Killing Time

I like most parts of the English teacher gig, mostly because it is so different from my old lifestyle as a teacher, always in one place, same schedule everyday, no time to ever go out and do anything during the day except for the occasional Friday race to order and eat a Jimmy Johns sub and be back at school in 50 minutes.
Here I have the opposite problem, sometimes I have so much time to kill in between things that I wish I could stay in one place. It's not really worth it to take the metro home in the late afternoon because that would just mean having to take it again at the busiest time of day in order to get to my night class. I usually end up with about 2-3 hours to kill depending on if it's a day that I meet with my private student at 6:30. Sometimes I'm gone for 12+ hours and realize that I've only been teaching for about 4 of them, but it really comes down to what time and how far away your classes are. I think most English teachers must be master time killers, knowing exactly what coffee shop is where, how good the wifi is, and exactly how long it will take to walk or ride from Point A to Point B.

Here are some of the ways I have been killing my time:

1. Starbucks
Pretty much the only place with soy milk, so bring on the wifi, lattes, and comfortable chairs. I'm pretty sure I've spent more money at Starbucks here than I ever did back home.

2. Journaling
I've actually filled up 2 whole notebooks since I've been here, not bad.

3. Itouch surfing
See number 1

4. Lesson Planning
Sometimes...

5. Eating lunch at 4:30
Too early to eat lunch before I leave the house and by the time I get to my next stop it´s around 4:30. I eat the lunch/dinner combo and then have a late night oatmeal with apples snack. Nothing wrong with just moving the foods around to different times of day, and grabbing lunch somewhere is a great way to kill at least an hour and have a place to sit for awhile.

6. Walking an extra couple of metro stops when it's nice out
I love walking, but when I'm weighed down with a lot of books it makes it a little less enjoyable. The best part is the people watching, I can't get enough.

7. Reading the magazines from El Mecurio
Some days I try to listen to my own teacherly advice...to keep improving at a language, spend some time reading to help learn new vocabulary.

8. Yoga
I'm lucky enough that my yoga place is within walking or biking distance from my house. Walk to class, hop on the metro for the day, and off I go, or sometimes the reverse plan is also true.

Regardless of what I'm doing, sometimes it's just better to be out and about rather then hanging out in the casita!

Thank you, technology

In spirit of the holiday season, I wanted to express my gratitude for all of the free technology that's available these days. I miss everyone a lot, but thanks to technology I don't feel nearly as isolated down here in the Southern Hemisphere. Many of my teen students can´t comprehend a world without Skype, but having spent my younger years without it, I truly appreciate how much easier my experience in Chile has been because of how easy it is to maintain my strong connections with the people at home.

One of my favorite options has been the "Text free" app that I have on my Itouch. It assigned me a number in my¨"home" area code so as long as I'm connected to wi-fi I can send and receive texts at no extra cost to anyone at home. This is great for sending birthday or congratulatory messages, coordinating Skype dates, or in general being able to send "can you believe this just happened!?!" texts to my friends at home.

If you sometimes get annoyed with the quirkiness of Skype, or if it's difficult to get both parties to the computer and you don't have a cool smart phone that forwards your Skype calls like I don't, you can currently use Google to call land lines and cell phones in the US for free until the end of the year. You have to download something first, but then you just load up your Gmail account and use the "call phones" option. One more month of free talking!!!