LIFE UPDATES

After not hearing a single peep from any of my applications from the past few months, on the day I arrived back in Spain I had 3 interviews. Very exciting but revisiting the nightmare that is a job interview in spanish. I do it anyway - always a fun story to tell when you make a fool of yourself. The first one I wore my recently deemed "lucky" 2 for the price of one pair of "leather" shoes I bought in Chinatown, Sydney. Lucky indeed, those dodgy plastic, don«t go near an open flame, shoes rip your feet up and leave you unable to walk. I was so nervous during the interview that I was breathing way to fast to be normal and could barely speak without sounding out of breath.... They asked me what I could "offer" them but used a strange word for offer that I had not yet heard so I had to say I didn«t understand..."Please explain" I came in with an "I can firstly offer fluent english ha ha ha, cause clearly spanish is not my strong point." Very smooth interview manner KP. Anyway.....then the freaks CALLED ME BACK FOR A SECOND INTERVIEW....freaks!!!!! I mean - I would so NOT hire me! Second interview went swimmingly, after an extended unemployed lunch at one of the americans house and feeling the confidence that only a couple of glasses of chardonnay can bring, I charmed the pants of the boss, made a few jokes, one of them being that he was a typical spanish male which thankfully he laughed at - that could of gone very wrong indeed. Unfortunately the pay was shit and I had my sights on another job in a HUGE company that even has their own human resources department, a rare thing in my working life. So good news - Got the job! After three painstaking interviews and a "test" that involved designing a fake car ad. In the test I misread a word in the instructions and made a complete fool of myself ..... Tell me people, without a spanish/english dictionary, what the hell do you think the word "silhouetado" would mean???????????????????????????? And then if I tell you that in spanish, an "ado" on the end of a word is like the "ed" on the end of an english word.......Thats right SILHOUETTED. So of course I did some lovely silhouettes of cars in my ad and when presenting my creation to the boss I am met with an "Um. Where are the cars???????" Supposedly silhouetado DOES NOT MEAN SILHOUETTED - keep that in your memory for later eh.

So anyway, the good news is that I got the job, I can«t start yet though cause it has bought o MORE visa dramas and I have spent the past 5 days at the foreign office here. There are no words to explain the mad house that is the foreign office - It opens at 9am and people start lining up at god knows what time, I arrived at 7.30am and there were already hundreds of people there. All I had to do was ask a question at the information part. You have to line up to get a number to then wait to be called. I got seen at midday. Thats a good 5 hours waiting to ask a question. There are hundreds of rowdy Romanians as they have recently joined the EU and they form their own line. Police get called cause there are punch ups, they scream and shout and one romanian entrepeneur woman sells coffee and sandwiches! One day I arrived at 9am (opening) and didn«t get seen till 2.30pm. The foreign office toys with your emotions and I hate it.

So in the meantime, apart from enjoying being unemployed I have taken on a few english classes to pay for my extravagent tapas lifestyle. I AM COMPLETELY SHIT AT TEACHING ENGLISH AND DURING EACH CLASS IT IS EVIDENT THAT ITS A MIRACLE I EVEN KNOW HOW TO STRING A SENTENCE TOGETHER. They ask me questions I can«t even answer. For example. What is the difference between they and them????? Who the hell knows that????? I pretend that I know the answer but I don«t know how to explain it in spanish - I am getting away with the farce so far. One of my students asked me to go over the forms of the verb "have" I mean I REALLY STRUGGLED. I have, you have, she/he HAS - oooh TRICKY!!!!!! I had, you had, she/he had all the same YAY! One of my students got a red mark in her book at her school cause I taught her how to spell "nineth" incorrectly. I spelt it ninth!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going straight to teacher fraud HELL!
It was quite funny last week, one of my students, a mother of about 40, was trying to say "sitting" but she kept on saying "shitting" it was really funny, she was saying, "he is shitting at the bus stop" I let her say it a few times before I corrected her then I told her what she was saying!

So the good thing about this job is....30 days a year holiday! Hoorah! Thats heaps! i am almost a bludging school teacher!!!! and I don«t have to take them all in August like most people here so bring on the holidays!!!! So if anyone wants to come to visit I am more available to take an exciting side trip! Yippeeee!!!!

OK Much Love to All!
Kristy