I missed a week of writing for this blog, but I'm picking up jobs left and right! I was worried when my first school hired me, because I was teaching just one lesson a week. Then another school took me on, and I was teaching 5 lessons a week. It was a little better for my self esteem, but still not enough. With that amount of hours, I would have to be home in 2 months instead of my minimum of 3.
My friends kept telling me "something will come up," and I felt like yelling "when?" I needed double the course load in order to make my rent, and I just did not see that happening any time soon. Luckily! It happened sometime soon. I am teaching constantly, and all 3 schools that have hired me are constantly calling to offer me more hours. I'm running from class to class, from one part of the city to the next, from my classroom to the Subte station... but I'm earning an income. Finally!!!
It's strange, teaching business English. I feel like I am one of the least savvy people out there, and yet here I am teaching impeccably dressed men and women how to conjugate verbs while describing net interests and sales interest. They want to learn so badly, and they are often more nervous than I am! One businessman almost broke his pen, he was gripping it so hard during a writing exercise. It's hard to teach some people, because the books are too difficult for them, but they know enough to get by. One woman studied English for ten years, but hadn't studied it for another ten or so. I thought her English wasn't so bad, that she could understand quite a bit, but she stopped me in the middle of a sentence and asked me what "nice" meant. It forces you to scour your personal thesaurus for synonyms on a regular basis.
I'm meeting with some girls later this week to do an informal language exchange. "My English for your Spanish" type of thing. I need to improve my Spanish. I know that I am slowly improving... watching TV helps with that, as does meeting bi-lingual people. Beer helps, too. I am more willing to risk wrong answers and laugh at my mistakes when I'm slightly less sober...
And my mistakes are constant, not just with the language, but with everything. I now have more of a handle on the colectivos, or buses, but my first bus ride alone was an experience. I finished teaching a class downtown, or Microcentro, and decided to take a colectivo home to my house in Belgrano. I whipped out my Guia T, the map of the city, and discovered which bus ran in the my grid. I wandered around the couple of streets covered in the grid, only to give up fifteen minutes later and ask a police officer "donde esta el colectivo estacion?" ... he pointed me in the right direction, I found the stop, and proceeded to wait for the bus... for 45 minutes. I am a stubborn woman, and had nothing else to do today. I made it my mission. I will take this bus home. I will. (It might be wise to keep in mind that I'm hypoglycemic, and hadn't eaten all day. I finished teaching at 2, caught the bus close to 3...) So I got on the bus, a little disheveled and VERY hungry, and asked the driver "Juramento?", indicating my street. He ignored me, almost pointedly. I repeated again,slightly louder, "JURAMENTO?" and he glanced up at me and muttered "Si, si.." I sat down, pretty proud of myself. And the bus drove off in the opposite direction of Belgrano, headed to the more run down neighborhood of La Boca. I told myself that it would turn around again, that everything was fine. And was promptly kicked off the bus in the very non-tourist friendly area of La Boca. This is the area of town that locals had told me "Just don't speak any English, it singles you out... it's the area of town that other tourists had told me they had been mugged. I had a mini panic attack, fought back tears, and saw another woman get off of the bus. I jogged after her up the street, and when she realized I was following her, I attempted in garbled Spanish to ask where the other bus stop was. She smiled, said "I speak English," and led me to the correct bus stop, all the while chiding me, saying "This is not the area of town to get lost in." I rode another colectivo all the way back to Belgrano, arriving around 7 o'clock, still with a very empty stomach. I bought an empanada, filled with carne, and munched it while walking home. Once home, I downed two glasses of wine and went to bed early. The best thing about this experience... I am certain to ask both the driver of the colectivo AND passengers now where the bus is going. Also, I wasn't mugged. That's a positive, too...
I went on a date with a man, going to the international film festival and dinner at a parilla afterwards. I thought that he was shy, until he insisted on taking a cab home with me. Because "Belgrano is very dangerous." I laughed at him. Belgrano is well lit and residential. I am always cautious, but I have walked the streets of Belgrano pretty late at night and have been fine. "If you want to ride with me, that's fine, I don't mind the company, but I don't need an escort," I told him. He tried to walk with me all the way to my house, but I didn't necessarily want a strange Argentinian man knowing where I live. I stopped him at the corner. "This is far enough," I told him. After an awkward goodbye, I left him standing at the corner and continued up the street. The Argentinian girls that I've told this story to roll their eyes. "He was looking for more," they tell me. "You were right to send him away."
The other Argentinian men that I've met come on so strong, they make drunken frat boys look tame. "I love you, Laura," one man told me in a bar, after I had already made it clear that he was making me uncomfortable. Another man called me "Marilyn Monroe," I guess due to my short hair? Yet another man stopped me as I got off of the Subte train, saying, "I have just broken the world record for falling in love. I must see you again." I smiled, said "Chau!" and continued on my way. I asked Sandra, a girl who I met for an impromptu Spanish/English exchange, "Does this work on women here?" The answer, which greatly reassured me, was a definite "No."
