The Future

I am once again in a place in life where I have no idea where I will be in a few months.  It is incredibly frustrating.

In February, I began applying to other schools.  My goal was to test the waters, see if anyone would bite.  Since I took the first job offered to me straight out of college, I hadn’t had the chance to truly understand what the possibilities are.  It became my goal to apply to as many schools as I could and get an idea of what they have to offer.

The truth is, I didn’t think there would be many responses, but it has reached the point that my interview schedule is overwhelming.  And some of the possibilities are tempting.  Very tempting.

I have no idea what I want anymore.  I have a chance to be a coordinator at a school several states away.  Or I could be a language teacher at a prestigious school just outside Mexico City.  My current school is offering an excellent deal for the next school year.  I could switch to a school that doesn’t have as good of a financial package but which offers better professional development opportunities and support.

It seems silly to complain when I have so many opportunities in front of me.  But the more opportunities I have, the more complicated the decision becomes.  With each new opportunity, I fully research the school and the area and the possibilities for our life there.  I start to see my life, what it could be in this new place.  Each one seems like something wonderful.

To complicate things even more, I have to examine each possibility not just based on what our life is now, but on what we hope it will be one day.  And, obviously, I cannot know with certainty what that might be.  We have been trying to conceive for nearly a year now and without luck.  But it would seem foolish to not plan for the possibility.

Sal isn’t happy with the idea of moving because it is getting in the way of his plans.  Which consists pretty much of a burning desire to own his own house and nothing else.  If we move, we may be in a more expensive area and he is displeased with this.  Not owning his own home is like some sort of stain on his personal image.  I would like to own my own home one day, but it isn’t the most important thing in my life at this point.

Next week, I will be traveling to Mexico State for a teacher performance assessment at my top-choice school and to take an exam with another institution.  It is my hope that by the time that is all over, my future will be a bit clearer.

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Teaching in Mexico

Since moving to Mexico, I have had a lot of people contact me regarding schools and teaching in Mexico.  I have been compiling a list of various bilingual schools for a while, and I think that it is something that others might find helpful.  The following photos are a list of bilingual Mexican schools I happen to be aware of.  I have only worked for one of them, so I am not a source of information regarding their quality.  If you know of a school missing from the list, let me know.  Click the photos to view clearer images.

Christmas Surprise, 2011

My husband is notoriously terrible at gift buying.  When he was in the US, my parents would take him shopping for myself and I for them.  He simply could not accomplish the task alone.  Even when I was quite explicit about things I would enjoy receiving, he just could not buy them when alone.  I didn’t want to be with him when he bought my gifts because I enjoy being surprised.  But, once in Mexico, there was no one to hold his hand.

Starting in November, 2011, Sal was constantly asking me about things I wanted.  I was happy, thinking that this would be the year he would actually surprise me with a gift.  I began pointing things out that interested me, hoping that he would have the courage to choose one of them.

We went to a local store the day before I left to travel home in 2011.  Until that point, all we had was a small and ugly laundry basket for our dirty clothes.  I wanted something nicer and bigger, something that wasn’t a sore spot in the bedroom.  I pointed out a nice hamper to him.  “I want this,” I told him.  “You should buy it and that can be my present.”

I left some money with him since he was off work without pay during the holiday break.  Then I went home for a week.

I returned to find no hamper.  I asked what happened.  He said he was sorry, that he just couldn’t find the time during the week I was gone.  He then gave me some of my own money and told me I could go buy it.

I was surprised.

Adventures with the Cable Company

When I first moved to Pachuca, I chose Cablecom as my cable and internet provider.  It took 10 days from the day I arrived to get it installed.  I was quite pleased as I had expected it to be a huge hassle for me.  Aside from a few random outages of service, everything was excellent.

The contract ran out the same month we moved to our new home.  We went to the store to cancel and were told we could not cancel on any days except the 20-24 of each month.  This was a few weeks off, so we went ahead and signed a new contract to have cable installed in the new house and would cancel on one of the specified days.

The men arrived to install within a few days.  However, when they called the office, they were told they could not install until the service at the old house was disconnected, paid for, and the old materials returned.  They left.

We spoke with a friend of Sal’s who worked for Cablecom.  He told us that it could be installed, we just could not get the new modem until we were able to return the old one.  So he came out and installed the cable for us.

This lasted a week.  Then other workers came and disconnected us.  We were reported to the office as having stolen cable, despite having a contract and the system having been installed by their own workers.

For several weeks, we were forced to go to the local office on a near daily basis trying to get the situation cleared up and trying to shut-off cable at the old house.  Finally, we were told that they would be sending someone to reconnect the cable.  We explained that no one would be home until after 4pm on any given day and that they would need to come by after that time.

Each day I would come home and wait.  Each day Sal would go to the office and complain.  Each day they would explain that someone had come at 10, at noon, at 2.  But never at the time we said they could come.

Finally, Sal took a day off of work.  On this day, they didn’t show at all.

We began calling the customer service number on our contract.  The line was always busy and there was no waiting system.  We continued pestering the office.  Nothing.

Finally, we saw a Cablecom vehicle coming down the street.  We flagged him and asked him to simply reconnect the wire.  We showed him the contract, he called it in, and then shimmied up the pole and reconnected our cable.

If I move again, I think I’ll take my chances with Dish and Telmex.

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How do You Call a Dog?

It has been nearly a year since we adopted Georgia, but early on I discovered a “language” difference I never imagined existed: apparently, I do not call my dog to me in Spanish.

When I call my dog to come, I say her name and make kissy noises.  “What is that?”  my husband asked the first time I did this.

“What do you mean?  I am calling the dog.”

“That is not how you call a dog.  That is how you call a horse.”

I then remembered this sound he would make to call a friend’s cat.  So I made that.  “Pitscha, pitscha!”

“What?!  That is for a cat!” he said.

“You have different calls for cats and dogs?”

“Yes, don’t you?”

I thought about and realized that no, unless I am in some sort of calling competition, which I have never been in, I would call all animals the same way.