So I got a new job!

Well first, let’s all welcome each other back to my long-lost blog. Not much to write about when it comes to my being back, other than my sister having her 3rd child, a boy named Lee. He’s a low-maintenance, quick-to-laugh and smile little guy, who is happiest watching his two older brothers do… anything. Here’s a pic of the littlest one and me:

Beyond that, there have been the ups and downs of job searching. I immediately got back in touch with the original recruiter I’d used to apply to teach in Korea before, only last time it was for the Korean public schools (EPIK), and this time for the private schools, or hagwons. While EPIK only has 2 intake times, hagwons supposedly hire year-round. As it happens, I applied in July, just in time for 1 of the 2 high hiring seasons in Korea, coinciding with the Korean school year: August (the other is February). Nevertheless, the recruiter, from what I can understand, just sat on his hands and forgot about me. He sent me exactly ONE job.  I replied with some questions, he didn’t write back. I wrote the company owner, he nudged the Korean guy, but he never actually answered the questions I asked or sent any other jobs.

Before we get too much further, let’s talk a bit about the whole applying process. While you can look at job postings on ESL job sites, you’ll still almost always be talking with one of the 100s or 1000s of companies that recruit teachers for Korea. Many are good, many are bad, so there’s research there to be done.

I’d planned on being gone in August, and it was now going into September. It appeared that there weren’t any jobs for me, especially as the guy in charge of hagwons was incommunicado, so I asked the owner about applying for teaching in Taiwan. He referred me to Dean the Taiwan recruiter, and I FINALLY heard from hagwon guy: “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you job.” Sure dude. Sure.

My interview went well with Dean, there was just ONE LITTLE THING: I was TOO OLD to teach there. Most of the students in Taiwan are young learners, and overall, Asians believe that only kids in their early to mid 20s have the energy to handle young kids. Dean said he’d definitely try, but at least he was upfront.

So! WTF to do now? Right around this time, I got a friend request on facebook from Leeza, an ESL teacher who’d been in Santiago the same time I had. We’d never met, though we had commented on the same expat posts, etc. She sensed a kindred soul, and her instincts were right-on. Leeza was going to China. She couldn’t say enough great things about her new job, and how it was the opposite of being in Chile: lots of money, fewer hours (she’s at a university), great new apartment, and the school was treating her like a princess.

China is supposedly one of the biggest ESL markets now. But, well, it’s also China. That week I spent there was not REMOTELY enough time to get over the culture shock, and I just can’t fathom returning, or at least not yet.

Leeza wisely pointed out that Beijing is a megacity, which is far different from the rest of China. And that is of course correct… to a point. I looked at the site of the recruiter she went through, and I just didn’t see a city that looked like it would be that much better. I knew after Chile I needed a fully developed country, and China just isn’t there yet. Oh! And I looked at some expat postings: they were revolting. Mainly, I could only find posts by men who constantly talked about “banging dirties.”

So! I kept looking. I looked at jobs on the best-known site, and applied to anything that looked good, pretty much anywhere, but mainly Korea. Now I was getting responses because the recruiters were Korean. Basically, the job I was initially interested in was never available, but they looked on my behalf.

Interesting note for anyone who has never done a job search like this: your picture, date of birth, and marital status go on your resume. One recruiter that was recommended by alumni from my certification program needed not just my headshot, but a full body picture, because Koreans don’t want overweight applicants. Also? You won’t get the name of the school until the interview.

I got close to finding a job in Korea: there was a job just outside of Seoul. I really liked the head teacher, and the school wasn’t on the Korean Black List (schools that teachers had bad experiences at). Part of deciding on a hagwon is talking to a current teacher there to get the low-down on the school and how it treats teachers. The rule is, if a school balks or won’t give you a teacher’s contact info, you know it’s a bad school. I found 2 teachers, and they had good things to say about it. There was just ONE LITTLE THING: shared housing. Let’s be clear: I am NOT going back to sharing a kitchen and bathroom, especially when I’d be sharing them with kids in their 20s.

I had also been invited to interview in Chicago for a job in Tokyo. It would have been an 8 hour day with all the other applicants, which would consist of interviews and processes of elimination, including an English test and group presentations. Japan’s developed! But it’s also expensive. And, many people I’ve known have not liked Japan. There was a waiting list of applicants, so I bowed out of that.

Anyway, there was a trickle of interviews coming in. First was for a school in Yongin, a 30 minute bus ride from Seoul. It wasn’t anything special, though I liked the questions the owner asked. The same night, I had an interview with an elite school in Gangnam, of the “Gangnam Style” song, the prime neighborhood in Seoul. This position was for teaching English literature. A dream come true! 2.1 million won (about US$1800) is the offered salary for all jobs, but elite school paid 2.2 million. Except that the interviewer said it was a high pressure job. Usually this is due to the moms who have nothing better to do but harangue the teachers asking, “How many English words did my son learn today?!” all day, every day. This was a factor in the pressure, but it seemed that wasn’t all of it. I don’t like jobs that apply constant pressure. And dealing with that while learning the ropes of managing a classroom of kids for the first time seemed less-than-ideal.

The tricky part was these interviews were Thursday night. Elite school was interviewing other candidates, and planned on deciding by the following Tuesday or Wednesday. And I’d just found out that the Yongin school offered me the job.

I had a little time before I had to tell Yongin, because I had to talk to the teacher and look up the school. Alarmingly, the school was on the Black List, and it was under the current owner’s tenure. However, it wasn’t as bad as most other posts, and was a bit vague. When I spoke to the teacher at the school, she said she’d seen it, and there was truth to a lot of it (they worked more hours than other teachers in the area, for example). But otherwise, the owner wouldn’t try to cheat you, and the VP was awesome.

The Yongin school recruiter was pressing to get my decision, when I got word on Sunday night that the elite school offered me the job. And just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten that pressure was a part of this job, here’s what the recruiter wrote: “They usually pay 2.2 mil a month. But they offer 2.3 mil for you as you have more experience and they expect you to teach very well.” No pressure!

