Phase Two

Where did I even leave off? To be completely honest, I'm going to have a hard time remembering sequential order of things. So i'll start off by describing the apartment hunt.

I went to see apartment #3 on sunday. it was very huge and the people there are very nice. it was a Spanish family. Very friendly. there were 4 incredibly colorful rooms available all around 160-170 (including utiilities). But the fact that they spoke Spanish makes it really difficult deciding whether I want to live there or not. I ultimately decided that I wanted to find someone that spoke English as well as Spanish. so no bueno for apartment #3. apartment #4 kept flaking out on me. they would say that they could have me see it on monday then tuesdau then wednesday. I didn't want to lose apartment #1 (the best one), so i told them I wasn't interested. So I have decided to move into apartment #1! This one costs 165,000 chilean pesos per month, is in the safest part in all of Santiago, is clean, and has been inspected by some official chilean electrical company for safety (which i was told to look for). The only minor downside is that the heating system they use is called a calefont. I was told this is kind of unsafe in certain situations. For example, if you have to light a match to use it, it's unsafe. If it's in the bathroom, it's REALLY unsafe because it can explode and cause fatalities. fortunately, afterdiscussing with the guy who owns the apartment, the heating is automatically regulated from gas pipes in chile and the calefont is actually located in a safe area that isn't the bathroom. Ideally, it'd be nice to find a place with electric heat, but at this point, i feel pretty safe in this apartment. I just know i'm going to get crap for renting in an apartment that has a calefont, but again, I've discussed it with the guy that owns the apartment and it's safe. I'll be ok.

The job hunt. My god. I have been EVERYWHERE. This one I can do pretty sequentially. I mentioned in my last blog entry that I had 2 interviews monday. The first one was at the International Preparatory School in Lo Barnochea. Now... in order to get to Lo Barnochea from where I am currently, I have to:

1. take the metro to the end of the line
2. take a bus to Lo Barnochea
3. take a cab to the school up the mountain.

It was a bit of a trek and I got on the wrong bus twice but I managed to only be a few minutes late to the interview. It went well. But after all that work I learned that they don't have positions available but it's "definitely a possibility" that they might in the future. Thanks guys. I went all the way to Lo Barnochea to learn that. The trip back was much easier. Lo Barnochea's kind of cool, though. It's close to the Andes and it's a very rich area. It reminded me of certain parts of Florida. On the buses, at practiaclly every stop, someone would get on the bus and play guitar or sell candy or something similar to street performers in Boston or New York. This group of guys got on the bus and stood in the middle. One of them started beatboxing and the others were freestyling. They were really good, too! I wish I had my camera then but I didn't. But yeah, it was one of the coolest things I've seen since I've been here.

Monday afternoon I went and interviewed at the Burford English Center which was walking distance from my hostel. They seemed really desperate. I think they really needed English teachers. They asked me to go to an orientation in 2 days so I did that. They said they'd have tutoring available for me in a day or two. But that's the thing. it's private one-on-one tutoring for 50 year old business executives. This is not exactly my cup of tea. I'm looking for more jobs with groups of people and definitely younger than 50 year old people. For now though, it's the only solid work I have. So I'm going along with this but still looking for other jobs.

On Tuesday, I went to Sam Marsalli to hand out my resume. This place is my top choice for a school to work at. I had previously applied online with them but of course while I was doing that, the internet cut out on me and I wasn't sure if the application went through. Every time I tried to do the application again after that, I got an error message. So I decided to just show up and figure out what was going on. I chose to not take the metro because I thought it would only be a short walk. How wrong I was. I ended up walking for about an hour and a half until I actually got there. Once I did I explained my situation only to realize that they already had my application filled out online. So basically I walked that entire route to physically give them my resume. They said they might call me back for an interview during the first week of March. Oi... After that I didn't want to waste the trip so I went to The Wall Street Institute which was close by. This school is like #7 on my list. I went in and filled out the entire application for them. As I handed it to them, they asked if I had a work or student visa. I told them I had a tourist visa and they said it wasn't likely that they could help me out, but that they could put my application on file and call if something comes up. Which was basically a no. So I tried to think of what ELSE i could do that would make walking that entire distance a total waste and I decided to buy myself some headphones, mouthwash and water. so thankfully i at least found something to do that didn't make it a waste.

