No news is good news

So I haven’t posted in a long time, but that’s because everything has been going smoothly as normal and there was really nothing to say. However today I need to vent.

Today started off like any other day with me waking up to my alarm, hitting snooze and rolling back over before forcing myself to get out of bed and throw my clothes on. However when I reached for the light I was surprised to find that it would not turn on. No big deal I thought as I used the light of my cell phone to guide my way through the dark apartment. Later, when I got back from my two-hour morning class I assumed everything would be back to normal, yet I was greeted with the unpleasant surprise of no electricity. There are 4 big disadvantages to the lack of electricity: no tv, no internet, no warm water for showering, and no light in my windowless kitchen.

So after getting back from my class and being awake now for about two and a half hours I decided to make some breakfast, I have a gas stove so there was no problem there, however the issue of light was still to be addressed. As I reached for two candles from some decorative shelves in my hallway to the windowless dungeon like kitchen, a large picture frame I had propped against the wall decided to topple forward without the strategically placed candle in front of it. The picture frame crashed to the tile floor shattering the glass in the dark hallway. So there I was, holding two candles, barefoot in the dimly lit hallway afraid to take a step because the lack of light made it impossible to see any small pieces of glass. After carefully planning my steps I made it safely to the kitchen where I was able to light the candles and return to sweep up the glass.

After eating breakfast I returned to my bed where I was determined to fall asleep when all of the sudden there was a glimmer of hope, the lights returned! I quickly turned on the tv but my hopes were suddenly shattered just like the picture frame only 20 mins before. The cable was also out. You see there has been a ridiculous amount of construction happening on my street and nearby. They recently repaved the main road coming into the neighborhood and have just started tearing up and replacing all the sidewalks (however they are much faster at ripping the sidewalk out then putting it back) and instead of ripping out only the section they intend to replace the next day they had the brilliant idea of going along and ripping out all the sidewalk at once, so instead of sidewalk in front of my house I now have a big dirt ditch and along the street is a lovely pile of rubble (which is also making the parking situation complicated). So I’m guessing the brilliant workers they have tearing up my street hit the electricity and cable lines thus cutting me off from the world.

After a half an hour with the tv turned on eagerly awaiting the cable to return I heard a large pop, almost like a soft bang coming from down the street which then was followed by the lack of electricity, again. Finally fed up and not able to go back to sleep I decided to go to the gym. Skipping ahead an hour and a half, I return to find that I am still without electricity, so seeing as I cant shower or do much of anything else I decided it’s the perfect opportunity to wash my car. I fill up my largest pot with soapy water and as I lift it out of the sink I find its leaking water through a pin-sized hole. So grabbing a dirty dishtowel I hold the pot at the rim with one hand and use the towel and my other hand to clog the hole as I rush out of the apartment trying not to leak water everywhere. As I am leaving my apartment awkwardly carrying my leaking pot of water I oh so gracefully step in some sand on the edge of the step which leads down to the ditch that used to be a sidewalk and lose my balance and slip, landing with my hip and elbow smack on the edge of the step causing me to drop the pot spilling the soapy water all over myself. I quickly pull myself up and use what’s left of the water to clean off my wounds and decide that since I have no warm water to take a shower I might as well keep going and wash my stupid car.

After washing the hood, roof and trunk I decide to call it quits and get my imitation windex to clean the windows. As I return to spray the window the plastic squirt head decided to break off making it nearly impossible to get a small even application to wash the windows, thus leaving a ridiculous amount of streaks from an excess of the knock off windex. Then upon returning to my apartment where all I want is to sleep for the rest of the day (which I should have been able to do seeing as I didn’t have class till 7 45 at night) I saw I had a missed call from one of the other teachers. I reluctantly called her back and found that she wanted me to teach a class for her. Being the nice person that I am I said yes even though I would have to go hurting from my fall and unshowered, luckily I don’t have bad bo or I would feel really bad for the students.

Fortunately when I got back from the class both the electricity and cable and returned and hopefully my day will now take a turn for the better.