The clincher though was the contract. It’d have 30 teaching hours/week, which is pretty normal. However, not included in those teaching hours was a mandatory hour of class prep for each teaching hour. Meaning I’d be working 60 hours/week. If I wanted to be stuck at work 60 hours/week I could just get another job here in the US.

I signed the contract with the Yongin school. And yesterday I sent my documents to them so they can get started on sponsoring my visa. Naturally, I’m still really smarting from having to decline the Gangnam job. That is where EVERYONE who goes to Korea wants to go. When I told the recruiter, he replied: “Did you accept another job in Korea or U.S? If you found a position in US I understand. But if it is Korea I suggest you think again.” I was feeling the pressure before I even accepted the job!

So it continues to hurt deep in my elitist heart and soul to have declined the elite school. I know that the position was not right for me at this time, if it ever would be, but I still regret that I won’t have an elite South Korean school on my resume.

So, there you have it. Not to worry—there’ll plenty of my griping to fill this blog once there—businesses are run FAR differently than here, particularly in the way of giving you exactly NO notice of any big changes to… anything. So not to worry: I’d never forget to pack my grumpiness!

Before any other updates, Jason.

Having met one of those people you can't believe hasn't been in your life forever, my best friend here, I debated whether or not I should write one whole post about him. But he's the only thing that makes the idea of leaving Santiago difficult, so I suppose there's no reason not to. Besides, he'll likely come up a lot, so you may as well know who he is.

I met Jason, who's originally from Cincinnati, at the last Real Life English party in Santiago, in February. I think it was February. I knew at the time that it sucked I'd only met him with a few months or so to go before I left, and now it feels like we've known each other for years. So it isn't that easy to pinpoint precisely when we met. I remember asking the usual question about how long he'd been here, he said 2 months, and that he'd just gotten his residency visa approved. Ah, I thought, he's one of those irritatingly enigmatic people who loves it here, what with his residency status, and said as much. At this point, my memory is that he looked straight ahead, took a drink, and said, "I fucking hate it here." Once I'd said, "Oh thank fucking GOD!" the deal was sealed. He is my new Rita since she left, only more so.

Because he has the great good sense to love Indian food, I invited him over since my friend Rahul was coming over to cook Indian food. The unfortunate part of that was it was a Sunday, and Jason is even more of a drinker than I am. I passed out, failing to set my alarm, and woke up just in time to be missing the start of my Monday morning class way out in Pudahuel. Jason, who'd crashed on the couch and is completely fluent in Spanish, laughed as I tried to explain I was sick in hungover Spanish to my company's receptionist. Sadly, when he was trying to supply me with the fully coherent version of what I'd just said, Maiza was talking, so it wasn't much help.

2 days later, Jason was on his way to Chicago, because why wouldn't you have to fly back to the US to pick up your Chilean visa? At least his job, which plucked him from his beloved home in Colombia to Chile, pays for absolutely everything. 10 days without him around dragged, though it was mitigated by his texts that he was considering making an anonymous call to the embassy to tell them that his visa should be denied.

Since then, we're the other person's right hand, particularly when it comes to supplying some semblance of sanity after each day in purgatory.

It won't suprise... any of you that I could form a deep friendship with someone out of hatred. Jason half-laughs, half-mourns this, because he says he's not a bitter person by nature. And the thing is, Kristina et. al., he doesn't think I am! When I insist it as my birthright and nature, he says he just doesn't see it. But then, as plenty of you know, we're different people abroad. If there was any doubt that living-abroad Jen is different than the stateside Jen you've all somehow managed to know AND love, it's that Jason and all of the other friends I've made here don't see my biggest flaws... at all, actually. Jason can tell I have a temper, though he hasn't seen it yet. But as for my characteristic moodiness/grouchiness/bitterness...  I left it in my storage bins, I guess, lol. I mean, OBVIOUSLY I get angry/cranky/normal Jen/mom-like here, but only while I'm in the midst of what's pissing me off or remembering it to explain it to all of you. As soon as the irritant is gone, so is my bad mood. And that's in a place I hate. I wonder what'll happen when I'm actually in a place I like! Here's hoping we get to see that soon, very soon. Likewise, I hope abroad-Jen isn't going to leave me at customs, so you guys can see it for yourselves. So here's to what June will bring!

When you're at the grocery store sober, make green mayonaise.

All I wanted was a simple, healthy and Paleo Sunday dinner. I'm not sure what was hurting me most in accomplishing this: Santiago, it being Sunday, my desire for something lacking in difficulty, or my sobriety. Although I will admit at this point that I think walking outside of my apartment sober is a hindrance to my sanity.

But you know, there are a lot of things in my life vying for being the straw to break that camel's back, like my SLOOOWWWWW tablet and/or wifi. Just trying to type what I'm looking for into google can take a minute or more. But this is a constant, and it only bears repeating because I am incurably impatient.

I found a recipe, and planned out my shopping list accordingly. While I'd love to go to my sweet little green grocer lady (who gave me a little Nativity scene ornament for Christmas, because GOD are Chileans NICE!), I have hardly any cash, and I doubt she accepts credit cards, plus it's a tiny shop, and I needed more than just a few veggies she may very well be out of. Which brought me to the Santa Isabel grocery store right around the corner.

It's a small grocery store, so it won't always have the selection one would like. But I was (naively) confident it would have all I needed for these spicy mayo burgers.

I was doing ok until I, as usual, went to read the ingredient list on the surprising selection of mayo they have, because if there's one thing Chileans love besides avocado and bread, it's mayonaise. I wasn't hoping to find a real mayo like it might be possible to find in, say, Whole Foods (and I say MIGHT!), but one with minimal ingredients. Which quickly turned into one without soy oil as the first or second ingredient. To (over?)simplify, soy is bad for the thyroid, so I avoid it when possible, or just use it sparingly. Which was not the case with my wall of mayo. I was pacing in front of them, telling the bottles and bags that this country is unbelievable in English, which is my custom in the grocery store. Really, my talking aloud in frustration to the products in Chilean grocery stores is as normal to me as standing in line at the register to pay, staring in disgust at the fucking weird braided mullet the male cashier paid someone to do to his hair. In essense, food is my therapist.

