Barbecue

The weather was so nice that we were able to have some friends (Rick and Liesbeth) over for a cookout in the back yard. Wookie wanted a veggie burger for himself, and he vigilantly guarded the grill for nearly half an hour, but in the end, he was sadly disappointed and ended up with nothing more than dry kibble yet again. Liesbeth is my aerobics friend, and Rick is a fellow computer geek like D (in his past life--although he still keeps his hands in programming in the background). After dinner, we got a demo of D's new geekalicious computer toy, the XGL plugin for his Linux OS.

Poor burgerless Wookie.

So much work for so little payoff.

Work continues as normal. I'm teaching at my first school only in the mornings, and then I've got a university job two nights a week, plus a private student. I'm going to try to get more private students, since I make more money with them. I might also try to set up some relationships with some American schools to send over high school juniors or seniors for a semester or a few weeks during the school year. That would be commission work, again.

None of it is what I wanted to do ideally, but I've come to the conclusion that doing what I want to do is difficult when I'm not living in a place where I'm going to be for a while. The stuff I want to do requires investment, in terms of time and effort. I'd love to work in a community center, maybe start one in a community that doesn't have one already. If I'm going to do something like that, I'm going to need to settle somewhere. And that won't happen (ahem) until someone (ahem) finished school and (ahem) gets a job. So that'll have to go onto the back burner for the time being.

Learning Spanish is another step toward returning to the States and finding a job in a community. I think that Spanish speakers are the future of America. I think America needs their energy and work ethic. They're a shot in the arm, and I'd like to work in that community whenever I get back to the States.