Dona E. Bowens

I’ve been so caught up in the house hunt that I haven’t been giving much thought to the job situation. In fact, and can I be candid here, I was really annoyed as October 1st rolled around. That is the day I was scheduled to start class with my first Uruguayan student. Why annoyed? I can’t say exactly. I wanted more unstructured days without alarms, more of the old carpe diem. I’ve been living high on the golden hog and showing up for work, even online, for an hour, was disturbing my delusion of deep pockets. (sigh) According to Chinese astrology, I’m not just a pig, but a golden pig. That’s as lucky as it gets. Abundance, luck and laziness are the curse of golden pigs such as myself. And if I’m honest, looking back at my journey thus far, and I’m talking about life journey not just this recent one to Uruguay, yeah, I can see my life has been defined by abundance, luck and laziness. I haven’t really worked full-time since 2006. No joke. Used to be in Barcelona I could go a long way with 200 bucks in my account after the rent was paid. I call that abundance. When that got hard to do, I knew it was time to go.

Luck kicked in when I landed a job interview in Uruguay before I even left the US. Now, all that was coming to fruition with actually having to show up for work, online, for an hour, like I said the struggle is real. The laziness in me is strong…the strongest. I prayed for a last minute cancelation so I could get into some Devil’s Lettuce and Love Is Blind. My boss isn’t strong on clarity and hadn’t sent the link for the class. I thought of riding that fact right into a cancelation but the one responsible neuron in my brain made me text him to ask, “Hey, class starts in 45 minutes, how about that link?” That’s when I found out that I have to set up the Zoom meeting and share the link with the student. I hate Zoom and I mourn the passing of Skype which became my jam during the pandemic. With my Spain students we use Google Teams, which isn’t great, but Zoom? Garbage. And unless you pay, and I’m not trying to spend any of my abundance that way, Zoom cuts the call at 45 minutes. And as I told you…I had to work…for an hour.

There was no getting out of it. I put on some lipstick and prepared to meet my new student Diana on Zoom. My boss said he would be attending, too, for introductions and all of that good stuff. Great. Diana showed up on time, all dark-haired and young at 30 years-old and we were off to the races.

I was reminded why I enjoy teaching English. I get to clown, I get to make my students laugh and I get to talk about one of my favorite things—the English language—the tool for my creativity and expression. I got to pull out my old jokes for a new student. Don’t get me wrong, my old students, many of whom read this blog, I love you dearly, but you’ve heard all my jokes. Diana was fresh meat and we were both annoyed when the boss finally joined the class 30 minutes late and killed the flow. He couldn’t exit fast enough but not before Diana told him, “Me encanta Dona!” I blushed😊. No, I’m lying. I raised my arms in victory and did a little jig. For real.

I’m lucky in that all of the classes I currently teach, including Diana, are conversation classes. People pay me to chat with them so that they can maintain or improve their levels. There’s more to it than that. Of course I correct pronunciation, do warm-ups, listenings and vocabulary builders, but at the end of the day, I’m getting paid to speak my native language. Lucky abundance for a lazy person.

Zoom cut us off at 45 minutes and both Diana and I just dialed right back in and kept the party going until I told her that it was closing time. “Time flew,” she said but in Spanish. Which gives me next week’s lesson. How to say “time flies” in English, and while we’re at it, let’s talk about some other idioms in English, OK? I got a message from the boss yesterday that another student will be joining the class to feel it out. No problem, boss. I’m going to show up and show out with my nearly 2 decades of experience and reel this new student in for the both of us. Believe that.

One last thing, you know what else is lucky? It’s springtime in Uruguay. People are gearing up for summer which means not starting new classes, really. I was prepared to have to go until March before any work kicked in. But here I am, happier than a golden pig in shit.

Indulge me and subscribe. Make this little piggy happy. Gracias.🐷