Lamentablemente

The Word of the Day, I was informed, was lamentablemente.

lah-mehn-tah'-bleh-mehn-teh
(adverb) unfortunately, regrettably

Examples

1. Lamentablemente, cuando llegamos a la playa había empezado a llover.
   Unfortunately, when we got to the beach it had started to rain.
2. Lamentablemente, cuando Claudia llegó al viñedo, Eduardo estaba encamado, sin muchos ánimos de seguir luchando.
   
   

   Regrettably, when Claudia got to the vineyard, Eduardo was bedridden, with not much of a will to continue fighting.

   
   

   Both coincidentally and quite lamentable in and of itself, I not only already knew the word, but had also had it thrown at me just a few hours prior.  It was used as an opener to laundry list of unfortunate developments in my work situation.  Lamentablemente, the mining company had confirmed earlier that day that they changed their mind about needing a native speaker at the site.  Lamentablemente, they were now requesting a teacher who was qualified both to teach both English to their Chilean workers as well as Spanish to their Canadian workers.  Lamentablemente, I didn't fit the bill.  Lamentablemente, since I was only staying until July and wasn't going to the mine anymore, it wasn't worth their time to give me a visa... 
   
   I stared at my boss for a few seconds in silence until I could absorb the full shock of the blow.  Her tone of voice was so light and casual that I needed a moment to bend my brain around the words she was saying and wring out the weight of their true meaning.  Her tone and facial expression said something more along the lines of, "Unfortunately, when we got to the beach it had started to rain." but the words coming out out of her mouth were infinitely more destructive.
   
   In my mind's eye, I could see all of my plans lined up in a neat little row.  With one clumsy flick of the wrist, she knocked down the first of them and they fell like dominoes; each one colapsing onto the next.  There wasn't a glimmer of sympathy involved, not even a simple "I'm sorry", just the dreaded Lamentablemente. I was back to square one.
   
   I felt like Charlie Brown, running at full speed towards that football, only to have it yanked away at the last second and fall flat on my ass.  That's beginning to describe my relationship with the academy alarmingly well.  It seems to be empty promise after empty promise with them lately.  I always approach cautiosly at first but (much like Charlie) am quickly convinced to give more trust than has been earned.  
   
   Within the next few weeks, I'll be scrambling to put together a new plan (be it in Iquique or elsewhere).  When my other boss gets back from vacation, I'm sure he'll have lots of lovely things to tell me about how great it will be for me if I stay on here in Iquique.  He'll hold out another football and things will seem shiny and new and promising again.  Maybe I'll run after it, or maybe I'll just walk away.  
   

She Left as She Came; in the Rain and with Too Much Luggage

Sunset south of Iquique (taken from the window of my bus)

After innumerable warnings about the quantity of rain in the south (supposedly regardless of season), I experienced exactly two days of it.  First there was the beautiful misty morning that greeted me upon my arrival to Puerto Varas.  Then, after almost a month of uncharacteristically high temperatures, the south of Chile granted me one more beautiful day of rain in Temuco before I set off on a 25-hour bus ride northward through the driest desert on earth. 

My decision to leave Pucón was a combination of push and pull factors.  For now, I´ll keep it classy and leave the details of those push factors off of the internet.  In all honestly, I really would have loved to spend more time in the south but, to put it nicely, the stars just weren't alined this time.  I will say that met some genuinely amazing people during my trip and I have no doubt that I'll be back to visit them before my time in Chile is up.  However, for the time-being, my place is in the North.

It seems strange to call a place home when, a year ago, I barely knew it existed.  However, upon my return to Iquique, there was no denying it; I was home.  I've done my fair share of running around since I left Iquique in late December and, after six weeks of being away (and 95 hours on a bus), it feels sweet to be back.  For all the things I love about traveling and being in new and exciting places, there's something undeniably comfortable about familiar places and faces.  After running into several friends on the street this evening and popping in to visit a few more, my decision to return to Iquique was reaffirmed.  It feels good to be with my peeps.  Some reassuring news from work also helped sweeten the deal.

For now, it looks like my near future will involve a little waiting and thus require a bit of patience but I've become pretty accustomed to that.  Unfortunately February is vacation season in Chile which means everything runs just slightly worse than usual.  Luckily, I have surf, sun and good people to keep me distracted while things get organized.  The picture is a little foggy but it looks like my career in mining will be taking off after-all. I, as usual, will keep ya posted.