Muriel has been laughing at me, because I keep buying groceries that she already has in our fridge. We've talked it over, and for the next trip we're going to split the groceries. She keeps feeling bad for her poor American roommate who can't cook, and has made me a couple of meals saying, "You need to eat better!" Other times, I eat my humble peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Peanut butter is rare to nonexistant here, but I found some in Barrio Chino, the Chinese district, which is a couple of blocks from my house) and watch her create a delicious shrimp and rice dish, with my mouth watering. I have cooked a couple of things, nothing extravagant, really. I'm getting to be a pro at lighting the monster gas oven and the burners, though! I did try to make a cream sauce, which didn't really work out in my favor. I ate it anyways.
I'm waiting for my bike lock in the mail. My parents were nice enough to ship it to me, and I am so excited. I don't feel quite ready to ride in the streets (I really can't emphasize enough how absolutely insane Buenos Aires drivers are), but it will be nice to be able to ride the twenty blocks to the Subte, instead of having to walk them.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Lessons and Life
I've officially taught an English lesson! Well, to be honest, more like a half lesson of English (the student was very talkative!). But I have been hired by 2 different schools and so more lessons are soon to follow.
My student, Eliana, is 32, and is warm, friendly, chatty and vivacious. She was a little late arriving to her apartment, which left me trying to explain to her neighbor in broken Spanish that I really was fine waiting, and that she really was coming. He continued to rattle things at me in fast paced Spanish, and I continued to smile and repeat myself and flutter the piece of paper with Eliana's name and address weakly in his face until Eliana herself appeared to save the day, thank him for looking after me, and let me into her house.
The lesson itself went smoothly. Eliana asked constant questions, and seemed to soak in every answer. She wrote down several things that I said, and demanded explanations of casual comments. We introduced ourselves, and I instantly liked her. She made faces at her mistakes with the tenses of English, and offered me Diet Coke several times throughout the lesson. I didn't need any--I had already had some water at a nearby cafe, as well as some pineapple rings with dulce de leche inside of them. So sweet! I asked Eliana if that was a normal dessert, and she laughed and said "No! That is just too much sweet!" I've got to agree. But I'm so in love with Dulce de Leche ice cream, I kind of want to put caramel on everything now.
I told Eliana that she could call me anytime with questions (she is my only student for the time being, after all), and also told her we should go out for drinks sometime. She was excited with this, and told me "YES! But... we aren't going to speak any English if we go out, because lots of the cute boys are lazy and don't want to put effort into speaking to you. We'll speak Spanish." I chuckled and replied "Well, then I won't be saying very much..."
My roommate, Muriel, admonished me and has told me that I need to work on my Spanish, or I will never improve. We spent a lunch going over necessary verbs, and also the words that indicate a question, the "who," "what," "when," "why," "how," etc. She yawned over her creamy pasta dish and said "You'd better go write this down, or else you won't remember any of it." I dashed off at the suggestion, and scribbled it all down in my newly purchased notebook.
Muriel has been really wonderful with me. She's shown me how to light the ancient monster we call her oven, and how to steam vegetables. She also took me by train to Microcentro, the downtown area of Buenos Aires, where we rode with our bicycles on the Critical Mass ride. I cycled around Buenos Aires with over 1,000 other bicyclists. We rode around the city, talked and laughed... some cyclists attached drums or speakers to their bikes, so there was singing and shouting along with the beat. The busy Buenos Aires auto traffic did not all approve of Critial Mass-- they honked angrily at being forced to stop, but the cyclists paid no heed, waved happily at the frowning drivers and pedaled on. Some cars didn't mind as much, though, and honked along in time with the chanting of the cyclists. It was a great feeling of community. I talked to a man who was so excited that I was a literature major that he gave me a tiny book that he'd written in Spanish. "For you," he told me as I awkwardly tried to hand it back to him without having to brake. "A present." We rode our separate ways when we reached the end point, the obelisk, but I've still got his book, and I mean to read it sometime soon... (I'll have to look up a lot of the words). Muriel and I took the train home with our bikes and as soon as we arrived, I made pasta for dinner and snuggled into the couch. I fell asleep watching Harry Potter 6 dubbed over in Spanish.
TV here is an interesting thing. They mostly play what seems like American movies and TV shows, either dubbed over with Spanish or with Spanish subtitles. I'm trying to watch more TV dubbed in Spanish, because Muriel is right, I am lazy and need to force myself to learn if for no other reason than to understand what is being said to me, and to be understood. Oh, and also because it is an absolutely beautiful language. Like a lovely cocktail of Italian and Spanish.
