Don't blame you one bit for not paying him $75 an hour

Evaluative metering should be able to give you the correct exposure far more times than center weighted imho. It is an auto mode set up by Canon to recognise 10,000's of different types of photographs and to chose the correct metering for each. Now I am not saying it is perfect, but it is the one I would use.  Give it a try. 

I am not advocating you get deeply into the technicalities of metering, it is much better to get to know how your camera will behave in lots of different light conditions and know how to adapt to those. This can only be done with experience so take shots in all sorts of light just to get to know how the camera will react. 

One thing that is important to know and will help you is:   how to change exposure compensation. It is a simple control to make your pics darker or lighter. So having done your first shot as a trial adjust it with exposure compensation to get the results you want.  Usually you will end up by setting to -1/3 or maybe -2/3 . Some people leave their cameras permanently on -1/3

Rather than pay the guy in the camera shot do you have any friends whose photography you admire that you can meet up with and shoot together. Learn from each other . If you want to pay for lessons pic on a professional whose photography you admire and ask then to come out on a shoot with you or attend a workshop by them if they do such things.

 

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html