I Work Hard for the Money

I know I told you in the last post, but in this one I can fully rejoice with you- I have officially entered the Chilean working world!!! I have now taught four classes at the Navy and two clases particulares (tutoring). I´ll start with the Navy. I was first told that I would have 11 students, then it went down to 10 and yet only 7 show up every class. One of the three who had never come before finally came last class and after missing only three he´s still quite behind the others. The men are all older than me, I would say between 28 and 55 years-old and they are all officers. They´re all very polite and most are very eager to learn- I would say they are an excellent first class to have. I teach them three days a week for two hours at a time and earn about $10/hour of which 10% will be taken out for taxes. The only slight drawback is that it´s quite a commute. With the micro (bus), it takes me about an hour to get there and then an hour and a half to get home (it takes more time on the return due to rush hour traffic). So if you take that $20 for every class to cover the two hours of teaching, the two and a half hour commute and the hour of lesson planning, it´s not $10/hour anymore. But I´m still thanking the Lord and the institute because I´m very greatful for this work and for something to fill my time. And I´m also praying and hoping that the institute will have some openings for more classes come up.


Now about my clases particulares. These are tutoring sessions and very soon I´m going to start posting flyers and such in public to advertise my mad English skills. But I already have two people I´m tutoring. One is a precious little five-year-old girl named J. J is only in kindergarten but she loves what she´s learned so far of English so her parents want to encourage her in that. She really reminds me of my niece P who is just a year older and who I´ve been told has the same desire to learn Spanish. I´ve had one class with J so far which went well, and there´s just two things I need to remember for next time- don´t expect to cover too much and to add in some more fun activities. Little girls cannot sit still at a table for an hour! I also have started tutoring a man (also with the initial J) who is this girl´s uncle and wants to learn for business purposes. I think we made progress in our first class and I think it will be interesting in the future coming up with his class material. It´ll be a challenge, but a good one I think.


And this brings me to my work visa. Now that I´m working, I have to have a visa. And I got it today! I had to go to the Extranjeria (Foreigner´s Office) twice and had to wait about an hour in line, but it wasn´t that bad. Especially since the visa was FREE! I think when I went to Austria I had to pay a pretty penny for my student visa, so this was a nice surprise. It also feels like an accomplishment because I went to the Extranjeria all by myself! Well, Andrés actually dropped me off, but he didn´t come in with me (he had to go take a final) and I was able to communicate my needs without any help. Whoohoo. Now this does mean that I don´t know what all the paperwork I was given is for, but I do know that I have my work visa that is valid for four months and that is what is most important.

My work visa! (All important and personal information hidden of course)

The other paper they gave me- I´m not quite sure what it´s for. It says something about residency...

After receiving my visa, I decided I wanted to celebrate by going to Starbucks for the first time in Chile. I have to say that it was worth it, but that Starbucks will be a once every three of four month treat- it´s so expensive! I got a grande white mocha, which admitedly is one of the most expensive drinks on the menu, but I did it for my mom. Well not for her, but to remember her and reminisce because it´s her favorite drink. When we´re together we usually share one. So I leave you with photos from my first Starbucks adventure here, a little piece of home. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and my work situation up until now. I REALLY appreciate it and feel free to keep those prayers coming.

Holy cow! 2750 pesos, that´s about $5.50!

Here´s my nonfat white mocha WITH whip cream :)

Here´s my cup with my name in all it´s glory! Many gringas have trouble with the baristas not understanding their names, but thankfully my name translates easily in Spanish- it´s the same!

The Danger of Learning a Second Language

So you're going to learn another language, that's great! Your brain will start to function in ways you never imagined possible and you will start to think you're really smart. And then BAM! It hits you! You're humbled because while you might be gaining huge (or small) ground in your second language, your first language is quickly going downhill. This is a hidden danger that I don't think people are fairly warned about.


After my last post it was pointed out to me that I had a number of grammatical errors, mostly having to do with there/their and then/than usage. Now a lot of that could have been avoided if I had actually proofread it before I posted it, but also that almost never would have happened before I started learning Spanish. I guess God gave me the gift of being good at English and grammar but now He's taking it away! In fact, I used to (and actually still do) get upset at people who could not use the correct form of they're, their and there on Facebook because they mean three totally different things! I used to be able to write my statuses (stati?) like none other, whipping them out without even having to think about spelling or grammar. Now I have to read each one (although I don't always) to make sure I wrote "too" instead of "to" or "they're" instead of "their" correctly. I guess I needed this lesson in humility.


But it's not just your grammar that gets messed up when learning a second language, it is also your vocabulary. There are so many words that I cannot remember anymore! I'll be having a conversation in English with someone and a very common word that even a two year old would know will be on the tip of my tongue yet my brain will not recall it. Or I'll be having a conversation with Andres and he'll say a word in Spanish and ask me what it is in English and in my mind I know what he's talking about but I cannot for the life of me think what the word is in English. So if you want to learn a second language, make sure you're up for losing some of your native tongue. Be aware of the danger!