So I'm settling in, Muriel has actually told me she feels like I've been here longer than for a couple of weeks. I'm cleaner than normal, when living in someone else's house-- I do all of my dishes the moment they are dirtied, I pick up crumbs if I drop them...
I've never been one to keep my room tidy, but I'm learning here. I try to keep everything clean so that the spiders don't have any place to make more webs. Yes, I've basically moved into a nest of spiders. The place is so old, they've had time to hang out, find the best places to catch bugs. And the windows don't close all the way. Muriel laughs at me, but I have pretty severe arachnophobia. I spider skittered across my desk while I was at it, and I leapt up and grabbed the bug spray and started spraying, muttering things to the spider as it feebly came to a standstill and curled each little leg into its body. That was it. I started running around my room, spraying each corner, spraying all of my clothes, spraying the door... a spider larger than the size of a half dollar (GIGANTIC) slowly unfurled and crawled out from under a pane. AUGH! I sprayed him until he was coated in white, and he still managed to crawl into my room before he shuddered to a stop. I was also shuddering, in the corner, crying and spraying a circle around myself. I HATE SPIDERS. That being said, I have made a pact with the spiders of the room. Stay out of my way, stay up high where I can't see you, and you can catch mosquitoes to your hearts' content. Come anywhere near me, my bed, my desk, my clothes, and you will suffer an early death at the hands of a madwoman crying and goosebumping and... well you get the picture.
The cats do nothing! They sit around and chase butterflies and leave me to my spidery doom! Ok, maybe not nothing. Coco the cat is trying to "woo" me. People don't seem to neuter pets here, and Coco, my neighbor's young cat, is trying to woo all over my arm. I keep telling him "No means NO, Coco!" but he doesn't seem to care. He yowls and chases me around and tries to hold me down. Not cool, Coco, not cool at all.
I'm off to hang up my clothes outside. The house has a very old washing machine, but no drier, so I hang my clothes on a line outside of my room. Unfortunately , it rained last night and I had to scramble, tugging the shirts and dresses off of the clothespins. I ran them into my room and hung them up on the doors and shower curtain rod. Most of them are still a little damp, so I'm going to try hanging them outside again in the sunshine.
Later in the evening, I'm meeting with the expatriot group that has been so friendly to me for my first weeks here, having drinks with some boys who are visiting from San Fransisco (friends of a friend of mine... isn't it funny the way the world is connected?), and going dancing with Diana, who is leaving in a couple of weeks.
I really like my home. I'm glad to have some work, though I'm going to have to earn more money in order to make it in Buenos Aires.
Muriel has loaned me her spare bike for the duration of my stay, and has told me that I can ride it around, provided I get a lock. I've ridden around the neighborhood, up and down the streets, hopping off when a car gets too close for comfort (drivers really are crazy, here!), to a heladaria where I discovered my new-found favorite ice cream, Dulce de Leche con nuez. Salty caramel ice cream with walnuts. The sad fact is, I'm craving it just typing it. I think that might mean that it's lunchtime...
My student, Eliana, is 32, and is warm, friendly, chatty and vivacious. She was a little late arriving to her apartment, which left me trying to explain to her neighbor in broken Spanish that I really was fine waiting, and that she really was coming. He continued to rattle things at me in fast paced Spanish, and I continued to smile and repeat myself and flutter the piece of paper with Eliana's name and address weakly in his face until Eliana herself appeared to save the day, thank him for looking after me, and let me into her house.
The lesson itself went smoothly. Eliana asked constant questions, and seemed to soak in every answer. She wrote down several things that I said, and demanded explanations of casual comments. We introduced ourselves, and I instantly liked her. She made faces at her mistakes with the tenses of English, and offered me Diet Coke several times throughout the lesson. I didn't need any--I had already had some water at a nearby cafe, as well as some pineapple rings with dulce de leche inside of them. So sweet! I asked Eliana if that was a normal dessert, and she laughed and said "No! That is just too much sweet!" I've got to agree. But I'm so in love with Dulce de Leche ice cream, I kind of want to put caramel on everything now.
I told Eliana that she could call me anytime with questions (she is my only student for the time being, after all), and also told her we should go out for drinks sometime. She was excited with this, and told me "YES! But... we aren't going to speak any English if we go out, because lots of the cute boys are lazy and don't want to put effort into speaking to you. We'll speak Spanish." I chuckled and replied "Well, then I won't be saying very much..."
My roommate, Muriel, admonished me and has told me that I need to work on my Spanish, or I will never improve. We spent a lunch going over necessary verbs, and also the words that indicate a question, the "who," "what," "when," "why," "how," etc. She yawned over her creamy pasta dish and said "You'd better go write this down, or else you won't remember any of it." I dashed off at the suggestion, and scribbled it all down in my newly purchased notebook.
