Did I mention I found a job?

I've been in Santiago for some eleven days. I've been doing so much during the days, though, that it feels like I've been here for several weeks. I'll try catch anybody who's reading up to speed now, though, so I can get the lack of updates off my conscience, and start updating tomorrow with a clean slate.

Episode the First: Mollie finds housing.

My initial plan was to come to Santiago and stay with Lucky and Ivan (the tios I lived with for the six months I studied here) for a couple of days while I looked for a job and an apartment, in that order. I thought this would be wise because, living close to work is convenient, and while you never know how long it will take to find a job, you can always be pretty certain that there will be rooms available for rent at the beginning of the month in most central locations.

I scratched that plan when I found out that they had a student living with them. No problem; I figured I would go to a hostel instead. This did not happen. My friend Pedro e-mailed and said that his family had a room that was empty for a few days, and I could stay there if I didn't have any other plans. I jumped at the offer, and a plan was made.

I didn't actually stay with Pedro's family my first night in town because, due to a series of stupid events, I missed Pedro at the airport. Instead, I wound up with Lucky and Ivan, who it turns out had written the night before I left to inform me that their student had decided to move out, and my old room was empty. The next night, I went to Pedro's where I stayed until Thursday, when his sister came back to Santiago from Spain and needed her room back. So it goes.

The good news: While there, I found a place to live. The bad news: I wouldn't be able to move in until the tenth. Which meant finding somewhere else to live for five days. Ivan had caught the flu, so I didn't go back to Lucky's; instead, I went to stay with the family Faundez--my friend's host family back in 2007. Sandra, the mother, has reformed; she gave up Catholicism to follow Christ through the Evangelical Church on Irrarrazaval, and spends almost every night there at prayer meetings. Her house is now the Lord's house. Everything that happens in it is a blessing, praise be to the Lord on high, blessed be his name. Sandra always lit candles in the evening for the saints, but I never once saw her pray before a meal, and I certainly never heard her utter thanks to the Lord on high, blessed be his name. Sandra always listened to the radio in the car and while she cooked, but it was usually cueca (Chilean folk music) or radio romantica, never religious music or sermons from the states, dubbed in Spanish. Sometimes, it's astonishing how much people change in relatively little time.

Of course, the Lord doesn't keep Sandra from charging rent, but $80 for five days of housing and food isn't particularly exorbitant, so I can't complain.

I'm moving out tonight, to Av. Holanda nº 14, Providencia, Santiago, Chile--conveniently located two blocks away from the English Institute where I'm working. It's an older apartment, but it's clean and bright, and the owner is friendly and a good human being. I'll be living with three people; the owner is Chilean, one roommate is Bolivian, and the other is French. I am stoked.

Episode the Second: Mollie finds a job

Sometimes, I wonder about karma. Since I got to Chile, things have mysteriously worked out favorably for me. Is this because I timed my trip well? Is this because I am well qualified and am reaping the benefits of my qualifications? Have I done enough penance in stress that the powers that be have decided to let things go my way easily? Is this the calm before some karmic maelstrom, or is this just dumb luck?

Whatever it is, I'm enjoying it. On the Tuesday after I got to town, I grouped together the addresses of the biggest English institutes in Chile and set out with several copies of my resume to paper the town. They say it's easiest to find work if you go in person to deliver your resume. They also say it will take at least a few weeks, possibly a few months, of walking around and leaving resumes and interviewing to get a job. Which is why I was confused when, on my first day of dropping of resumes, I was asked to come back for an interview the following morning.

Two institutes took my resume; two said they couldn't hire me until I had papers of some kind--either my visa or residency. The fifth institute sent me further downtown, where I found out that they have already filled their annual quota of teachers and wouldn't be able to hire me.

English First (http://www.englishfirst.cl/englishfirst/default.aspx) was my last stop of the day; I went in the afternoon after a cup of coffee, knocked a little timidly on the door and said in my best Castellano that I was looking for a job as an English teacher. Claudio, the Director of Education, pulled up a chair and took my resume.

"You have teaching experience," he said, skimming the page.
"Yes," I answered, "with children and teenagers."
He nodded. "And do you have your TEFL?"
"Yes," I answered, proffered the requested document so he could make a copy.
"Would you like to come in for an interview tomorrow? Around, say, eleven?"
"Absolutely."

That was it. The next day, I came back for an interview; I smiled a lot and tried to explain why a political science major would ever want to teach English. I gave broad, inane answers to broad, inane questions. I incorrectly answered a question about the zero and first conditional (riddle me this: have you ever heard of the first conditional? Until Wednesday, I never had.) I smiled more and said I'd absolutely love to be trained to teach anything they would train me to teach. And then, for some reason or other, I was asked back for a second interview the following day.

The second interview wasn't an interview, it was a teaching demo. My "student" was an upper level beginner, and I was to try to teach him the names of foods, and some grammatical concepts. I made myself sick stressing over the lesson plan; in the end, it was unnecessary. I showed up, I smiled a lot, I let the "student" talk as much as he could, and when the half hour lesson was over, was complimented on my quick spotting and gentle correction of errors, and told to work on my board work. I was immediately offered a job; after the two hours of training that immediately followed my interview, Claudio assigned me classes. "We don't hire people just to have them around when we need them," he warned me during the interview. "We hire you to give you hours." He wasn't kidding; twenty minutes after getting hired, I had a 13 hour week ahead of me.

It's not a ton of hours, but 18 per week is considered full time at the institute, and they're not hesitant to give me more. The only thing that makes me nervous is the lack of actual training--even though I've "been trained," I haven't actually been exposed to the school's teaching method, and nobody has detailed correct use of their teaching materials. But I've taught three classes, and thus far, nobody has made any complaints, so at the very least, I'm not doing anything miserably wrong.

One last note about work and then I'll move on (expect more on this later): In an ironic twist, I'm violating the terms of my tourist visa by working for a salary as a teacher. I'm trying to get my papers arranged (if I get a letter of intent from the institute, it shouldn't be too big a problem), but the irony is ever present. I'm an undocumented immigrant. I'm an illegal worker. If I don't have my visa in 79 days, I have to cross the border in Argentina so that I'm not labelled an overstayer, and do not face the risk of deportation. How funny is that?

Episode the Third: Mollie feels better

When I left the country, I had a few explicit goals: I wanted to get away from the states. I wanted to get away from stress. I wanted to prove to myself that I am capable of doing anything I put my mind to--including packing up and going somewhere new and surviving, maybe even thriving, there. I wanted to take advantage of this time when I am so gloriously free, not tied down by a boyfriend, a mortgage, debt, or even a dog by going away and doing something that was purely for me

I also had a slightly less explicit goal: I wanted to prove to myself that I have it in me to be happy. I have always considered myself a basically happy person, generally pleasant and given to laughter. But I think that a lack of challenge, a lack of direction, and a lack of novelty in the past couple of years, coupled with stress and personal crises, has taken a lot of that basic happiness out of me. I haven't felt like myself, and I haven't liked the new self I've been becoming. I don't want to be unpleasant or given to melancholy; I want to enjoy life. I want to smile. I want to laugh. I don't want to dread things, I want to anticipate them. I don't want to cry over failures, I want to be strong enough to recognize them, learn from them, and move on following them.

I don't know if I'm happy yet, but I do know that being here, facing the frigid morning air by telling myself "yes, Mollie. You can do it. You can do whatever you want." is changing something inside me. The more I tell myself I can, the more I find I can. And the more I find I can, the more I want to try to do. I don't know if I'm really happy yet, but I know that, for now at least, I'm content. And that is worth the price of a million plane tickets to Chile.