Thoughts on Chivalry

Is chivalry dead? Nope, its just gone to Mexico. While in the States people still open doors and pull out chairs its not a overly common act. A man might open doors for his wife or children but it doesn't extend much more than that. Over the past few months I've noticed how much more evident chivalry is in Mexico. Every morning multiple doors are opened for me by my students on the way to their offices. But its not just opening the door, they will open the door then stand back and wait for me to pass first. Even if the door opens inward, he will open the door, push it into the room then stand back for me to enter. Where I teach one morning a week we pass through some doors then out to a trailer type office that has a small 3 step staircase to get to the door. This morning the door (which is normally open) was closed. My student proceeded to go up half way, open the door then come back down to let me go through. This really surprised me and thus got me thinking about chivalry and if the average man in the united states would do this for someone who is basically works for them.

Another thing is that after every class I give my students always say thank you. "Thank you teacher, see you tomorrow" Its just weird for me to be thanked for doing my job, and not just like once a week or so, but multiple times every day.

Same ol same ol

So its been a month since my last blog and I guess I should have updated sooner. I have realized that I have become a total Mexican driver. Not in the sense that I am a bad driver, but that I get impatient with people after about 2 seconds. I am still not to the point where I will honk, but I just tell them in my head or out loud depending on my mood to hurry up. Also on roads that before I was frustrated by people making their own second lane where it was meant to be one large lane I tend to always be in the second non existent lane now. Not that I am doing anything unsafe, I am just getting used to the faster pace of driving. It is really ironic that people are in such a rush here while driving, because everything else is so laid back. Most my classes don’t start till at least 5 mins after they are supposed to start because the students don’t show up on time, and no one shows up early like they would be expected to in the states.

Speaking of work I have been getting more and more classes and am now up to a whole 20 hours a week and might even be bumped up to 22 depending on class scheduling. I have some group classes, some individual students and some children, I favorite are defiantly the groups and the kids, however one of my students is a 8 year old boy who has ADD, and if that wasn’t hard enough his mom doesn’t have the curriculum or the book he is working on in school so I have to do my own investigative work to find out what he has been learning in class that week and try to get a productive lesson in from what he tells me. But still, I think I’m up for the challenge.

Outside of class I still am pretty much being lazy in the daytime, which lead me to ask my dad for a gym membership for my Christmas/birthday present. There is a really nice gym a few blocks from my apartment that has two pools, a rock climbing wall, spinning, dance, and aerobic classes and of course a weight room. Hopefully I’ll find the motivation to go every day, or at least like 4 days a week. I really have no excuse because it’s not like im doing anything else with my time, other than catching up on every episode of extreme makeover home edition, Miami ink, the amazing race (so far they’ve gone through 3 seasons) throw in a few episodes of law and order and csi and you’ve got my daily schedule from about 9-5, that is if im not sleeping. I now have afternoon classes most days so that limits my nap/tv time from 9-3. I’m hoping that when I get the membership I’ll go to the gym in the morning, which will leave me with a few good hours to shower and sleep before afternoon class.

The past month has been pretty much uneventful, thus the lack of posting. My mom, bob and grandma susan came down for thanksgiving which was a lot of fun. Alejandro and I took them to a lot of places that I hadn’t gone to before, so that was fun. We went to Tonala and Talaquepaque which are full of hand made artsy things. We walked around all morning and did some shopping, then stopped for a nice lunch. On Saturday we went to tequila and took a tour of the Jose Cuervo factory, which came complete with a good amount of tequila tasting.

(grandma and bob enjoying some tequila)

Other than thanksgiving weekend everything has been pretty normal. Work, sleep, hanging out with friends. We went to a few more Chivas games, unfortunately they just lost in the semifinals, we were ridiculously close to making it to the final (which would have been played here) but were unable to pull it through. Sorry for the lack of excitement (especially if you have been religiously checking my blog-Katie, but you’ll just have to come back to gdl if you miss Mexico so much) Maybe I’ll have more exciting things to post on soon, and maybe this time It won’t take me a month to post.

