When did it begin? This morning? Sure...it's the middle of the day and I'm sitting in this little room, this boardroom/classroom and life has been difficult today. There is a malaise that has settled over me; mix loneliness, exhaustion, sketchy nourishment, chastity, abstinence from alcohol, and twelve hours per day devoted to listening to exclusive jargon (is that redundant?) and you arrive at me, a place where even I cannot stand to be. I'm unhappy nearly all the day and when I get home, all I can concentrate on is not thinking, which is the very disease I'm running from; my 24-hour ratio is way the fuck out of whack.
Have you ever considered that? Have you ever considered your typical day as a pie chart and then divvied it up into blocks of time you spend doing one activity or another? If so, have you then labeled those slices of time and then determined whether they were things you want to do or things you are made to do, either by others or as a result of decisions you've made? My pie chart is overwhelmed with the latter latter.
This morning I was late getting to the bus stop because I vaguely understood what time to be there and could not be brought to care enough to simply look it up. I boarded the 20 bus. Having stepped off at the proper stop, I casually crossed the street and bidding good morning to a girl who'd soon take the 32, I sat down awaiting the 40. The 32 came for the girl, and soon enough the next bus stopped for me. I read the NYT and the streets passed by in fits and starts. Familiar streets...really familiar streets...FFFFUUUUUUU-
I had re-boarded the 20 going the other way, back toward home. I yanked the stop-cord and ran with my huge backpack a block to 17th, the northbound street upon which I'd caught the original 20. Ages later it came and when we came again to the intersection, the crucial intersection, the 40 was already waiting there. By some cosmic turn its driver, who later I'd find to be Javier, had left his post and hustled up the street to give something, perhaps a transfer card, to a departed passenger. The lights switched in my favor and after making a big left turn through the intersection, my bus let out and I ran across Colorado Boulevard through stopped traffic and as I rapped on the bus door the light turned green. I pressed my hands together to offer a prayer to Javier and unhappily, he opened the door. I didn't quite hear what he said to me as I passed him and took my seat.
At the next stop I approached him with two dollars and he said that no, he couldn't take a tip but could I at least show him my transfer ticket. Yes, of course, and I sat back down and after a while, he motioned that he'd like to talk. If you like you could call the number and leave good feedback about me, he said, and gave me his name and bus number. Of course, and I sat on hold with RTD for 15 minutes, during which I discovered I'd packed my running shoes instead of my dress shoes; at this I hung my head and would have laughed had I not wanted so badly to cry. Just six spots in the call queue away from a human, and had to kill it to disembark. I promised him I'd not forget him.
I don't know what it is about today. As of right now, at lunch on Friday, I can't remember a single thing I was lectured on this morning. I was banking on hearing Savi's voice at lunch, as has happened each day so far, to afford me some time in the sun, but even that fell through today. I shouldn't rely on anyone but myself; I knew that, but of course I still felt disappointed; not with Sav but that I had allowed my expectations to supersede reason and that I had come to rely on an outside element for stability. That has to start with me!
[Saturday begins]
The jobs guy...he has his work cut out for him. His job requires him to have degrees of knowledge about TEFL job prospects all over the world and have his finger on the pulse of the field: understanding both global and country-specific trends is part of that. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm meeting him on Wednesday to talk about working illegally in Spain. The internet is painfully lacking in information on jobs in this field as there at present exists no network for that...maybe I should create one and retire.
That's right: I'll be in Spain for the next eight months, living with Savi in a town I won't name because I'm not interested in giving myself away to la emigre. My work will include private tutoring as well as online learning for students all around the world (via Skype and a facilitator company). We'll live simply but will have a ton of fun (as teaching at present is a sidebar to our passions for new experiences) meaning that we will occasionally travel through Europe and see, well, EVERYTHING. My next job, I'm going to try for Czech Republic, but a lot has yet to be determined about *that* scene. Today, I buy my plane ticket to Spain.
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