Feliz Cumpleaños a Mi Querido Chile

Cumpleaños feliz
Te deseamos a ti
Feliz cumpleaños Chile
Que los cumplas feliz

 Just ten days after Chile's celebration of 202 years of independence, I celebrated my monthaversary with Chile once again.  I'm up to eight now and my passport now has six Chile stamps for the cops at the border-crossing in Peru to eyeball suspiciously (much like they did last night).  I'm just a tourist, I swear!  

For el dieciocho (Independence day), Jeff and I had three days of vacation from work so we decided to chill in Iquique for the weekend and hit up a few asados with friends.  Then on Monday, we headed up north to Arica in hopes of visiting Lauca National Park  and popping into Bolivia to do a little visa renewing.  Unfortunately the tours were closed for the holiday.  I couldn't bring myself to go to Tacna yet again so we stayed in Arica and tried to make the best of it by exploring some different areas, vising the Fondas and day drinking on the beach (pictured below).

This weekend we returned to Arica with the same intentions but once again plans fell through.  We ended up crossing back into Tacna, Peru for a few hours and then going to Arica for the night.  We decided to forfeit the other half of our flight and took a bus down this morning.  Overall it was pretty disappointing considering the money we spent on the both trips and the fact that we still haven't seen Lake Chungara or anything else in Lauca.  We're thinking about hitting it on our way down from Machu Picchu at the end of October (which by the way is this month...can you believe it?!) if we can swing it.  

On the home-front not much has changed.  I'm still really liking my job although I'm getting considerably fewer hours which is a little worrisome financially.  Our lease is up on the 13th of this month and after that our living plans are still a little up in the air.  We're planning to store our luggage at a friend's house while we're on our trip and move into a new apartment on November 1st.  We have a place in mind but we still have to check it out and figure out the details with our friend who is the owner.  Meanwhile, I'm going a little stir-crazy in Iquique and have recently been thinking about moving back to Santiago.  As I've mentioned before though (and as Jeff loves to remind me) I change my mind and thus my plans a lot so don't hold me two it.  For now, I'm here in Iquique and trying to focus on the short-term plans: get the apartment cleaned up and moved out, find a new place to live and have the most amazing trip/birthday ever. Beyond that, vamos a ver.  Happy October everybody!     

Los Días Pasan Volando

A big hello to all of you good people who keep up with my little blogski here (I know, it's really difficult since I update soooooo often...)  Here I am again; now with seven months of life in Chile under my belt (can you believe it??).  The last month has seen a few exciting events although, to be honest, nothing too radical has changed (sorry to disappoint).  For one, August brought me back to the beach.  Now I'm back to running and surfing once again which was a bit of a shock to my post-death-bed body al principio.  I'm still readjusting, but luckily I've come a long way from my level of strength and stamina the first week back which was laughable...to say the least.  

August also brought me my first NON-laughable paycheck of the past seven months, whoot whoot.  I've now been working at my "new" job for about a month and a half and I'm still loving it.  I'm really lucky to have such great students and coworkers and I honestly enjoy what I'm doing (much more than I ever enjoyed being threatened and cussed at by teenage boys). Even when I have one of those days when making it to a class seems like a chore, I can push myself by thinking about my students and I'm genuinely motivated to keep chugging along through my (often very long) day.

Being an English teacher has really given me the opportunity to give my mother-tongue a nice hard look and think about things that had never before crossed my mind.  Like what the hell does "got" actually mean?  And why DO we use auxiliary verbs in some questions and not in others?*  Sometimes I feel like my English is actually getting worse, the more I dissect it.  As far as Spanish goes, sometimes it feels like it is improving and some days my brain just doesn't function in either language, let alone both.

There are some words that have been irrevocably changed into Spanish in my brain, so much so that the English translation has left my vocabulary entirely.  Examples include: palta, teraza, salvavida,chauchera, banano & chocopanda.  Side note: thank goodness we've seen less of the latter up here in Nor Chil (Yes, that's short for Northern Chile).

Although my vocabulary is growing (slowly but surely), my grammar still needs a little love and attention which will HOPEFULLY be happening shortly when my boss gets a move on with this whole Spanish class thing at the academy.  I'll keep you posted.

