Home and work

Dan: Sometimes wishes do come true. I would like to announce to our readership that I am now gainfully employed in South America. Employed if you consider having one student, three hours a week to be gainful, also considering that transportation to and from the lessons equals roughly three hours a week itself. But I know I have to start somewhere. So far, the Highlands Institute is the only place that has called me, so I’ll take whatever they offer me. I know that word of my wicked teaching skills will soon travel throughout the land and I will have more work than I want. Thus far it feels pretty good to be back in my element, where for the most part, I know what I’m doing.

In the meantime, our efforts to find a cheaper, more permanent place to live have paid off. We hope we have obatined the six keys to our happiness. Last night was our first night in our new, one-bedroom apartment. Louann still can’t sleep past 6AM, but I for one, was happy to at last sleep in, on a firm mattress with soft pillows. The place is furnished (dishes and all) and quite clean. We have our own little courtyard for putting out laundry to dry. If we were one floor higher and on the opposite side of the building, we would have a mountain view. The rooms in this building that I suspect do have more scenic views are dentist offices. There are three apartments and three dentists in this building. So far all I hear is footsteps and dropping of tools from upstairs. No soothing sounds of drills yet.

My discovery of the day was at one of the hundreds of internet places in Mendoza. Some are simply places to use the web or print things, others are fully equipped for network gaming, with headphones, mics and video cameras for video chatting. I was killing time between my Spanish class and my English lesson, and quite bored, when I realized that X# of pesos per hour for internet could also mean X# of pesos to play video games. I checked the program list and there were tons of games for me to wile away the time with. Anyway, the time flew by quickly and I learned the Spanish word for machine gun.