Home sweet home

I wrote this last Tuesday… only a week and a half delay in posting it but hey, I haven’t had internet

So I made it safely back to Guadalajara. After a very full weekend Alejandro and I got in the car for the drive back around 4pm San Diego time. After nice long 11 hour drive (only stopping for gas/bathroom) and a 1 hour time change we made it into Guaymas at 4am. My friend Chelta from the teachers training program got a job at a school there and let us crash at her place for the night. We got a whole 4 or so hours of sleep, woke up at 9 made breakfast and some pb n j sandwiches for the road and took off around 9 45 and were back on the highway around 10 after stopping for gas. From there it was about a 12 hour drive plus a one hour time change (and a few more stops than the first day) to put us back in Guadalajara at midnight. Everything went according to plan, except for one minor scare. And of course by minor scare I was more afraid than I think I have ever been in my life while driving a car. You know how in the united states if you are driving along in the middle of no where and you pass the last gas station for the next 150 miles there will be a sign notifying you of the lack of gas: “No Gas for 150 miles” or something along those lines…. Well in Mexico those signs don’t exactly exist, and when you have just slightly under a half tank of gas you don’t think you need to fill up yet. Anyways, as we were a good 60 kilometers (40 miles) away from the next town and the hope of a gas station my trusty gas light decided to enlighten us with the fact that we were basically screwed. I knew that once the gas light went on I could drive for 30 miles, but I never imagined we could squeeze out 40. After the longest 40 miles of my life, complete with a good amount of sweat, a desperate holding of hands, and a whole bunch of Hail Marys we were somehow able to coast down every hill in neutral and make it up every hill with the least amount of gas possible with just enough gas to get us to the gas station. As we were turning into the gas station I could hear the engine sucking up every last drop of gas and if the station was just a half a mile farther down the road we wouldn’t have made it. The whole time I was thinking of the feeding of the five thousand and was asking God just to multiply my gas just enough to get us to the gas station, seriously, it was a miracle.

On a less stressful note, this morning I successfully drove to work for the first time. I only got lost once and was somehow able to find my way back to the street I was supposed to be on and got to work only 5 mins late, luckily all my students were even more late than I was so it was all good. Driving in Guadalajara is like a suspenseful movie, you honestly never know what is going to happen next. Is the car to your right going to cut you off to make a left turn? Maybe. Is the car to your left going to go straight from the left turn lane that he is in? Perhaps. Is the car behind you going to honk if you delay for a tenth of a second at a green light? Definitely. Luckily I have had about 6 months to observe the driving styles in Guadalajara so I can now better predict what the other cars are going to do. In the words of Flor, one of the teachers I work with “You have to try to be psychic and guess what everyone is going to do.” And in the words of my boyfriend “you have to be a bad driver in order to be a good driver.” Basically its true, if you sit at a stop sign and actually take the time to thoroughly evaluate the intersection the cars behind you will attempt to go around because you are taking too long, thus creating a dangerous situation. Also if you sit in your lane with the blinker on and expect everyone to know you are going to turn and let said turn take place you are out of luck, you have to push down the pedal and get in front of the car next to you to get where you want to go. You have to cut people off because like I said, people will go straight from turn lanes or turn from straight lanes, so if you expect everyone else to respect you and your space you have got another thing coming.

So I’m almost all moved in, I still don’t have internet yet but hopefully that will be fixed this week. There are still a few key things I need to get for my apartment, such as a microwave, silverware (which I forgot to pack from san diego) and some other random stuff. I was really organized and even had a list of everything I needed to bring, however it would have been helpful if I had remembered to look at it before leaving my house. But it’s all good, I have the necessities plus a few extras. I can now say that I have everything I need to actually feel at home here in Guadalajara.