While thus pacing and griping, the thought of just making the mayonaise myself occurred to me, particularly because I have the ingredients necessary to do so. So I decided that once I got home, I'd force myself to finally do what so many others before me have done (and I always think of Mercedes when we were in college who did this BY HAND), and make my own damned mayonaise.

Of course, first I had to go home with all of the other ingredients I needed for the burgers. It was toward the end of my list when I had to decide if "salsa" is the same as "limon" here, meaning it stands for at least 2 different things. Lemons and limes are both limons. I wasn't sure if the tomato sauce section included both sauce and paste, but one thing they ALL included was tomato juice from concentrate, plus additional sugar and salt, and any other number of questionable ingredients, by which I mean questionable regardless of being in Spanish or English. Naturally, this pissed me off more, because while I know that premade isn't ideal, sometimes you don't want to make this stuff yourself.

And that's the rub, really. I often made my own chicken soup/broth, but sometimes I'd run out and still have a recipe I needed it for. In the US, you go to almost any grocery store and you can get SOME soup/broth in a can at least, though your larger stores will have better options in a carton. They don't have canned soup or liquid soup, actually,  ready-made in Chile. The soup section of every store I've been to has been a wall of small packets. It's one thing to make soup using boullion; it's another to make soup out of mainly chemicals and wheat. Every last packet of soup, even if it was just supposed to be vegetable broth, contains wheat. It's actually one of the first 3 ingredients in all of them. Which, if you've been following along at home, you'll know that I'm supposed to avoid THAT shit as well. It's getting to the point where you see wheat as an ingredient in so much shit here that doesn't need it, that I wouldn't be surprised to find that they're pumping it into the smog we're breathing.

In the end, I couldn't let myself buy tomato sauce with all the other stuff, especially as I still have a tomato at home. So I took my stuff up to pay.

Which was going fine until we got to the palta (can I just type this? I don't think in Spanish or say anything-po, but when I think of avocados, I think palta. And it's shorter). Most of the stuff I get in the produce section doesn't need to be weighed, but apparently the 2 paltas did. It should be immediately understood that the registers don't have scales, because that would make life a little bit faster and easier, and that is NOT what buying shit in Chile is all about. No, it's about waiting in various lines in one store and employing a person in different parts of the store to do separate things. So I had to take the avocados back to be weighed.

Which brings us to the other thing Chileans LOVE with all their might: plastic bags. They want everything in at least one plastic bag, but the more the better. And the cherry on top is to either tape that bag closed, or tie it in a tight knot that no human can again untie. I had 2 paltas; that was it. I surprised the scale girl by telling her I didn't need a plastic bag.

But it turns out, I did. Or at least the guy at the register did. When I gave him the avocados and the scale sticker, he looked confused and asked me about the plastic bag. I told him I didn't want one, so then he wanted to know why she hadn't given me one. Eventually i thought maybe he thought I'd only had 1 weighed, and only the plastic bag would give him the confidence he needed to know they'd both been weighed? I'm not sure; I only know that he began calling to people across the store to have a fucking pow-wow at his register over these 2 avocados, THE LAST TWO THINGS I WAS BUYING. I was unable to comprehend, never mind peacefully and beatifically just smile as 4 Chileans tried to find meaning when there wasn't a plastic bag to give them one.

Thankfully, it only took all four of them 2 minutes' discussion to allow him to finally total it all up and let me pay. The dude had one more surprise for me: he spoke some English. He said to me in English that it wasn't his fault-- the girl had weighed them with the wrong code, so it was her fault. His words. Naturally I didn't much care; I just wanted to take my groceries home and rectify my sober situation at once.

Which I will do, now that I have finally made my very first batch of mayonaise. And why is it green? Because I needed a refined vegetable oil without a strong flavor (so no EVOO), and a lot of it. The bottle of grapeseed oil fit the bill. Interesting note: when I was in Argentina at a winery, they asked if anyone had ever heard of grapeseed oil, and explained it like it's a rare secret we're getting a privileged preview of. Really? That stuff was the shit in like 1999, right? Yes, I've heard of it. And since Chile has lots of grapes due to wine, there is PLENTY of grapeseed oil, cheap. The oil is green, hence my mayo is a little green. But it's SUPPPPPPER smooth & tasty and creamy, and that's really all that matters. That, and enjoying it while restoring my calm and sanity, one drink at a time.

Let's continue to beat this dead horse, shall we?

S1.) You know how the Japanese thought the Europeans were devils because some had red hair, or that some cultures believe that if you take their photo, you'll take their soul? Apparently, in Chile, they believe that envelopes are extremely powerful, therefore they must be hidden. That, or Chile just doesn't think I drink enough. Only those pure of heart and willing to go on A FUCKING QUEST may hope to find them hidden throughout the city. (Pure of heart, but not pure of mouth, since if I'm not in class or sleeping, I am most likely swearing about something.) Envelopes are Santiago's horrocruxes, I guess. Or, because Chile seems to still so love the 80s, it's King's Quest, and you must keep talking to the locals you encounter and try to divine where one would get such a crazy, crazy thing as a plain ol' envelope. Naturally, the location of a thing so powerful isn't common knowledge, so the Santiguinos are as knowledgeable as the lost girl in King's Quest 3 or whichever it was, who just keeps wandering around the countryside looking for her cat or something.

Minimarts don't have them, though the post office said they do. You cannot buy them at grocery stores, at pharmacies, at Target-like superstores, NOR AT THE POST OFFICE. Not even if you are mailing something express. No, you have to go to a mall and find a STATIONARY STORE. The first woman I asked, at the minimart I was directed to go to by the post office, didn't know WHERE one could buy them. You know, in Las Condes, the Manhattan of Chile. I asked 7 fucking people. No, 8.  It took me 2.5 hours to mail a fucking 1 page letter to CA. That's not counting all the trips to all the stores since I arrived, confounded as to how I could be missing ALL THE FUCKING ENVELOPES. And just in case it wasn't clear before, asking about where one can find envelopes gets you lots of, "I don't knows."

