I'm think I'm caught in that stage of thinking that I should feel like I'm not that busy but I seem to fill every day doing something. Or maybe that's just life as an adult...Every time I look ahead and think to myself, hm, I'll have so much time when this class ends, it seems like something else always comes up to keep me busy. This includes my brilliant decision to do an online TEFL course during my busiest time at the institute and right before I had multiple sets of guests coming to visit me. Some days I feel like my blog is also a looming homework assignment. It's always on the to-do list and only get checked off if the stars are properly aligned. It can't happen when I'm uninspired or too tired, and let's face it, some days I just live here and have nothing else to say about it.
When I'm not busy with any of the aforementioned stuff, I've been pretty disciplined about keeping up with the yoga 3 times a week. I guess when you add in the 25 minutes on bike each way and a 90 minute class, that does add an extra chunk of time, and it's necessary since I'm still not exercising as much as I used to, and I'm convinced that although the temperatures outside say summer, my body still thinks it's winter. I still drink tea at night like I do all winter at home, I haven't jumped into the ice cream frenzy that is present in Santiago, and I still seem to be holding onto some extra carbs in the midsection. Sounds like a winter body to me...Confusion also sets in when I hear little kids running around and making outside late and night and wonder what the heck they're still doing up at 11:00 pm, and then I remember that they're on summer vacation and I'm in Santiago where everything happens later.
But enough about that, maybe some of you teachers are interested in how we institute teachers actually get vacation around here...???
I ended up with a class until December 30th, the closest to the holidays I have ever worked in my life! We did get the 24th and the 31st as vacation days, and because both Christmas and New Year's both fell on a weekend it seemed like we got a lot more vacation than that. This week Monday and Tuesday I had to put in some hours at the institute giving speaking evaluations to potential new students, but today I was lucky enough to escape and have a free day to wrap up some loose ends, plan some things for my Mom and Jim's visit, and start planning for my 2 summer classes that begin tomorrow.
Things work-wise are obviously pretty slow during the summer months, so I'm happy to report that I'll only be working in the mornings and I actually share my two classes with another teacher. (MWF one class and TR the other) No more running around to 3 very different sides of the city each day, and part-time summer hours are better than no summer hours at all. According to my friend R, as a teacher here in the summer months all you do is "lay around and read books and put on lotion." She is absolutely right, spray SPF 45 is my new best friend. The good news is that if you use my friend M's hair as a gauge, it's not actually as dry here as I originally thought. She straightens it every day and there was some definite wave present when she was here visiting me.
Cheers to my friends back home who are starting Semester 2 of the school year tomorrow, the same day that I'm starting summer school. :)
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