Moving out and going home

I finally moved into my new apartment! After 2 weeks of trying to figure out who we could get to be my fiador and sign for me on the contract saying that if I messed anything up they would be responsible we instead turned to a lawyer to draw up a more official contract that doesn’t require a fiador, it only requires a fee of 1500 pesos and my first born child, but luckily im not going to be in this apartment 10 years from now when that time comes. The apartment is small, but I don’t need much space so its perfect, not like I’m going to be throwing any crazy parties or having people over. When you enter the apartment you step into my bedroom, which came furnished with a bed, little night stand, bookshelf/dresser and most importantly, a fan. Maybe equally important is the amount of closet space provided, in my room one of the walls is mostly closet, then in the hallway that leads to the kitchen there is another small closet perfect for hanging coats and such. But that’s not all folks, step into the kitchen and next to the pantry there is yet another closet. There is supposed to be a washer there, thus the closet space, however they didn’t install one and I don’t exactly remember why. The kitchen is small with a half size fridge but honestly, how much food do I need to keep in there? I have a stove but no oven, but really I don’t see myself doing that much baking, and most Mexican food is prepared on the stove top anyways. There is a small table and two little stools and a really neat wall with seven little cut outs, I just need to find cool things to put in them. I am really excited about the apartment, the only things is it’s a little plain right now, with all the white walls and such, but that will soon be fixed and I’ll have more things than I can find a space for probably. Whys that you ask…. Because I’m going home,

That’s right, I’m going home to San Diego and will be returning by car, a nice 23 hour car ride with a stop over in guaymas to sleep for about 6 hours. The main thing we are going to get is my car, living here without a car isn’t horrible, I just don’t like it. I’m used to my freedom and not being dependent on the bus to get to work on time or to simply go to the grocery store. So this Thursday we are peacing out of Guadalajara around noon and wont be back till late Monday night. Its weird thinking about going back, because in my mind I had it set that I wasn’t going to be back in the states until Christmas. But I’m really excited, not only because I will have my car and pictures and things from home, but because I miss San Diego. That’s right mom, I actually miss home so don’t you be getting all worried that I’m gonna run away and never come back.

I got my first paycheck this week, however it was only for one week of work, and not even a full week because I hadn’t fully been worked into the schedule yet. But still, a paycheck is a paycheck and I was excited to get my first one. Don’t tell the Mexican government but I still haven’t gotten my work visa… I’m kinda being paid under the table right now, or under water as its called in Spanish. Not that I need to be paid under the table or that it would be any problem to get my work visa, its just that I started working before I was even done with my teachers training class and it was forgotten about. I reminded my boss that I needed to get it and she was like, oh yeah, we need to look into how we go about getting you that. Basically no one really cares. Another exciting thing about my paycheck is that I was actually paid the amount I earned, nothing taken out for good ol uncle sam.

The only thing that I’m not so happy about with regards to moving into my apartment is that I currently don’t have internet or tv. I can bring my tv back from San Diego, thus no point going out and buying one here. As for the internet hopefully they can install it soon. There is a wireless network that I pick up in my apartment, unfortunately they have it password protected and when I tried to hack it it told me that the server had a list of computers allowed to access the network and my computer was not on the list. But once I get internet and bring my car and things from San Diego I can officially say that I am living in Guadalajara.

I'm a workin girl... (get your mind out of the gutter)

so much has happened since my last post... where shall I begin...

I started working before I actually completed the teacher training course, my boss called me telling me about a new client who wanted to start taking classes right away, so last tuesday after going to school in the morning, I went to my first paid lesson. My students name is Marco Polo, no, not just Marco, Marco Polo... he also has two last names as well, I guess he is just a two name type of guy. The class went well even though I am teaching Business English out of a British book, so every now and them I come across some ridiculous phrase that I have never heard before. And not like I'm all that familiar with American business terms either, so its something of an adventure teaching these classes, haha.