2.) You know how you go to the website of a company to find its address? NOT HERE! We're talking Liberty Mutual, the big ol' insurance company. They list Chile as one of the countries where they have a location, but when you go to the location page, they only list the 2 Brazil offices for all of Latin America. I have a class at 8:15 tomorrow with a corporate guy. There are 3 locations listed... in my  nifty map app, NOT the website. Oh, and when I finally found a link to Liberty Seguros in Chile? Just their webpage. No addresses, etc. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given how fucking insane the security is in offices here, and apparently how often people break into them.

After playing around with various arrangements and rearrangements of the words, I finally found a directory-type of page that listed only 1 of the 3 I had, so that's the one I'm going to. It will be SOOO awesome if it's not the right one! But then, it's 1/2 my fault: when they asked me to take this class 2 weeks ago, I said sure, thinking other information would be forthcoming, or that by giving me the company name, it would just be THAT EASY. I only remembered I didn't have an address when I checked the email, and didn't know I'd spend 45 minutes on this shit until I looked it up in 2GIS.

4. People, I still fucking hate the fucking pigeons.
(Wait, you skipped 3, you're saying. As did the Santiago metro system. There are 5 lines, numbers 1,2, 4, 4A, and 5. But then, in a place as chaotic as Santiago's metro, I guess it makes sense that logic will never be found.)

5. One does not simply walk ANYWHERE here. You are playing a live version of Frogger, only there are 10 people for every car in level 10 (honestly, I don't know Frogger that well), and they barely qualify as moving. So maybe it's like reverse Frogger? Sharks gotta swim, and bats gotta fly. I've gotta stand in this random spot until you cry.

6. I hate grocery stores. It's only remarkable because I could still get caught up in the excitement of, "Ooo, what's THIS? What's THIS?" at times in the US. Now, even though I remind myself before I go that I likely won't find one of the things the recipe I want to make calls for, I still get all bent out of shape. Also, I can't go into them after 5 PM, because that's when the lines start. The LOooooong lines. Plus the tomatoes are as bland in the stores as they are in the US. And green, unripened lemons are SUCH a thing here. Brazil isn't that far!!! You can IMPORT THAT SHIT! You know, like you EXPORT your grapes and wine? It's about a 50% chance any place will have limes at any given time. Especially when you need them.

Did you want chicken without additives and a solution? TOO BAD. Ground pork or BACON, GOD DAMN IT, FUCKING BACONNNNnnnnnn... No. Or, and get ready to LAUGH, fresh squeezed juice? The only way to get THAT is to buy it by the plastic cup during the morning rush from the girl on Teatinos or the top of the metro station selling them for breakfast. And only orange. So no Salty Dog cocktails for ME. And don't even get me started on the scotch.

7. Stranger danger! The city's past time is warning me that I will be robbed/mugged/whatever on a daily basis. But the Santiguino's distrust of fellow Santiguinos extends to living arrangements. My lease in my (too expensive for my pay) apartment is up at the end of February. Because I am FUCKING POOR (thanks to no more unemployment! But hey, it makes me more honest), I will stay in Santiago through about mid-April because classes will start up again so I can hopefully return to making at least as much in a month as my rent costs (hint: my January income was about 1/2 my rent). I decided it was high time I rented a room to live in, since it'll be cheaper. I have been looking on the roommate finder site here. And you know what's a deal breaker? Having guests over, never mind your pololo/a (boyfriend or girlfriend). No, you can't have your friend Tina over for drinks on Friday, because the other people don't know her, so she'll probably try to steal from them. And forget about overnight guests, should you have one! See, *I* thought that people made out on the subways because they all live with their families, and it's the only time they can be alone (aside from someone telling me about the rampant cheating that PDA is supposed to assure everyone that you're NOT cheating). But I think it's because couples can't have privacy ANYWHERE! The idea that you can pay your fair share of rent and NOT have friends over to your place is a new height of ridiculous. Just when I think you can't outdo yourself, Chile, you do!

Here's to sweeping generalizations!

Wherein I threaten to pass judgement on not just an entire city, but an entire country based on 2.5 days in a small corner of a small city in said country. Heh, not really, though I can say that what I saw of Mendoza I really liked. What's not to like? For one, it's not Santiago. So many places win me over by simply doing that.

To begin with, it's sunny nearly 356 days/year (which I would enjoy from those magical things called windows). Secondly, while it's hot, it is that up-to-now mythical dry heat people go on & on about that makes it feel not as hot as it is. Third, the buildings are nicer, the people nicer-looking. It also kind of resembles Tuscany, particularly because Argentina is full of those rather iconic-looking trees that have a name I've never known.

And you know how you hear South America & you think, oh, well at least the dollar will be really strong there. In Chile, as I've mentioned, this is absolutely not the case. Like its underground mines, Chile's economy was completely sheltered from pretty much any & all fall-out from the economic crisis. Argentina, on the other hand, had its own series of economic crises from which it still sadly hasn't really recovered. So, ultimately the dollar definitely goes farther there.

My first 2 nights were at a bed & breakfast in the home of this married couple. The house is kind of 2 small houses joined by a front porch. On 1 side, Marcelo and his family live. On the other, there is a lovely living room, 2 guest rooms, and a beautiful backyeard with the ubiquitous asada barbeque area. Marcelo immediately set to recommending restaurants and offering to arrange tours. He seemed to assume as the natural order of things that I would want nothing more than to get out and do stuff, rather than what I sort of actually DID want to do, which was catch up on writing this here blog, read, and just generally recover from sitting in a car for 5 hours, which always exhausts me.

So despite my having no initial intention of going on any tours this particular trip, Marcelo talked me into a 2 bodega wine tour and olive oil factory, followed the next day by horseback riding with an asada. Now, it should be understood that Marcelo told me the asada following the 2 hour horsey ride was all-you-can-eat bbq and all the wine you can drink. It was the promise of lots of meat + unlimited wine that cost a grand total of US$50 that was the real attraction.

