Getting Paper

When you’re only working 12 hours a week, even when you have a super long commute, well, you have plenty of free time. Between traveling, going out with friends, watching way too much illegally-downloaded American television, and eating lots and lots of tapas, I’m also filling up my time with three side jobs, and they’ve been great so far.

First, for the past few weeks, I’ve been giving private English lessons twice a week with the mother of one of my 4-year-old students. She has a pretty high level of English, even though she’s mostly self-taught, so she’s fun to work with. I prepare some questions and we discuss a bit of grammar, but we mostly just have conversations. These conversations often cover interesting topics like cultural differences between the U.S. and Spain and town gossip, so getting paid almost feels like icing on the top of an already sweet job. And to continue with the sugary theme, she packaged up some of her delicious birthday cake for me, which is seriously calling my name right now. Sorry, blog post, you’re getting abandoned for a second.

Not an actual picture of the cake, but it looks pretty similar. My tutee needs to have more birthdays.

Second, I’ve scored a gig doing online marketing for a local tour company. Mmm this cake is so good. They have a new project that’s launching in January, so I’ve been in charge of creating the marketing strategy and executing it. Since online marketing is the field I’ve been getting into and the career I plan to pursue when I return to the “real world,” this is great experience. It’s also nice working from home on my own schedule.

Finally, this Monday I had my first day of after school classes at my school. I’ll be giving two separate English classes for an hour a week each to 19 students who want (or whose parents want, as I’m sure is the case with at least a few) a bit of extra English practice. That means planning activities, maintaining order in the classroom, and keeping the students entertained all by myself, which is definitely a challenge, but I think it went really well on Monday! A few people never showed, and it was difficult getting a few of the students to stop goofing off, but I think I gave two hours of pretty darn good classes on Monday, and I even had a few students tell me or a co-teacher that they really enjoyed the first week!

So, yeah, I’ve been keeping pretty busy and loving everything I do. This is the life.



6 Responses

  1. Lori says:

    Wow those are pretty legit side jobs! I have a couple of private lessons (same thing – mostly just a one on one conversation with a person about life love and bullshit.) But that marketing job sounds awesome! How did you come about getting that?

    • Kirstie says:

      Someone from the company had found me via Facebook before I came to Spain (since I started the Sevilla auxiliares Facebook group), so we talked a bit before about me maybe helping out, and it ended up working out well!

  2. This is such a treat to hear of your adventures! I’m so happy that you are enjoying it all! (incl;uding the cake-which also was calling to me!) She probably made it from “scratch” which makes it extra delicious! You are amazing being able to do all that you do. I am so proud and in awe of your many talents! I’m so glad that your Dad will be spending Thanksgiving with you. Take pictures! I love you so much!

    • Kirstie says:

      She did make it from scratch! Unfortunately, she can’t eat gluten, milk, or eggs, so she wasn’t supposed to eat her own birthday cake, but she had some anyway. I can’t wait for my dad to arrive in a few days! Love you!

  3. Nana says:

    That cake looks remarkably like an individual square of cake I bought yesterday. That’s something I rarely do because, like you, it calls my name from the kitchen. The siren call of the chocolate cake!

    Wow, with your regular job, plus these three others, you must be pocketing lots of extra spending money. Well, maybe not “lots”, but more than you would otherwise have. As my grandmother used to say, nothing changed her mood like a piece of folding money! I feel the same way!

    Have fun with your dad. I know that will be a special treat. Great that it worked out for him to be able to make the trip for such a brief visit by virtue of being in NY.

    Love you,
    Nana

    • Kirstie says:

      It was an interesting cake layered with chocolate, cake, and flan.

      Yeah, it’s nice having a bit of extra cash for travel and eating out more. We get paid 700€ a month to teach, which in Spain is enough to live on, but now I don’t have to be quite as frugal!

      It’ll be great having him here in just a few days!

      Love you!

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