Last friday was our party day, basically we didnt do anything at school in the morning, played some games, sat and chatted with classmates and then said, yay, we are teachers. Friday night our class met up with our teacher in a close by restaurant, and after two buckets of beer and a surprisingly riskque game of "Never have I ever..." I learned quite a bit about my classmates and Victor, our teacher. The highlight being Victors brief dip into the world of male stripping, after working as a model for a few years he was enticed into working at a stripper bar for a little while, "But I charged them a lot!"-Victor.



My class: bottom row: Dave, Ashley, me, Emily, Chelta, Victor. Top: Allison, Orlando, Laura


The next day, Saturday, I went to work with Alejandro and experienced my first Mexican Wedding. Mexican weddings are like a paradox, they are more formal, yet at the same time they are a lot more casual. Everyone is dressed up crazy fancy, not a girl there didn't have a dress on, and every guy was in full suit and tie. The location was ridiculously fancy, everything you would expect from a high class wedding, however after the gourmet dinner, it basically just turns into a night club. One of the funniest things was that they were giving out ridiculous party favors, like what you would give at a 12 year olds birthday party. Glowy eyeglasses, flashy devil horns, angel wings, blinky ice cubes for your drink, and my personal favorite... fake mustaches.

I really think the mustache compliments the pearls perfectly.


So this past week has been my first real work week, although most of my classes still don't start till next week, I have still been getting some teaching in, including every morning at 7 am. I thought I was done with the early morning thing when crew was over, but no no no, of course not. Its actually not that bad, I have to wake up at 5:45 to leave the house at 6 to get to work by 6:45. I only teach one hour of class, which is kinda a pain to go through all that just for one lonely hour, but its all good. I get back home around 9 and after I eat breakfast I find my way back into bed and don't come out until lunch time, generally 2:30. I think I'm becoming nocturnal. I still don't have a totally set schedule, but starting next week I should have one, in theory.

Hopefully I will be able to move into my apartment soon, I found one, and put the down payment and first months rent in, but still have to wait on the contract to be ready. It will be nice to move into my own place, and it will actually be quite a bit cheaper than staying here with my host family. Although the downside is that it is a bit farther away from work (but only a little bit) and I won't get amazing home cooked meals every day. Although my señora did say she would gladly make me food whenever I asked for it and I could take it home and put it in the freezer. She is pretty much amazing. Well, I think thats about it for now, maybe next time I wont take so long in posting...

taking the good with the bad

So I went to the dance class on tuesday and it was really good. It slightly kicked my ass... dancing for 2 and a half hours after not exactly doing any real exercise for about 3 months is not such a good idea. As for the class itself if was really good. They are really heavy on tahitian, which is totally different than what I'm used to. I'd say out of the 2.5 hours i danced 2 hours of it was Tahitian. we did like 2 awanas and 1 kahiko. I really liked the class and its a good deal, 300 pesos a month for two days a week of hour and a half class. However I will be unable to join the halau... want to know why???? Because I got a job!!!!

So I went for an interview today with a lady who runs a teaching school that sends teachers to businesses that want to hire English teachers for their employees. A new business just asked for a teacher to come and teach 12 hours a week, 3 different classes. So I went to talk to her she was really nice and she liked me. So next week I am going with her to a book store to pick out the book I want to use for the class. I basically get to do what i want, come up with my own lesson plans, decide how long i want to spend on what topics and so on. Once we pick the book that we think will work best for me and the company its basically up to me to use it how i want to and teach them how i feel fit. My schedule is pretty sweet, two days a week I will have a morning class from 7-9, and monday through thursday (no work on friday!)I will have class from 6 30 to 8 30 at night. so basically 5 days a week I dont have to wake up before 5pm if i didn't want to.

I get higher pay than that of a regular school teacher because of the demands of traveling to the business site and lack of a personal classroom. So basically I am making the same working 12 hours a week as a teacher at a language school might make working 25 hours a week. Sweet I know. So I'm totally excited. now I know how much to expect a month and can start looking for an apartment... everything is falling into place. I love it. The only bummer is now I have to find something else to entertain myself... no dancing :(