The wine tour was what you'd expect, although I did learn that the Malbec grape is French, but the climate where it originated there caused Malbec to be bitter, resulting in bad wine. Someone decided to try it here in Mendoza, and the dry, hot, sunny climate clearly agreed ridiculously with it.

As for my fellow tourists, there was that one cliche American, complete with fanny pack for Christ's sake, who was confused often, loud, and disinclined to think that anyplace could be called great if it isn't in California. Forutnately I befriended an Argentine and her French-Canadian friend who were lovely, and interesting because the Canadian didn't know that South Africa produced wine until I mentioned my tours there.

Yesterday was the horseback riding. Suffice it to say, if you want a group of people who speak 4 different languages in one bus to start mingling and talking, make sure you make them ride in the heat and sun at 5 PM for 2 hours, giving some of us slightly jumpy horses, just to wear us down, and then give us a lot of wine.

But let me be honest, because I just keep lying to myself. I am not the kind of person who goes, "YEAHHHHHHH, HORSEBACKRIDING! In the SUN! And heat! On a jumpy horse! FOR 2 HOURS!!!" I couldn't take pictures, because my horse needed me to watch the road for him. With one eye squeezed shut, what with that burning I've mentioned before. I did it, but I'm not doing it again.

And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that this all-you-can-eat bs was bs. I got 3 pieces of meat that were about 8 oz total. I did, however, get plenty of wine.

So now I'm STILL on my way back. Thanks to Chile being the place where speed and efficiency wouldn't even come to die, never mind be caught dead because they wouldn't be caught dead there, it is 9 God damned hours after I NEARLY missed my bus (4 minutes to spare, because for ONCE a South American severely underestimated the time it takes a normal human to get somewhere). We and several miles worth of traffic have been sitting outside of customs for around 2 hours at this point. Wanna know how long it took to get into Argentina? Around 45 minutes.

I only hope I'm home by 9:30. I mean, why the FUCK is everyone trying to get away from Argentina to CHILE? That's like masses of people wanting to leave the Caribbean for a Midwest winter.

Well, Argentina isn't perfect: we received a satchet of coffee from Argentina. Tell me if you can see what's wrong with this picture:

 

**

Seriously? And yeah, as is the South American way, it's really bad coffee. *Shudder*


** It IS a little hard to see. Right under that big ol' word cafe is "Torrado con azucar molido." Which means, "roasted with ground sugar." So, the sickening sweet tooth is a continental phenomenon. It's so understood that you'd want sugar in your crappy coffee that they just put it in with the coffee. *shudder again*

There's a few things I haven't told you,

which you won't hear from someone else (there's a song reference there... anyone?... anyone?), since they're uncommon/incomprehensible traits unique to me. And sometimes when I'm traveling, I'm reminded of just how odd they make me to others.

1. It isn't just my personality that's tempermental.
Most people know I spent the first 34 years of my life freezing my ass off at all times. I thought anything under 80 was sweater-weather, and I also hate air conditioning because people take it to such extremes. The relief of warm weather in the summer was very short-lived when I'd spend at least 40 hours/week in giant meat lockers.

But there is such a thing as being too hot. Usually I only experience this under direct sunlight, so I have some idea about how witches felt being burned alive. But ever since I came back from Thailand, my heat tolerance has lowered enough that 86 feels a little too hot. Which is less-than-helpful when that is the average spring temperature in the city you're living in. But hey, there's an upside: I'm not like my mom in the heat. Imagine me when I'm hungry, only it's for 6 months out of the year instead of when you fucking MANIACS go forgetting to eat when we're in Paris (FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, RUTH, THE FOOD CAPITAL OF THE WESTERN WORLD!), or driving in South Africa. You know, just two examples off the top of my head.

2. I hate the sun.
This is NOT to say I don't love sunny days like everyone, because I do. But I like LOOKING at them from a shaded/indoor/otherwise totally sheltered place. Usually the above statement will necessitate my pointing out what I think is the obvious: my ridiculously pale skin. People generally at least know in some part of their minds that this means I burn easily, and everyone's experienced sunburn, right? In general, yes, but infrequently enough that it's not a constant thought, particularly if it isn't the middle of summer. They forget it as a rarely encountered, minor problem they've had to rarely deal with 3 months out of the year. For me, entire decades of my life were spent with frequent bad burns, because we were doing something outside for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Oh, I should also mention that I've spent... basically all of my life since I was 12 or 13 on some sort of medication for my skin, which makes me even MORE sensitive to the sun.

So suffice it to say, a good portion of the people I know have led a pretty sweet life which makes you completely unfamiliar with my plight. See, you know how you burn at first, but then you tan? I only start at pink and get redder. You know how you get a little red, or you just go straight to browner after being outside with sunblock on for a few hours when the sun's its hottest? I burn within 30 minutes. WITH SUNBLOCK ON. Period. You know how if it's any season but summer, you generally don't have to worry about sunburn? I do-- I've burnt in jacket-weather spring and fall, as well as winter. I can't forget some of them, like the 1 I got when I was whitewater rafting and I couldn't sleep or stand anything touching me for 3 days. Or the burn that eventually turns your skin to itchy paper birch that is constantly falling off, like what happened to me in Mexico.

And then every genius on the planet tells me to put on &(_(*_()()+_+ sunblock.

That's my FAVORITE, when people who don't have skin problems tell me how the normal person fixes theirs, and so I must not be doing that shit right. When I had teenage acne (like both parents), people without acne were CONSTANTLY telling me I needed to: wash my face (that was a BIG one); use this/that/or 100s of other cleansers, creams, gels; avoid these foods, etc. I washed my face for 10 minutes 4 times/day, but yeah, you're probably right, I just must NEVER have washed my face for 10 years. I must have not had the SLIGHTEST IDEA of how to do anything to the least or most extent that any normal moron ever did. Idiots. In America, when you're not normal in some way, it's because you're doing someething wrong. And so it's your fault. Hence, people who don't know what they're talking about like to tell me TO DO SHIT I'M ALREADY DOING. Like it's a revelation. "Hey, are you out of breath after running for 14 miles? Maybe you should try breathing. You know, like, in, and then out? Try breathing, then maybe you won't feel out of breath."

