and here i shall remain. the job in puerto angel turns out to be for late march or mid april and there is no way i am going to go jobless for 1 to 2 months. it would be great to have a change of scenery, but not that great. so, as i previously had planned, i will sticking around ixtepec for the next six months or so, which really is not so bad. i have friends, i have an apt with a frigerator, bed, fan, hammock and stove.

all these things may seem pretty trivial to you guys at home,but none of them come with an apartment down here. simply obtaining a tank of gas, a necessity for a stove, is a chore. there are trucks that drive around town and sell gas, but you have to see the truck to stop them. or, you can call them, if you have a phone, as paco and i did, and then they will show up when they feel like it (worse than the cable guy) as opposed to when you ask them to do so. thus, paco and i spent nearly 3 weeks without fuel. sandwiches were getting pretty old, let me tell you. then, when they finally arrived, they looked at our tank, told us that it was the wrong color (i am not joking) and left. anyway. we finally got a new tank and it cost a pretty penny, let me tell you.

i tell you this little story because it has recently come to my attention that some might think that my life down here is kind of a vacation. in no way is this the case. i dont mention the daily tediums because, well, they are rather boring. but rest assured that there are many complications, not to mention how obnoxious my students can often be, which make living and working down here as complicated, if not more so, than in the states. i continually point out that i am happy because i am, but i hope this does not imply that life is a dream and that i have left the usa for an easier existence down here. not that you think all of this, mind you. the language barrier alone, even though i can communicate with anyone who does not insist on using colloquial phrases as the sole means of raport, can be difficult. i can communicate, but i certainly do not know all the little phrases and words that any native speaker takes for granted.

this leaves me looking slightly foolish as i utilize my ¨catch phrase¨skills to describe a word or phrase. you know the game where you can say just about anything to describe a word without saying the actual word? found in the ocean, creatures once lived inside them, people collect them: seashells. right, but if you do not know the word for seashells and you want to use it, or are in a conversation where others are using it, well, a problem arises.

those of you who have lived in foreign countries probably know what i am talking about, but the added pressure of not only living but working in a foreign country as well sometimes makes for a very stressful situation. a student or traveller in a foreign has a lot of leeway because, after all, that is not your home. however, when you begin to work, the people see you differently. you are no longer quaint and interesting, you are accountable. if i did not have to spend most of my day communicating in english, i am sure i would have fewer problems. i met a guy in san cristobal who was telling me that he quit his english teaching job because his spanish was going nowhere. i can totally relate. everyone, at least down here, expects language teachers to be able to pick up the nuances and subtleties of the native language of the foreign country rather quickly. this is not as easy as it sounds when all of your time is spent using another language.

so i was bit by a spider two nights ago in my sleep. this happens every month or so. i am lucky it was not a scorpion, which more and more people are finding in their apartments right about now, but it bit me right next to my eye. i woke up with my eye swollen and searching for the word to describe the bite when paco asked me why my face was red. itchy, swollen, medication for an insect bite, not words or phrases i use often, but words i needed to know. this is not the kind of event that your language book prepares you to answer questions about, let me tell you. anyway, the pain is mostly gone today, but i looked pretty funny yesterday. then, the words i found in my dicitonary to describe what happened did not really make sense to everyone who asked me about, so i found myself trying to figure out what people were saying as they used other ways to describe the situation (as is common in any language, i mean, not many people describe the same event the same way. most use language that is familiar to them). and this is not a sickness that everyone can identify with, it is more obscure than that.