Jeff has been understanding more and more, which is great, although we still agree that he would benefit from a formal class which we plan to get started real soon.  He's still working at the institute where I use to work and seems to be enjoying it for the most part, although he still doesn't feel like a "real teacher".  He's learning more and growing with his teaching style all the time which is pretty cool to see.  However, I do think he misses the whole being threatened and cussed at by teenage boys thing (to each their own I guess).

We are planning to take a trip to Machu Picchu in the beginning of October (before raining season) if we can pull it.  We still haven't solidified anything and (as you've noticed if you've been following along with my blog posts) plans change quite a lot around here.  For now, we're just taking things day by day and enjoying the little things like our little beach-side bike ride today and the delicious homemade pesto that I made (first pesto I've eaten in 7 months, yikes!)  Ok, that's all the news for now.  Un besito, chauuu!  

 

*I would be happy to explain either of those things to you in great detail...for a small fee of course.  Teachers gotta eat.

6 meses en 16 fotos y 600 palabras

In celebration of my 6-month-a-versary here in Chile, I bring you a collection of 16 of my favorite photos from Chile so far.  I can’t believe how fast the time has gone.   I know I always say that but seriously…it really blows my mind that I’ve been here for half a year already.  I could spend this whole blog entry waxing poetic about my time in Chile but I guess I should conserve my 600 words and let you all in on some recent updates in my Chilean adventure. 

First of all, as of last Thursday, I am 100% E. Coli freeeeeeee which is pretty exciting.  Tomorrow morning I’m going surfing for the first time in over a month.  It’s been such a bummer not being allowed to get in the water so I’m pretty stoked to be back.  Hopefully I haven’t forgotten everything I’ve learned so far, we’ll see I guess. 

The second bit of news is that I recently got a new job working at a different language institute in Iquique (the same one where Ruby works).  I’m bummed about leaving my co-workers at my old job but really excited about this new opportunity.  I’ll be making considerably more money which will help take the financial stress out of my life finally (whoot whoot) and I will also be teaching in a completely different environment.  At my old job, all of our lessons were pre-prepared with corresponding powerpoint presentations.  It was nice because it required little to no lesson prep but it didn’t leave much room for teacher creativity.  After teaching each lesson a number of times, it starts to get a little super boring.  I’m excited for the chance to have more control over my classroom and mix it up.  It’s also nice to have the same students in each class because I can tailor my class around their specific needs and weaknesses.       

I started the job on the 17^th and so far everything is going great.  I haven’t met that many of my co-workers because I teach most of my classes in the office building where the majority of my students work.  It is a mining company that is pretty close to my old work (about a 30 minute walk from my house).  The past few weeks, I’ve spent a considerable portion of my day there; teaching, lesson planning, paper working and trying out all of the flavors in the Nescafe “Alegria” machine (sorry Dad, Nestle owns this country…what’s a girl to do?”)

My plan (as of now) is to stay at this new job from July to July so I can have a full year at the same place on my resume.  I’m really enjoying it so I don’t think that should be a problem and they also allow me to take free language lessons there as a perk of the job.  It seems like the process of getting that off the ground might be a little tricky but I’m excited to get that started.  I am also allowed to take vacation there any time I want which is great.  I’m definitely okay with keeping Iquique as my main hub if I am able to launch off and travel from here.

Jeff also got a job (at a different language school) and will be starting this week!  That will probably allow him to extend his ticket and stay out here with me for longer, although we haven’t solidified any plans yet.  About the only thing that we know for sure is that we will be back at least for a visit in August 2013 for Mallory’s WEDDING!  Beyond that I’m not sure about any plans to visit home although I suspect I might be back sooner to see all of your lovely faces.  Stay tuned for updates.

    

Cerro San Cristóbal in Santiago

 

"Spanglish" Language Intercambio

 

Graduation from Bridge TEFL with our IDELT certifications

 

Sunset in La Serena

Viña del Mar

First dinner in Iquique

Hostel living

 

New job!

 

Iquique Love Fest with Danillo and the girls

 

Surfing in Cavancha

 

Jeff in Chile!

 

After an English lesson with Alvaro and Eduardo

 

El Morro de Arica

 

Fiesta de La Tirana

My adorable students

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My beautiful home