Yesterday I had scheduled an interview with English First (my #2 school) at 10:30am , but I had orientation for Burford that day at 10:30am so I had to rescedule the English First interview to 4:00. BUT, I had a huge opportunity to be interviewed for a position at a community college called Duoc at 4:00 as well. It was an interview that could literally only happen at that time or I wouldn't get the job. So, regrettably, I had to reschedule my English First interview AGAIN. but since the guy wasn't available to reschedule, I just told the secretary that I had to cancel and for him to call me back.

Duoc is the same program that Alice is doing, which is part of the huge appeal of it. They had an interesting situation where someone dropped out and they needed someone to fill the spot so I had been doing all kinds of last minute legwork for them like trying to find letters of recommendation and making sure certain funds would get paid in the states if i were to go through with this... all on a hunch. all on a "maybe". So I went and interviewed with Duoc. The woman who's been hooking me up with the position was very ncie and the interview went really well. after interviewing with her, i was interviewed on the phone at Duoc internationally by this guy in the states. he asked me basically all the same questions. again, it went really well. So after that I left Duoc and came back to my hostel. I got a call an hour later saying that they couldn't accept me into the program because I didn't have at least an intermediate level of Spanish. Can you believe that? after all that hard work I did for them. I totally got my hopes up for it too. Being in the same program as Alice would have been sweet. I got really bummed after that. I feel like I keep working my ass off to find a job and the only results I'm seeing is tutoring 50 year old guys. I don't want to do that job while I'm here.

Oh and also, I called back English First this morning (the one that I had to reschedule the interview for twice) and they said that because I rescheduled the interview twice, they didn't think I was interested. So I lost Duoc and English First. awesome.

I also think I'm experiencing the dreaded "Phase Two" of culture shock. see Phase one is "wow! this place is so cool! i can't believe everything! i'm so impressed! wow! look at that park bench!". phase two is like "fuck. what the hell am i doing here? i have no idea how to speak this language. my situation is not ideal. i don't know when it will be. this sucks". It really blows.

That's not to say I haven't been having fun while I'm here, though. The other night I went out to dinner with Eric (the guy from Lexington) and his friend Jordan in Bellavista. I had a completo de italiano which is like a hot dog with a whole bunch of delicious stuff on it like tomatoes and guacamole. We also had Pappas Fritas (i think i spelled that right) with STEAK AND CHEESE on them. that was tasty. I've also had a gelato and OH MY GOD IS IT AWESOME. way better than ice cream. I also had an Empanada Pino yesterday. I had no idea what it was but it looked good so i ordered it. After eating it, I still had no idea what it was. It could have very well been squid or hedgehog or giraffe but it tasted pretty good. I'm going to try other kinds of Empanadas I think. Maybe ones with pollo or jamon y queso. Also, I went to Eric and Jordan's place in central Santiago and had some sausages there. Their place is pretty nice. their neighborhood... not so much. They live with a Chilean woman. She had a broken guitar there. all that was broken about it was that one of the strings wasn't on its ridge and it was way out of tune, so i fixed it for her. she was very grateful. I was too! that was the first time i'd played guitar since i'd been there and it was so awesome. Eric also realized that evening that he might have to leave Chile if he can't find a job there and once the Chilean woman found this out, she said he should probably find another place to live. I gave Eric my landlord's phone number

I've also been seeing Alice, though not as much as we'd like to because we're both so busy. I'm sure that will change once her orientation is over and we both have places to live. I think there's just lots of adjustment right now. We've walked around a little but haven't really had a long amount of time together. We plan on going to the museum here soon and also we want to have a day where we pick destinations and just go on the metro to explore. I really look forward to stuff like that.

I've also met a couple of other people that I could call acquaintances. 3 of them work for Burford and are in a similar situation to me. I've also met a lot of people atthe Hostel but most of them are in transition to another country. lots of austrailians! and the newer austrailians are cooler than the ones that were here before. one or two people from the states looking to teach english as well.

Tonight is my last night in my hostel. It's been fun but, as John Legend would say, I'm ready to go. It's becoming aggrivating rearranging all the stuff in my bags so that the locks are on them and making sure that all my stuff is in my locker before I leave. It'll be nice to be able to actually UNPACK some things and leave them out in my own space.

It's time to go though. Maybe in the future I'll write about Instituto Chileno Norteamericano, the museum and my new apartment. I also drank some tap water last night for the first time since I've been here so maybe i'll write about insane indigestion. So yeah. Not the most positive blog entry but that's just how it's been so far. pictures and videos take forever to upload on this connection and I just don't have time. check facebook for them. Until next time, adios.