this is for all you wahms out there

my current job is an online writing tutoring gig. i'm happy with it. i like being able to use my degree, the flexibility of hours is great, i feel like i'm doing something useful, blah blah blah.

however, i'm finding out i'm not an awesome teacher. actually this isn't news. it's the reason i got the hell out of my "english teaching major" after one week of observing high school english classes.

example of my teaching:

student: why do they use "awakens" in this sentence instead of "awoke?"
me: (panicking and searching google frantically for verb tense definitions)
student: HELLO?
me: The sentence and entire paragraph is in past participle (wrong.). "Awoke" is past simple tense. It's "awakens" to keep the verb tense consistent. (i know full well this will not make sense to a high school student. i know full well it doesn't make sense to me. AWAKENS JUST SOUNDS RIGHT OKAY.)
student: but why can't you just use awoke?
me: it isn't the right verb tense.

(MEANWHILE... elsie has a massive blowout the likes of which i haven't seen since she was 2 months old. i grab her, grab the computer, ask some nonsense questions while the student continues to get more frustrated and rude. i'm trying to keep the student "engaged" because we're never supposed to keep them waiting. elsie gets poop all over her back and arm and is SCREAMING. i want to die.)

student: we're going in circles. (student then proceeds to copy/paste our whole conversation on the whiteboard to show me how dumb i sound.)
me:  I'm sorry, I'm trying to figure out the best way to explain this... (still searching google frantically.)

thaaaaat's when he/she signed off.

maybe i was really relieved. but also really embarrassed and headed for some kind of panic attack.

guh.