TtMadrid

Getting a job across the world can be hard work. Using only the Internet, you have to determine whether the people on the other side are real or not, whether the amazing opportunities you are reading about in print are valid, legitimate offers. When you conclude safely that this is all true, and apply, you are corresponding, again through Internet. No smiles, body language, comforting gestures. You don't see the way it really works, the offices and buildings, where they are, what they really look like. For phone interviews, you must schedule in advance a time for you, the interviewee, and the interviewer to talk over e-mail. This exchange could last several days, as each of you are waking and living on different clocks, checking your email throughout, missing each other's messages. And finding a time that actually works for two people living full lives in two different time zones...this can take awhile. There is, of course a considerable time difference, and because of this, phone interviews might take place and seemingly unprofessional times. There is also many other worries: what if the connection is bad? What if my battery dies? What if someone else calls me right before the time I am expecting? It also, plainly, just seems odd. Scheduling your life around a phone call? You must be in a place quiet enough to take a professional call. You must also be prepared, supposedly, like an interview (though thankfully, no interview clothes required!--go ahead and try to catch me in a business suit ever!). You wait, expectantly, as the time nears, looking at your phone, hoping you have signal, and that your positive attitude and hard work ethic are conveyed through the cellular wave signals. Or whatever they are.
The director of your final chosen program, a decision you have arrived at after months of said search, frustrations, and anxiety, and years of dreaming, calls you at prearranged time. She has a British accent, and you feel dumb and silly, maybe slow to speak. "I'm graduating from Indiana University" --she probably thinks you've never been anywhere! She's probably never heard of Indiana, but pictures a rural, farming community with a small population of close-minded patriots. She probably thinks you buy into all the American brainwashings that most of the world agree that Americans buy into! She is probably laughing at the way you say things. But she tells you your application was impressive and the program is exciting--she tells you things you never thought of before, only feeding your excitement. It's a great way to travel, as the certification is universal, it's a great way to network, it looks good on grad school applications, job applications, you can find jobs in the government, maybe a company will take you full-time. Life is fast-paced and the connections you make with the people of the world are life-changing. Join our program!
You say yes, see you in September, and she gives you the name of an American about the same age as you that you can contact with specific questions and fears you might have about this procedure coming from America--another virtual contact, a cyperspace friend. She tells you the same, the program has been amazing, I make great money, I love my life, I live with random people who are now my best friends, I travel Europe on the weekends. She is returning to America in August, and she feels the slow spread of devestation already setting in. Kind of like the first time you had to leave Spain, and you hated it, you felt like you were being dragged against your will, and that first morning you woke up in America, in your childhood bed, you burst into tears.
But you chat with this girl, and the director e-mails you an admissions packet, a metro map of Madrid(you didn't tell her you have a copy tacked onto your wall, or another copy in a box of notes and memorys from two years ago), the expectations of the program. And it's done. You have a place to be come September, a calling. There is something out there for you besides the student role. Of course, there is much to do between now and then--making enough money to live for a couple of months, before you start getting paid, buying teacher clothes, finding a place to live, networking and making friends. But you have a place. And it's the place you wanted all along, and you think you can make hte most of this opportunity, see more of the world, and maybe you will be satisfied, can come back to what is here and feel ready for somethign else--something more reliable.
You have a program that is excited to teach you what it can and support you through your move and new occupation. In just a few months, you will be a college graduate, and then you will be a graduate that teaches English in Spain, or maybe somewhere else, if you decide--because you can decide whatever you like. You will get your TESL certification, and from there it is up to you.

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Not all of Mexico is dangerous. Most of it is not any more dangerous than a city in the U.S. The people are hard-working, and they are happy. They don't make a lot of money, but they live near their families and play soccer several times a week with their friends. It makes them sad that people are scared to travel to Mexico, because they have pride in their country and see that it is beautiful. They know their friends and family are good people.
Lots of them speak better English than any of the visiting tourists speak Spanish. This is ironic because so many of these people live their lives trading, selling, and sleeping on the beach. They have never left Mexico, and don't have the opportunities to travel outside of their country.

On Weather

Texas. God bless Texas. The summers are hot, so hot you sweat through the minimal amounts of clothing you wear. Showering sometimes two, three times a day, and changing clothes just as often. Football games under the hot sun all the way through the season and then the mild, cloudy winter. Most days were sweatshirt weather with the occasional day of shorts and flipflops. Never pack away your flip flops.
On this particular morning, the weatherman predicted "winter storm warnings." Winter coats and mismatching accessories were everywhere; only eyes could be seen between hood and scarf.
We laughed, this powdery dusting, a cold wind, was shutting down schools and bridges. Salt trucks had no salt, sand was dumped in heaps on sidewalks. No one had ice scrapers, no one had gloves. Grocery stores were running out of supplies, lines were wrapped through the aisles, everyone in new-looking winter coats several years out of style.

Briefly, On Time

I woke up today to thunder storms and a lost hour. The wind is hard and chilly; the clocks are turned an hour past what they read 24 hours ago. I woke up at "10"--and time is forcing me to rush through my day. Time is an interesting concept. It is man made, used by men. Often, like many things we think we own, time ends up using us.


Forward motion and change are the themes of the day. The symbolism is a little over the top.

VIVA

In less than a week from right now, I will be on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It couldn't come soon enough. I just spent the entire day in the library, and have a feeling the week leading up to my 6AM departure next Friday will be much of the same. Even my blog lacks interest...I realized I haven't written in nearly a week, and this is the best I could come up with.
A busy week ahead, but I will hopefully get creative again sometime soon. Who knows what kind of technological access I will have in Mexico, not even sure if my phone will work (does anyone know?)...
Maybe the next time blogspot will see me, I will have a tan!