Conversation Partners Experience with Ling-En, a skype-based eikaiwa

Even after moving back to the United States, I've continued teaching in Japan.
This is an unusual post in which I'll talk about my current employers, Ling-En. It is an online 英会話 (eikwaiwa, or English conversation school). I actually found this job by listing my resume on the internet while still in Japan, and after passing a video interview, got the position.

This is an educational setting without actual classrooms. All of the lessons are conducted as video and voice chats on skype, a popular VOIP (voice over internet protocol). Skype is relatively easy to use, and in addition to being able to speak to and see the student, the teacher can also drag and drop classroom handouts and homework to send them to the student, or the teacher can also use the text chat function in conjunction with the other features to type out corrected sentences for the student.

I have a group of regular students on the site and also have met quite a few students that enjoy chatting with different teachers regularly so as to avoid running out of things to say. While the site currently has not set up a curriculum, I try to find out something the students are interested in or working on to make my lessons relevant to them. A recent lesson I had was with a student working on an automated self-adjusting pillow. In addition to discussing the technical aspects of his gadget, we also ended up talking about 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱/Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu after I found out that his subordinate from school worked on the series.

It's been a wonderful experience but because of the time difference between America and Japan I find I often have to get up early to teach the classes. Before the class starts, I look over the notes left by other teachers to help plot out some activities to do with the student and also glance over the news on BBC to have something topical to discuss. I sometimes use text from the American Streamline series of books in my classes because I'm familiar with it because of my time spent working for Nova group.
After the lesson, I leave notes discussing what we did, what material we covered, and what advice I can give for the student and to other teachers who will have that student.

The pay is all right (I currently earn about 1,260円 per hour, which converts to $15 per hour). I am paid in yen via paypal, and can then convert between currencies on paypal's site. 

I don't get enough hours to make this a full-time job, but this does give me some pocket money. I also get a chance to enjoy teaching motivated learners and even get to use my Japanese if there's something the student wants me to translate, as I did a few weeks ago.
"How do I say '留守にしたくない' in English?"

"I'd translate that one as ' I don't want to be away from my house for long periods of time.'"

I am grateful to have this opportunity. I won't get rich doing this, but I enjoy it and I don't mind having a little extra money to spend or save.