anyway, you get the idea. language is a difficult thing to get a handle on, and it seems like the more you know, the more you need to know. once you start to catch on to some of the little phrases that people use everyday, they start using more and more with you. unfortunately, it is not quite so easy to learn them as quickly as they say them, and as everyone has a different accent, it is even more difficult to understand exactly what they are saying. plus, it gets annoying when you continually ask people to repeat themselves or spell something or explain what they mean. after a few months, both you and the other people speaking just want to have a normal conversation in a dialect that comes naturally to both parties without having to take up a lot of time with explanation. everyone loses patience after so many months, but when that happens, the foreigner just has to sit back and let the conversation go on without him/her. kind of like watching a foreign film without subtitles. you get some of it, but the rapidity and flow eventually make the finer points start to blur. sure, you know the main idea probably, but as for the details, those are fuzzy at best. you start getting used to knowing only part of what is going on and this starts to shift how you yourself communicate. in short, you stop paying attention all the time. no problem if you have all day to listen and practice. but you dont. you only have a few short hours. there is no time for frustration. conversations, and life, are moving on without you. people you talk to stop correcting you all the time because, as a friend recently told me, we would have nothing to say to each other. the entire time would be spent correcting subtleties. this, if you cannot imagine it, is depressing to hear. he continued by telling me that people know what i am saying because i am about 75% right most of the time (this includes pronunciation and grammar and syntax).

so my little comment that i can communicate with anybody now sounds a little bit different doesnt it? what once sounded like a great thing now has a different meaning. this is my point. i paint most things in this blog to be neat and tidy but nothing is. sure, i know what is going on, but how many times can you make mistakes before it starts to frustrate you? i have no teacher to help me, only friends. friends are friends and will help you to a certain extent, but eventually, they stop. you dont go around correcting everyone´s grammar all the time. you could. but you dont. my situation is similar but more complex because grammar holds my understanding together. that is how i learn foreign language, through grammar. if someone cannot explain to me how an example fits in with the rules i know, i feel confused. like any learner of a foreign language, it is the exceptions that make things difficult. why? it just is. i have always hated that explantion (and this goes back to being a child and being told things without explanations), yet i found myself giving it to one of my students the other day. how can i be so hypocritical?

i just can. i just am. that is the way it is.

and so you see my point.

but that is life, in the end, right? perfection is unattainable, but who said anything about perfection? i have a hard time accepting my limitations, but this is one more lesson that i must learn and practice each day. not that i thought i would be perfect, but that i thought i was getting pretty good. and i am, but relatively. compared to the brit teacher? i am fluent. compared to a native speaker? i am the brit. this is deflating when you realize this is your life.

but it isnt because you are also a teacher. those of you who stand in front of people every day, people who rely on you to teach them something, know the kind of confidence you must not only have, but exude. waver, and they know it. falter, and they pounce. mistakes are amplified a thousand times when you are telling someone else how to do something. so you cannot make mistakes. but no pressure, right? this is not english 105 at northern arizona university where i can talk my way out of nearly any situation because i know how to think and respond in english (you might say i can do this is because of other attributes, but that is not the larger point).

i dont write all this stuff in hopes that you will say to yourselves, ¨poor will. life must be hard.¨ no. life is life, i accept that like everyone else. but, as i explained to my friend who told me life must be easy here, i dont waste my time writing stuff like this rant every day because it really does not help me. it also is not relevant to say that life is hard. everyone already knows that, they dont need me reminding them. the point is that i am happy in spite of all the crap that i, like anyone and everyone else, deal with on a daily basis. i have not given up any of the difficulties that are associated with life simply by packing a bag and moving to another country.

if anything, i have just made those same problems more obnoxious because any end that might not have been completely tied before i left, unravels very very quickly and creates a problem for me and, more importantly, others. ask my family about that if you doubt it. have a problem with anything back in the states? you can only solve it with outside help. but you want to be self-sufficient. tough shit. you have no choice because you are not there. but the world is a global community now.

not in the two-thirds world (matthews 37) my friends.

800 numbers dont work down here. email is a great system if the company responds to you. also, email cannot solve all problems. some things, as you may already realize, can only be taken care of in-person or on a telephone. calls to the usa are not cheap down here. how much are you willing to spend while sitting on hold? that concept, ¨hold, please¨ in general takes on a new meaning when you are paying by the minute.

as the months go by and the comments gets thinner and fewer in-between, i wonder how many people actually read this blog anyway. so if you took a few months off and somehow stumbled upon this entry (and actually read up to this point)... wow. bad timing. my advice? go back and read another, an earlier one. it might be funny. it might make you feel good about yourself. it might be as boring as this one. but remember that reading, no matter how tedious, is fairly easy if you know the language. someone actually had to write it and then look over it and think: damn, that was drivel after all.