Well, the rainy season's back

Got to my corporate class today with pants soaked all the way up to my thigh. Not pretty.

"Really, Jan?"

I haven't had a spare second this entire week, but tomorrow is my final day of classes (four short hours) for the week AND next week is fall break at the high school. For the month of October I'm up to 35 teaching hours per week Monday to Friday. I have gotten a bunch of requests lately for private classes ($!) but I haven't been able to accept any of them because my schedule is so full. Although I haven't really been sleeping, I'm finally making enough money to actually save here which is nearly impossible for us English teachers.

I have a hard time saying no to my boss (I did decline a request to do a seven-week recovery course for 1st and 2nd graders however, but only to accept a four-hour, two-student corporate class on Saturdays) but I suppose that it is a good thing that she thinks of me to fill all of these classes. She has also been asking me to do some favors for the office, which I obviously also cannot say no to. I had to spend one Saturday taking a British English for Opportunity proficiency exam (don't worry, I aced it) which I did NOT get paid for and had to spend another afternoon interviewing with someone at the British Council for the speaking part. My interviewer was confused when she saw my last name, asked if it was Colombian (?!?!!), and when I told her that it was in fact German, she became more confused by my lack of a German accent. When she asked why I was taking this exam I just told her that it was because my boss had asked me too.

My most recent favor to my boss was to rerecord the listening sections of the placement test for new students. Luckily this time I'm getting paid for ten hours of work, when it was actually only two. Today a fellow coworker and I went to legit record the CD at a recording studio. Not as fancy as I had imagined; I felt like I was being taken through a dark maze of tiny old school studios. It took practically no time at all as I was in and out in thirty minutes. My boss wasn't there to tell us if she liked the way it sounded, and since it was all in English, the studio guy replayed it back to us so we could listen for any mistakes. Weird, since I hate hearing any recordings of my voice whatsoever. I felt kinda professional for the day, but not as comical as reading tapescripts live.

Corporate Classes

When I first started teaching here, I didn't dislike my corporate classes, but I was never really too excited to go to them. Part of that may have been from the fact that they started at 6:30 or 7 in the morning, but teaching adults can be fairly difficult. I know they lead busy lives, but it's hard when they don't want to do homework or arrive 45 minutes late to class and they think games and roleplays are silly but never want to practice grammar. It was hard to motivate them to speak up and participate on their own, but after two months I finally got the hang of it and was disappointed when I found out that I would be switching companies.

Since I've been back from my summer vacation, I've taken on three more corporate classes and have started teaching in the evenings. My night classes have been a blast. It's so much fun to see twelve professionals from an investment company joke around with each other, practice meeting and conference call scenarios, and play Catch Phrase and Boggle. Most corporate students see English class as just another thing they have to do for work, but my students genuinely look forward to coming to class, especially after a long and stressful day at work ready to speak and eager to learn.

Some days I still have to wake up at 5am, but this session of corporate classes has been extremely refreshing. Now, my crazy work schedule is seemingly a little bit more manageable.

One Cake, Two Cake, Pink Cake, Cheesecake

I started out today by oversleeping and having to cancel my first class. First mistake as a 23-year-old, but at least I plan on not making too many more. Five cakes, three parties, and a homemade lunch later, birthday week still isn't over quite yet. Here are some pictures of the day:

Giant birthday cards from my younger girls. Notice the glitter.

Cake #1

Cake #2

Surprise party from my older girls.

Flowers sent to the school from Mom and Dad.

Lunch, cake, and presents from my Colombian family.

Cake #5 from my corporate class. SO full at this point, but still managed to eat a full slice.

un año

I have been in Colombia for one year, today.

It wasn't the worst bus ride I've ever been on

But I'd say that it's up there.

I don't live on a super busy street, but it's only a ten minute walk in either direction to get to one. I also don't live on a completely dead street, and usually it's pretty easy to get a taxi or catch one of the few buses that go down it.

I used to take a lot of taxis. I could never justify waking up an hour earlier to avoid paying the extra five thousand pesos. Now that I have to wait until September before I get a full month's salary, I figured taxis are probably the easiest thing to cut from my budget. And in a city with thousands upon thousands of buses, catching one shouldn't be so bad.

So I'm waiting for the bus this morning and constantly keep checking my watch as 10 minutes go by, then twenty minutes go by, then probably around the 28th minute the bus showed up. (This is an extremely long time to wait for the bus. You should really only have to wait like 7 minutes max.) And I never know if I should walk to the busy streets, or just keep waiting, or just grab a cab, because by the time I do then the bus would come, etc. It's a bit of a dilemma.

The bus was packed full, and I almost didn't get on because they absolutely could not squeeze one more person onto the bus. I pushed my way in, because there was no way I would wait for another one, as I was already going to be late to class by this time. So I'm kinda-sorta hanging out the door until the driver decided that he had to be able to close the doors. All buses here have turnstiles, but unfortunately they don't allow you to move, or stand very efficiently. So I'm jammed up against the door, trying hard to not swallow the hair of the woman in front of me, while balancing on the step and holding my heavy book bag. And to top things off, some lucky person that got on before me stepped in dog poo and brought it on the bus (which was not well-ventilated), and left most of it on the steps, right where I happened to be standing. This pretty much cut in half the area I already had to stand.

We sat in traffic for an hour plus, (it usually takes twenty minutes to get to my first company) and I didn't even get a chance to pass the turnstile. Unfortunately I still had to pay for my ride. I emerged gasping for air and triple checking my shoes. They were clean, but needless to say I was very late to my class. One student had arrived, but the rest never made it due to another traffic jam.

Rush hour SUCKS.

Bagel Time

...is the name of my new favorite place to eat breakfast. Nevermind that I get free breakfast at the school... they have toasted bagels with cream cheese!