Put it all together and you may have the reason why that, aside from a near impossibility to my being able to accomplish something as simple as a normal tan, I have a low tolerance for the sun, period. I remember when I was a teenager I would TRY to lay out and tan, but within 5 minutes I'd be sweating like crazy and bored out of my mind. How the FUCK do you just LAY there? And you DON'T sweat when you're under a hot sun?! People fall asleep in what to me is complete discomfort. I'm so uncomfortable when I can feel the sun's rays for a few minutes, I think it's the same as laying under a broiler. And the whole time I am in the sun all I can think of is the burn that is taking place on an accelerated time frame unknown to anyone but albinos or vampires.

3. Rosacea-- it's not just for your skin!
Yeah, so enough about the constant battle with my shitty skin, which I've literally wanted to take off and trade-in since I was 12. (No joke: I used to beg God to let me do that.) Let's talk about OCULAR rosacea, which my eye doctor has said I don't have, though I suffer from the symptoms. Spoiler alert-- this will circle back to number 2.

Ocular rosacea is when your eyes get super red and start burning thanks to: extreme cold, wind, heat, exercise... you get the picture, though those are the leading causes, and by no means the exhaustive list. I first noticed about 5 years ago that at night, my eyes would start tearing up and burning and stinging when the wind blew. As in,  it's painful to have my eyes open. I distinctly remember being with Gina at a parking garage in Chicago when this first happened. And people who've seen me right after a workout have thought I was smoking something because my eyes are completely red. I mean, REDDDD. It takes at least an hour, I think, for them to get back to normal. Docs advise against working out strenuously for more than 15-20 minutes at a time to prevent that. Luckily, my eyes may get a little itchy then too, but after exercise, it's just that the whites of my eyes are bright red instead of white. And I can live with that.

Of course, now it also happens in sunlight: if I'm outside and have to squint, sunglasses or not, my eyes start stinging. It's... awesome. Really it is. Everyone on EARTH wants to be out in the sun, but all I know from that motherfucker is burning. I'd love to join you outside... from a few feet away in total shade or from indoors.

Last under my eye issues is cutting onions. I know EVERYONE'S eyes tear up when they cut an onion. But do you have to run out of the room after 30 seconds from the stinging and the waterworks? Probably not. I absolutely cannot see. I can't open my eyes, and I can't take the stinging and burning. This is a major problem when you're a huge cook like I am. The only thing that works is having pre-cut onions that I can just throw into a pan right away, or using green onions. Otherwise, it takes me 5 minutes to cut 1 onion, because I'm constantly having to go away & come back so I can regain vision and stop the burning.

4. Every day I need to be alone longer than the day before.
I've never known what my socializing-to-recovery-through-solitary-confinement ratio was, but it was never unusual for me to spend 48-72 hours without seeing or speaking to another soul and being perfectly content. But it isn't just talking to people that sucks the precious little friendliness I possess out of me: it's the mere PRESENCE of people nowadays. That's the only explanation I have for wanting to spend every hour I'm not working or commuting in Chile alone. It is SO crowded all the time, in ways it simply isn't in the US (excepting perhaps NYC, though I never experienced that myself), I am only happy when I am in my apartment, which is to say, alone. Whether it's a 3-day weekend or just a regular one, it is a huge effort and takes me until early evening to make myself go outside for anything, even food.

So it's sheer volume of people that I find draining these days in addition to conversation. I know, Asia's going to be AWESOME! Though we shall see: I didn't have any problems in Thailand.

Large groups of people are LOUD, too. I think that's why everytime my friends & I would look at restaurants, I'd nearly automatically choose the one with hardly anyone inside. Because then, I have a better chance of actually hearing and sharing in conversations. I was told that people usually want to go to restaurants where others are eating, because if a lot of people eat there, it must be good. I see the logic; the PROBLEM with this is that it absolutely doesn't work. In Chicago, for example, most restaurants are pretty good, regardless of how many people are there. Whereas in Chile, at lunch and dinner times, EVERY place is full, and your good-to-bad food ratio is about 1:100. While I know it's (SHUDDER!) evilly socialist/anti-democratic for me to say this, the majority is rarely right. Should you doubt this, I will point you the nomination and then reelection of GWB; Sarah Palin holding any government office; and the persistance of Saturday Night Live.

5. I'm a really bad tourist.
In general, if there's one or two things every visitor goes to whatever city to see, I'll go see it. But I want to know why it's so special, and I want to be able to get all such things done in 1-2 days, so I have the rest of my time there devoted to being where the tourists are not. So the faster I can cross those items off the list, the better. (Exceptions: Thailand, South Africa, and the art in Italy) Which is why to this day, as much as I love Kristina and her photography skills, I am still mystified as to what the hell the point of the Spanish Steps in Rome was, and why we had to go. Instead of sitting in the sun on something that's made for NOT-sitting, we could have been eating a meal, dammit.

Also, I don't really shop anymore. Overall, I do little to contribute to the local economy when I travel. This was a product of several things, though often enough it was limited funds. But it's also that I just don't really enjoy shopping. When I went on a trip and brought you back stuff, it's because I went shopping for you, not me. I dread when I need to buy new clothes or shoes, because looking through a huge selection is a lot of work, and in short order it makes me bored, tired, and hungry. We all know how I get when I'm hungry. But did you know...

6. A bored Jen is a bad Jen.
Internet dating is what happens when I'm bored, plain & simple. While some of you remember that first forray into the 4th and 5th rings of hell as the height of my comedic writing, as they say, I was suffering for my art, and therefore for your enjoyment. I was the battered, broken, tattered puppet that you still commanded to dance. Internet dating is being forced to constantly interact with the world's physical, mental, and spiritual mouth-breathers. I mainly went through a progression of unpleasant emotions, including disgust, shock, irritation, frustration, and confusion. But. BUT! I wasn't bored. At least, not at first. Still, soon enough, I was left with boredom + one, usually disgust. Internet dating can easily lead to self-destructive behavior, solely through the company you keep for a couple hours for dinner or coffee. Eventually I realized I was doing all of this because I was bored. I'd rather be unhappy than bored.

