Totally alive and mostly well

I haven't blogged in a long time. Maybe no one noticed, but I'd been feeling guilty about it. But the more time that passed, the more overwhelmed I felt about starting back up. I felt somehow obliged to relate everything that's happened in the last month -- as much for my memory as your edification -- and couldn't remember what the heck's happened in the last month. Let me try to dredge up the highlights:

I offloaded three courses to a new teacher because I wasn't going to make it through the year. It wasn't that I was working too many hours, but rather that there were too many hours between the ones I was working. For example, on Mondays and Wednesdays, I had classes from 9-11, 1:30-3:30, and 6:30-8. Basically, I got paid for 5.5 hours of work in what felt like an 11 hour day. Not a recipe for feeling good about life! The newbie took three of the afternoon ones, so now I have whole days free. TOTALLY worth giving up 6 hours of pay for.

By the way, teaching English at a language institute is no way to make a fortune.

I'll let the shock settle in.

In fact, it has me promising myself that I'll never work for a small company again. When the owner is the boss, decisions are more likely to be personal rather than business. For example, we get paid 333 pesos for every hour of class we have outside of the institute. This is considered the travel stipend. Well, when the bus costs 380 pesos, the metro costs 420 at rush hour, and a shared taxi costs 500, the "stipend" will never cover the real cost, let alone the time! Plus, you're better off if your class is longer because you'll get double the travel money for a two-hour class as for a one-hour one, but the travel time and cost out of your pocket is the same! There's no using logic on the owners/bosses for things like this, though, because to them it's personal -- as in, they'd feel like you were asking them for their money. It's such a racket.

Okay, I meant to write a lot more but I just talked to my brother, sister, and mom (yay Skype!) and now it's late and I want to sleep. But here's to getting back in the groove. I know having posted once will make it a lot easier to post the next time.

Until then ...