Muriel has been really wonderful with me. She's shown me how to light the ancient monster we call her oven, and how to steam vegetables. She also took me by train to Microcentro, the downtown area of Buenos Aires, where we rode with our bicycles on the Critical Mass ride. I cycled around Buenos Aires with over 1,000 other bicyclists. We rode around the city, talked and laughed... some cyclists attached drums or speakers to their bikes, so there was singing and shouting along with the beat. The busy Buenos Aires auto traffic did not all approve of Critial Mass-- they honked angrily at being forced to stop, but the cyclists paid no heed, waved happily at the frowning drivers and pedaled on. Some cars didn't mind as much, though, and honked along in time with the chanting of the cyclists. It was a great feeling of community. I talked to a man who was so excited that I was a literature major that he gave me a tiny book that he'd written in Spanish. "For you," he told me as I awkwardly tried to hand it back to him without having to brake. "A present." We rode our separate ways when we reached the end point, the obelisk, but I've still got his book, and I mean to read it sometime soon... (I'll have to look up a lot of the words). Muriel and I took the train home with our bikes and as soon as we arrived, I made pasta for dinner and snuggled into the couch. I fell asleep watching Harry Potter 6 dubbed over in Spanish.
TV here is an interesting thing. They mostly play what seems like American movies and TV shows, either dubbed over with Spanish or with Spanish subtitles. I'm trying to watch more TV dubbed in Spanish, because Muriel is right, I am lazy and need to force myself to learn if for no other reason than to understand what is being said to me, and to be understood. Oh, and also because it is an absolutely beautiful language. Like a lovely cocktail of Italian and Spanish.
So I'm settling in, Muriel has actually told me she feels like I've been here longer than for a couple of weeks. I'm cleaner than normal, when living in someone else's house-- I do all of my dishes the moment they are dirtied, I pick up crumbs if I drop them...
I've never been one to keep my room tidy, but I'm learning here. I try to keep everything clean so that the spiders don't have any place to make more webs. Yes, I've basically moved into a nest of spiders. The place is so old, they've had time to hang out, find the best places to catch bugs. And the windows don't close all the way. Muriel laughs at me, but I have pretty severe arachnophobia. I spider skittered across my desk while I was at it, and I leapt up and grabbed the bug spray and started spraying, muttering things to the spider as it feebly came to a standstill and curled each little leg into its body. That was it. I started running around my room, spraying each corner, spraying all of my clothes, spraying the door... a spider larger than the size of a half dollar (GIGANTIC) slowly unfurled and crawled out from under a pane. AUGH! I sprayed him until he was coated in white, and he still managed to crawl into my room before he shuddered to a stop. I was also shuddering, in the corner, crying and spraying a circle around myself. I HATE SPIDERS. That being said, I have made a pact with the spiders of the room. Stay out of my way, stay up high where I can't see you, and you can catch mosquitoes to your hearts' content. Come anywhere near me, my bed, my desk, my clothes, and you will suffer an early death at the hands of a madwoman crying and goosebumping and... well you get the picture.
The cats do nothing! They sit around and chase butterflies and leave me to my spidery doom! Ok, maybe not nothing. Coco the cat is trying to "woo" me. People don't seem to neuter pets here, and Coco, my neighbor's young cat, is trying to woo all over my arm. I keep telling him "No means NO, Coco!" but he doesn't seem to care. He yowls and chases me around and tries to hold me down. Not cool, Coco, not cool at all.
I'm off to hang up my clothes outside. The house has a very old washing machine, but no drier, so I hang my clothes on a line outside of my room. Unfortunately , it rained last night and I had to scramble, tugging the shirts and dresses off of the clothespins. I ran them into my room and hung them up on the doors and shower curtain rod. Most of them are still a little damp, so I'm going to try hanging them outside again in the sunshine.
Later in the evening, I'm meeting with the expatriot group that has been so friendly to me for my first weeks here, having drinks with some boys who are visiting from San Fransisco (friends of a friend of mine... isn't it funny the way the world is connected?), and going dancing with Diana, who is leaving in a couple of weeks.
I really like my home. I'm glad to have some work, though I'm going to have to earn more money in order to make it in Buenos Aires.
Muriel has loaned me her spare bike for the duration of my stay, and has told me that I can ride it around, provided I get a lock. I've ridden around the neighborhood, up and down the streets, hopping off when a car gets too close for comfort (drivers really are crazy, here!), to a heladaria where I discovered my new-found favorite ice cream, Dulce de Leche con nuez. Salty caramel ice cream with walnuts. The sad fact is, I'm craving it just typing it. I think that might mean that it's lunchtime...
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