And it really wasn't until I moved to Chile that I realized that a major reason I needed to leave the US was that I was bored with living there. Oddly, as lazy as I am, I think that I was bored with knowing how (most) shit worked, and how to attain or do most things (even if it was beyond my abilities and/or networth to do so). After I'd adjusted to living in Santiago, I fell briefly into my old habit of trying internet dating to ward-off boredom before it started, but it was short-lived because, well, internet dating seems to be the same no matter where you go, but also because I quickly realized that I just wasn't bored enough to need it. In the US, I had to have SOMETHING to occupy my mind, because the boredom permeated pretty much every aspect of my life. In Chile, simple errands like going to buy fruit from the produce stands, and God knows buying any beef other than ground, is still a challenge. Even though I've long ago mastered asking for things, I still don't always know the names of things. Or that chinquay can mean five, fifteen, fifty, or 500, depending on where I am in Santiago (as opposed to the Spanish we're taught, which would be, phonetically, sinko, keensay, sinquetta, and sinko see-entos, respectively). Or, understanding most of what any Chilean says. It's true what people have said, that Spanish speakers from... ANYWHERE ELSE I can understand more easily. My comprehension of Chileans is still around 30%, at best. There are times I've heard people talking on the street and could swear they were speaking some Asian language, because that's really what it sounded like. But they looked South American, and so far, South Americans are like Americans: they've never traveled internationally and they only speak one language. Eventually, one of them would say, "Si," or "Si-po," confirming that they were speaking Spanish all along.

People probably think I'm exaggerating, but every other South American I've spoken to has said the same thing: they can't understand what the Chileans say, either. I was listening to a Colombian and a Venezuelan speak, and while I didn't necessarily know what some/all of the words meant, I could recognize most of the words they said as Spanish words. Whereas 6 months in I still can't figure out what the hell 1 of the concierges says to me every morning when I leave for work. I've had 3 Colombian students, and they've all said that it took them years of living here to mostly understand Chilean Spanish. But when family comes to visit, they still have to translate everything for them. It's really hard to be bored when you're still constantly trying to figure out what the hell anyone and everyone is saying.
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The lovely guy who owns the hostel here would never be able to imagine I'd want to come to Mendoza and NOT go horseback riding for an afternoon, or be out walking around in the summer sun. All I could think of was: how hot it'll be outside, how hard it'll be to see with my eyes alternately burning or blinded by the sun, getting dirty and feeling disgusting thanks to the sunblock, which I won't be able to reapply every 1-1.5 hours as I'd need while on a horse. I actually AM doing the horseriding thing, but only because afterwards, those FOOLS are serving all-you-can-eat barbeque & wine. I hope they've a lot of experience with feeding half of a teenage football team. I wouldn't want it to be like Christmas for Gina's grandma when she couldn't figure out why they had half the leftovers they normally did, which they would eat over the next two days. Gina told me she said to her, "We've never had Jen here for Christmas before." So here's hoping that the Argentinians aren't making promises their livestock population can't keep

In Argentina as it is in Chile

When I go on these weekend excursions, like the current one, in Mendoza, Argentina, there are any number of reasons I go, but one of them is always for better/faster/devil-may-care use of wifi. I'm at a small bed & breakfast, where the host Marcelo is very nice, and said he likes his guests to feel like they are at home. Little did I know that he intended to help make that happen by having wifi worse than what I have at home. And since my phone is roaming without an Argentina sim card, there's an excellent chance I will be completely unreachable this weekend. Which isn't the worst thing, except that it kind of sucks. I was hoping to have plenty of time to just hang around Casa Aristides and do all manner of internetty things.

There is plenty to do in or probably more accurately around and from Mendoza: bicycle wine tours (so apparently, drinking and driving isn't a thing here), horseback riding with unlimited barbeque (which is the one most appealing to me right now, only because of the last part), white water rafting... but I came largely unprepared for 4 summer days in a tourist/expat renewal post, in that I did not pack jeans as I always do (it's supposed to be hot in Argentina!), nor did I pack a bathing suit. Honestly, I didn't think about needing a bathing suit, since I didn't think I'd be doing much of anything but laying around wherever I was staying. And I thought of packing jeans briefly, but as I said, hot. It's actually more pleasant than hot, but likewise, I didn't think I'd really be doing anything that would really require jeans.

No, I came prepared to do what I always like to do during my weekend trips: use the damned internet. Now that that isn't an option, I'm not quite sure what to do. While Mendoza is a little cleaner and nicer looking, ultimately I'm not optimistic that I'll be finding better fare here. Oh, also? Thanks to my not being a hippy in at any point in my current or former lives (despite the nonsense that Mark & Bill are so fond of spewing), I don't have a backpack. I likely will go walking in a bit to see what's around, but the only way to do that is with a plastic shopping bag I brought to carry food & my tablet while on the bus.

Speaking of, I was in temporary freak-out mode for a little bit. As I alluded to before, the Mendoza trip is made very often by expats like me because if you DON'T want to go through the Migracion office in Santiago like I did that first time to renew your tourist visa, the other option is to take a bus through the Andes (which is lovely scenery)

for about 5 hours, and get a whole new tourist visa on re-entering Chile. Because there can be traffic & waiting at the border, I guess, the ride is billed as about 6-8 hours, and they strongly suggest you bring your own food, since stops along the way aren't really a thing. So I brought the last of 2 meals, only to start filling out the customs forms in the bus & see that familiar thing about not bringing food across borders. Shit. Thanks Lonely Planet! I was fairly freaked out, until we got there. The shopping bag kind of fit under my seat, and what was visible looked only like there were some papers on the floor. Fortunately, they didn't go through the bus, nor do you have to take everything with you. In fact, after getting our stamps (oh, which they forgot to change to 2015, so everyone who went through customs today actually came here a year ago... not that any of us noticed 'til we were on our merry way in Argentina), our bus driver collected a "tip" for the customs officers, probably a total of CP$10,000 so we didn't have to take out our bags. So I am relieved to say that while customs on Monday may be a bitch since it appears I overstayed my visa by over 9 months (assuming they change the year on their stamps by then), at least I didn't get stopped for bringing the ever-illegal produce/meat/food. Or jeans. Or a bathing suit. Or a backpack....

