I've felt sick for the past two days - probably of my own doing, since some impromptu drinking ensued on Saturday night and then, without feeling tip-top, I again went out to the Booga last night (but I only had 2 or 3 beers and called it an early night - go me!). Yesterday, it was a headache and nausea, and today my throat hurts too. Just in time for my first full-on week of teaching hours...hooray. I am non-plussed.
I realized after the last post that I left out some details between when I first got my teaching hours with one school and when the second school hired me. The first school (which I am not naming out of concerns for myself and them, due to the working papers thing) apparently sent my C.V. over to the second school. So, I went on an interview without even knowing this school had existed before then. I went into the interview thinking I'd already gotten the job, so I was completely cool and confident, and I killed it. They called me three hours later and promised me up to 20 hours this school year! So that's what happened to take me from just 4/hrs a week to a full-time teaching load, and only in a matter of a week! Go, me.
But what this means is that now I'm teaching 2 days a week from 9am to 9m (roughly, with a few hours here and there for eating and transit). A lot of the hours are one-to-one, which I absolutely love, but the trade-off is that they are mostly "house calls," where I go to the students' homes and teach them there for an hour or two. The other days of the week are fairly easy, though they also require a lot of "bopping around" the city. This is a pain in the butt because it requires taking the bus to the far reaches of the city, then often only having half an hour to get to the next lesson. I'm making it work, but of course being sick (if I am in fact getting sick) will definitely put a drain on my energy levels and make this a lot more difficult. We shall see, we shall see.
In other news, I made some rosemary potatoes today without an oven (not recommended). They became mashed potatoes almost instantly, but they tasted great. I've been experimenting with various grilled cheese sandwiches (gouda, mozarella, edam...the cheese options are astounding in Spain), but I'm learning that the key is the right type of bread.
Hmmm...what else?? Well, I had my first big money hitch that I discovered today. Apparently, when I cancelled my Sprint account, they decided it wasn't necessary to send me an invoice and billed me a whopping $250.98, which I of course didn't have the money in my account to cover, so now I've got two $35 overdraft charges on top of that and my account is more in the red than it's ever been. I can't do anything about it until the end of the month when I get paid, but even then it won't be a full month's work of pay, so...I'm quite angry and stressed out over this. I disputed the charges with both Sprint and my bank, but who knows what will come of it. I don't know when I'll have to top off my phone again either, so I'm reluctant to use my minutes to make long-distance calls and sit in a holding queue for 30 minutes while they jerk me around. Such is life across the sea, I suppose - often inconvenient.
Well, I feel like crap. I'm gonna unplug now.
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