ENSEÑANDO

After a full month of job searching as a full-time job, I've started teaching! I am filling in at two different companies (business English) for a teacher named "Charles," who is in Bariloche before returning home to the States for Christmas then coming back to BsAs. All I know about Charles is that he is from Arkansas, voted Republican, and made me administer a test with the word "douchebag." Yep.

I teach at 8am in a business called NewTech in Puerto Madero. I can't really tell what NewTech does, exactly, but they have three conference rooms with smartboards and dynamic music/video combos in the lobby. The class I teach on Tuesday/Thursdays is just three women probably about 25 years old who are so cool -- today they gave me their email addys to hang over the holidays (I think they think I have no friends. Which will be scarily true once everybody leaves on the 23rd).

The afternoon group I teach is for a company called Globant; it's a computer software company that makes products for EA Sports and Dreamworks. The office is really "fun" -- they have a rock wall, ping pong table, and lime green decor. And an instrument room (Aaron, does Target have an instrument room? Maybe you should come to Argentina and work for Globant). Walking around, I have yet to see anybody programming/not on Facebook. Anyway, I teach intermediate, upper intermediate, and advanced classes of 10 men each. They are very, very nerdy. Today I showed them a news clip about virtual office spaces (side note: virtual is maybe THE hardest word for Spanish speakers to say) like Second Life -- all of the students had very strong (impassioned, maybe even) opinions about this.

Anyway the commute is a pain in the ass. When I finish at Globant, I have to walk for ten minutes, take a 20 minute bus, get off, walk four blocks through the most pickpockety part of town, board the subte, get off, do a transfer, get on another subte, get off, and walk five blocks. Any future complaints I hear about a 15-minute drive to work will be shut down. Still, teaching is so surprisingly enjoyable that it makes up for the early morning and the long commute (and the longer month of awful, anxiety-causing job searching). I can't wait to have a non-fill-in job with my own classes!

SOON: pics/story of Punta, and The Worst Sunburn I've Ever Had