Prospects....

So I interviewed with ANZ Education yesterday. I had to interview in Spanish and English.......my hands were sweating, and I was squirming until the pre-interviewer let me talk to her in English (after she noticed I forgot how to say New Zealand in Spanish). Once I was done with her, i was feeling an ounce more comfortable and the big boss talked to me in Spanish to check my skills. Wish me luck, cross your fingers, pray for me.....whatever it is you do, I need it!

Our Canadian friend came to visit again, after literally being run out of Reynosa. We had a nice weekend showing him things he hadn't seen before. (some back-logged photos should be coming soon......I hope)

Anyway, enough bore.

Don't forget.....the countdown to Ashley's 25th starts TOMORROW!

This has been a quick update from Mexico City, Mexico. Ashley Smith, Signing out.

Pickiness in Search

Well, I quit the training for the teaching job. I'm sure that at this very moment my compañeros are saying "I wonder where Ashley is.....I'm sure she's just late" as we did so many times we lost other quitters. No, I'm not just late and later today I'll have to take back my material and give them my excuse for quitting......I literally can't afford to work there. Sounds strange to be financially unable to GET a job but this one is just demanding too much of me economically and in the end, I'll be working there to pay them back. Not to mention the pay is a mere 41 pesos (after taxes) an hour......I have too much debt to take such a low-paying, money sucking job.

So, I'm looking again.

Social Experimentation

Well, I started my training at Interlingua on Monday, which means (obviously) that I finished my third day of learning their methodology and structure.

I recorded myself practicing teaching a class to Toño, Violeta, Remedios and two other "people" (they were make believe and voiced by Toño himself) but the video turned out SO dark and grainy that I can't post it. Maybe tonight we'll try to make a new one because I'd like to share their strategy.

On another note, I've been mentally performing a social experiment on my way to and from work for the past three days and have proven (again, mentally) Pavlov's theory of conditioning correct.

For those of you who don't remember what Pavlov's theory of conditioning was, let me sum up his experiment....

He put beautiful women in a room with men and at random intervals, signaled to the beautiful women to walk around the room in high heels, making as much of a clack, clack, clack noise as possible.

After a minute or so of clack, clack, the women stopped.

After several months, when Pavlov noticed that the men would turn and look (excitedly, I might add) every time they heard the clack, clack (be it from women in heels or just the scientist himself simulating the noise) Pavlov was able to prove that the men had been trained to expect that the clack, clack meant that a beautiful woman was around.
(confusing? I hope not)

I've been afraid of changing because I built my life around you

Wow, flash back to junior high, Kirsten Hubbard and I sitting on her bedroom floor, surrounded by bongo drums, Smashing Pumpkins CD inserts and the stereo, which was blasting which ever song we decided to analyze at that moment.

I figured at that time that tearing apart lyrics and relating them to our angsty lives was a passing teenage phase but even now, at 24, I find myself getting lost in the comfort of lyrics and still relating them to real life.....maybe it makes me feel better to know that someone, somewhere at some point in time felt (or at least wrote down) the same things I do.

Anyway, as most of you don't know, I'm having difficulty in the family area at this very moment. I'm trying incredibly hard not to be angry, not to be sad, not to be selfish or egotistical but I'm feeling really stressed out, worried, abandoned, hurt....so many things are passing in and out and in and sometimes not even out (which is bothering me a lot) and I feel like I really can't control it right now....So, true to form, I turned on a bit of Smashing Pumpkins.

I'm taking Stevie Nick's Landslide as my own. I'm hoping with everything I hold deep inside of me that this landslide will bring down my own reflection in the snow and that I can change and grow once I realize that no one is flawless, no one should be put above or thought of as all-knowing, smarter, wiser, better than me because we (even parents) are growing, getting older, trying to handle the seasons of their own lives. It's time to unbuild my life around them and live my own life, worry about my own things....

WOW! reading this and writing it makes me feel SO silly.


Landslide Lyrics

I took my love and took it down
I climbed a mountain, I turned around
And I saw my reflection in a snow covered hill
'til a landslide brought it down

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changing cause I've
Built my life around you
Time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older, too
I'm getting older, too

I took my love and took it down
I climbed a mountain, I turned around
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hill
The landslide brought it down
The landslide brought it down