rent by teaching, then I want to spend more than three hours a day actually doing the goddang teaching. It's early days yet, but I'm sure I could cope with, say, four hours of actual teaching. And I have the wrong kind of car for doing lots of driving around the city. Kombi Vans are not designed for commuting. Or parking.

But chess teaching is a little bit of teaching and a whole pile of schlepping. Drive a long way away: set up a board, show the kids something, observe as they play chess with each other. Then pack it all up and drive somewhere else. Usually somewhere else that's a long way from the somewhere else where you started.

Schlepping. That's what I'm doing here. I've been a chess schlepper for nearly two weeks, and I've just about had enough. Perhaps I could set up a few chess boards in nearby Edinburgh Gardens, and ask the schools to send the kids there.

Yup. Perhaps I could do that.

My feeling, at this stage, is that I probably won't. Those expensive schools in the Eastern suburbs have some very set ideas.