Just getting started...

My favorite: Natalie. She's keeping me sane!

Well, it’s been a bit of a process. I spent a month in school, enjoying friends and stressing over the workload and the uncertainty of my adventure. Then I began to have panic attacks realizing that the end of school meant I needed a job.

After the first few days of job hunting I became acutely aware that business here in Argentina is conducted completely different than in the USA. While employers in my country are very organized, professional and reliable, the employers here in Argentina are incredibly friendly, warm, unorganized, difficult to contact and “fluid” about their business. Remarkably, they accomplish everything that needs to be done; just not in the way and on the time schedule I’m accustomed to. This means that job searching was very stressful for me when I first started. People didn’t call me back. They said I had a job and then I didn’t. I went (go—this is still happening) to pick up materials and I’ve got half of what I need, or the wrong thing. No one has the books they are supposed to.

After the first week of my job search I discovered that relaxing was not only a good idea; but a survival technique here in Argentina. I surrendered my expectations and my timeline and began to try and just have faith that if I went on lots on interviews, smiled pretty and kept up my normal work ethic I would eventually be working sufficient hours to cover my rent. So far, I’m doing pretty well. The schedule is awful, but I do have a job. People want their English classes early in the morning at 8:00 or 8:30 to 10:00, then at noon until about 2:00 and then in the evenings after 6:00. This means that yesterday I worked from 8:30am until 9:00pm and only managed to log in 6 hours of work. Three large breaks in my day makes it disappear in an uncomfortable fashion; but I’m going with the flow. As time continues, I hope that I’ll be able to fill in the gaps with extra classes. Right now I’m working about 18 hours a week and I’m hoping that in the next month or so I can increase those hours to around 25 to 30. We will see! It’s not hard to get classes, but it IS hard to get classes that coordinate as far as scheduling goes. I’ve got all the prime hours filled; now it’s a matter of waiting for the “off-hours” classes to turn up and being the candidate that receives those classes. While patience is not a virtue of mine; it appears to be essential. Let’s call this mandatory personal development.

Me in my new room!

Along with the job search, concurrently I was looking for an apartment. This was also quite the endeavor as most places are owned by a landlord who rents out to students and does the most minimal upkeep possible. I saw some completely filthy living spaces.

I’ve ended up with three male roomies: an Argentine, a Canadian, and one other man from Holland. While living with lots of men sounds little scary, they are very, very mellow. I’ve appreciated the lack of drama, and everyone is very independent and busy. Aside from the fact that my room is above a noisy street and I need earplugs at night, I like my place! Bonus: I have my own bathroom and a full-size bed (this is an absolute treasure here in Argentina)!

My Argentine roommate Adolfo on our patio.

So that is the update. I’m getting sick again so I’ve been sucking down orange juice in my favorite café this morning. Love that OJ here is ALWAYS fresh-squeezed. I still feel like I’m adjusting, but the pieces are slowly falling into place. As exciting as it has been arriving here, doing things that are hard in America (job hunting, house hunting) has been even more difficult here and I’m feeling a little exhausted as well. I miss everyone and I’m so sad I am not on vacation with the rest of my family right now! Have extra fun for me guys! Un beso grande a todos!