I have seen the wizard!

 seen the wizard!
 and he lives in Chile!
Yeah... this was a long time ago, but it's a story that bears being told because it continues, first, and second, it's one of the examples of what Chile and every other country in the world does better than the US. Naturally, I can only be talking about healthcare.

Most of you know (I THINK) that my always-broken-out chin is a form of rosacea. Dermatogolists in the US just told me it was rosacea, and gave me a prescription for antibiotics, which could help for a while, but not entirely. And other than the mystery of totally clear skin in Asia, my skin breaks out with ot without meds, forever & ever amen.

Naturally, when a doctor in the US tells you you have something you haven't really heard of, you do research on your own because the doctor either: doesn't tell you what the hell what you have means/is caused by/how to treat it, etc., or gives you only a tiny amount of information. Such indepedent research will usually lead you to other sufferers, some of whom inevitably go the way of aliens building the Great Pyramids, as in, some weirdos, attributing the problem to some unscientific/seemingly unrelated thing as the source. Hence, years ago when I looked up rosacea and found a support group, I read, scoffed, and dismissed the naturalists, who all swore that borax was the natural aid for a skin problem caused by mites. I took my pills, applied my gels, and hoped for the best, just as my doctors told me to do. It helped, but never all that much. After time, I'd need the prescription renewed. But once I lost my insurance and was getting ready to leave the US, there simply wasn't time, or money.

Once I was in Chile, the ever-resourceful Rita had the name of a dermatologist here that a doctor she knows in Boston recommended to her. Scheduling an appointment was one of those major accomplishments when you're living in a country where you're not fluent in the language that you feel high from for weeks. But getting to the clinic and finding that without insurance, the ENTIRE COST of your visit is only CP$44,000 or US$88, is kind of astounding. I confused the kind cashier by asking how much more it was at the end. Because after they do... anything in the US, it's considered surgery (popping zits? Actually considered surgery in the US) or a special treatment that would hike up what you owe AFTER the visit (if you don't have insurance).

Dr. Guardia spoke very good English, and saw me in his office. He immediately blew my mind by having me stand right in front of him so he could look at my skin with a large magnifying glass with a light. Never in my life has a dermatologist ever looked that closely at my skin. He stared at my chin for a bit and made a sound of surprise. This is when he told me aliens HAD actually built the Great Pyramids. Or almost, because what he actually said was, "You have a lot of mites on your chin, hence the rosacea." He proceeded to tell me that rosacea is inflammation caused by the demonix mite, which is one of those millions of microorganisms that everyone has on their skin. The skin on my face is particularly hospitable to them, so I have a lot more on my face than most people, and the high concentrations of the mite cause inflammation. Which is what rosacea is. Huh. HUH! First time anyone who wasn't a weird deranged online hippy had suggested anything of the kind to me.

He prescribed me an antiflammatory, rather than the usual antibiotics from US derms, a gel I had been prescribed often in the US, and another cream. He said it was a long process to get rid of them that requires patience. He asked me to come back in 2 months, and at that time, we'd see how the current regimen was working, and tweak if necessary.

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So I wait two months. In this time, Rita also goes to see the doctor, which is when I learn how Chile ensured that Chilean healthcare still has those added nonsensical, illogical, irritating steps that is part of living here. The doctor sent her to get blood drawn. The procedure goes as follows: she goes to the lab; the woman doesn't wear gloves as she draws her blood to test; and then it is explained to Rita that the bloodwork will be processed in 7-10 days, at which time Rita must return to the lab (1 floor down from the doc's office in the clinic), get the results, and WALK THEM UPSTAIRS TO THE DOCTOR HERSELF. Yep, Rita has to make a special, 1-hour-each-way-trip to the clinic, just to walk her test results upstairs to the doctor herself. It cannot be interoffice-mailed, emailed, walked up by the lab personnel nor by the doctor or his staff. The patient themself must do it.

No matter how many times I repeat it, I am floored anew by this ridiculousness. I am still waiting for such inefficiencies to stop being a shock to me.

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At the start of December I saw Dr. Guardia again, where he again blew my mind by doing shit no Western doctor ever did. After the magnifying glass inspection, he said that the number of (apparently it's not demonix, it's demodics, or something like that) on my face has DEFINITELY reduced, but there's still excessive activity. He wanted to know how many exactly, so he sent me to the derm offices labs FOR THEM TO COUNT THEM. That doctors CAN do this isn't surprising, with all the technology we have today. That a doctor would CHOOSE to do it, in this case, was the shock, since again, never has anything of the sort been suggested or done in the US.

So basically Dr. Guardia told the lab to test a square cm of my chin to see what the concentration is. She very thoroughly scraped one of the inflamed bumps, put it on a slide, and sent me to wait in the lab's waiting room. 10 minutes later, she brought me an envelope, which I walked directly back to Dr. Guardia. The official number was 7, when 1, maybe 2, is normal. Meaning there are about 7 mites on 1 square cm of my chin, whereas you have like 1 or so.

He added one more cream that I put on Saturday & Sun nights, and I go back just before my birthday, and just before I leave Chile. At that time, should it appear we need bigger guns, he'll prescribe a new pill that, as usual, requires I don't become pregnant because its potency is dangerous to fetuses.

So that's where we are now. The new cream does seem to be creating more inflammation, or at least my skin is worsening in the inflammation department. But we'll see, because before this new cream, my skin was the best it has been, other than when I was in Asia. (He had no explanation for that.) I'm still enamored by the not-the-US system where I get one, to ME, affordable price to see the head of dermatology at one of the Chile's best clinics, who treats the problem and me far differently than US docs, explains shit, and gives me a road map to how we'll work on this over time. Finally, Chile is soundly beating the US at something!