What I wrote up above is true but I just want you all to know that I think it is definitely worth it to learn as many languages your brain can handle. And I (we) definitely plan to raise our kids bilingual and I might even encourage them to learn a third language or more! Yes, some studies say that bilingual kids struggle to understand some of the grammatical rules in school but to me the benefits outweigh the deficits by far. Studies also show that bilingual and multilingual kids do better in other areas and are more creative (think outside the box types).


I will end on a somewhat serious note. I'm not sure how much of this news has reached us in the U.S., but the big news in Chile is that the Chilean government recently voted to allow a project to develop hydroelectric power in the south by making five hydroelectric plants. Many Chileans are not happy because it will block rivers and flood a lot of the land and also put up power lines over this land that is pristine, beautiful and mostly untouched. Protests are happening but the government doesn't seem to want to listen. A movement called "Patagonia sin Represas" (Patagonia without Dams) has been started to disseminate information on the damage these plants will cause and to work to get the project reversed. You can check out their website in English here. You can read an article in the NY Times about it here and you can read about the protests from gringa Chile blogger Eileen here and here.

Oh Debt, One Day You Will be GONE

I wasn't going to have a second post in one week having to do with money but with everything going on with the government it's just been on my mind a lot and I cannot resist. Also I found a link from Kyle's blog today to a wittily-written blog called "Punch Debt in the Face." I fell in love. Seriously, check out this guy's website. And thus you get another post about money and finances- both personal and government.


Let's start with personal finances. I went to an amazing college where I got a fantastic education... but it also came with a boatload of debt. No bueno. I think I'm going to be really honest on here and give you actual numbers in hopes that a youngin (or a parent of a youngin) might be reading this and learn a lesson. To go to my private university I took out about $65,000 ($15,000 federal, $50,000 private) in student loans. By the time I graduated the total amount was $85,000(!) from the four years of collecting interest. Now that I'm out of college and in the real world that gives me a payment of $740 every month. That's A LOT for a young college grad. In the past 2+ years I have paid about $22,620 on my student loans yet the net amount of them is still $75,000 because about $12,000 has gone toward interest. If I had known this going in I would NOT have gotten student loans. Yes, I would still have wanted to go to my university but I probably would have A) gone to a community college/public university the first two years and B) worked first to save up at least half of the money for tuition before attending. These loans and their payments are going to be with me for the next 10-15 years unless I make extra payments, which I plan to because when I graduated I set a goal to have them all paid off by MAY 2018 (now that it's in writing in the public sphere I expect to be held accountable).


Now having this much debt (as you're applying for student loans people will tell you this is good debt- that is a lie, no debt is good debt) often times heavily weighs on me and can get me down. However, today is not one of those days. Today I have hope for two main reasons. One: I know I can get this debt paid off because I know people who are doing it and when that day comes it will be GLORIOUS! One example of someone I know paying of debt- my parents! My mom has been doing an awesome job of inspiring me because she's done it herself and my dad gives me endless support and says he's so proud of me with how I'm budgeting now.  Another example- an RD (resident director) I know from college from when I was an RA (resident assistant). I woke up this morning, checked Facebook, and in the news feed was his post about him and his wife paying off the last of their debt just TODAY! Way to go Vince and Cay! You can read about their debt-free journey here. Two: Confidence in God. A couple of weeks ago in Adoration I was talking to the Lord about how much my debts were weighing on me and on my decision to move to Chile. I remembered Matthew 6:24 that says "You cannot serve both God and mammon [money]." I confessed to God in that moment that I feel like my student loans have me enslaved to money and that while I am money's slave I cannot (fully) serve Him. That was two weeks ago. Then last week I was back in Adoration re-reading my journal entry about that and I had a revelation: even while still having these debts I can have freedom in Christ. And that's partly what helped me to decide (again) to move to Chile. In doing that I would be totally placing my finances and trust in God. And fully trusting in Him gives me freedom and releases me from the slave chains of debt. 

The Nation's debt effects us all. (Photo credit)

I know this post is getting a little long, but I have to get in my two-cents about the Government's finances and debt. Over this past month I feel we have been hearing non-stop about the government's budget and their fiscal (ir)responsibility. I believe that as a country, the U.S. has been recklessly spending. Yes, I put a lot of blame on congress and the leaders of our country, but I also blame me and my fellow citizens. Our consumerist and capitalist attitudes (not always a bad thing) led to some (a lot?) of this and it is not until our recent past that we have started letting congress know that we don't like how they're spending money we don't have. We should have held them responsible and spoken out years ago! But what's been done has been done and now congress needs to work together to come up with a serious plan to get us out of the major debt we are in. While I'm glad we averted a government shutdown, what they have come up with so far is not nearly enough. And as I leave you, I encourage you to check out this article which compares the government budget with a family budget and shows in numbers how their reduction of debt by 38.5 billion isn't doing much.