Well, I picked up an addition to my MP3 player – I got an FM transmitter for my car, now I can tune into a radio station and listen to the MP3 player. Pretty sweet :) I figure I can use it with a stereo when I’m down there instead of having to put all of the music onto CDs. Works great, perfect for the long weekend coming up. Later…
I have a home
I sent off an email to Catalina at Colegio Los Nogales with a few questions last week, and she got back to me sometime over the long weekend (looks like it was Monday). I wanted to get a few details from her, seeing as it’s only a little over 2 months to go before I head out.
It looks like I’ll be teaching Grade 8, which is the basically equivalent of Grade 9 science here in Canada. I may also be doing some Grade 9 biology – genetics, evolution, biodiversity. Fun stuff!
In terms of my accomodations, that’s not set in stone yet. It’ll be a fully furnished apartment though, so I don’t have to worry about things like furniture. I’ll have a TV, but apparently I would have to provide my own DVD player if I really wanted it (odd that that point was specifically made). If I have room, I may bring mine – it’s wide, but it’s very flat and would pack well into a suitcase. Hope there’s nobody reading this who would have access to my bags in the terminal :)
My flight has been booked for July 28th. There are other foreign teachers coming in, but it looks like I’m the only Canadian, eh. Guess I won’t be getting together with any of them early :) But, there’s a couple who are flying in the same day as I am, so that might make things easier.
That’s it for now, more as it comes in…
(PS For those of you living vicariously through me (Gerry!), I’ve belatedly added some postings below ;)
Music is taken care of
Well, I took my first step towards personally getting ready for Colombia – I dealt with music :) See, I have about 400 CDs, and I obviously don’t want to have to carry them all down with me. That’s WAY too much stuff to pack. So, instead, I’ve picked myself up an MP3 player, an RCA Lyra. It has a 20 GB hard drive on it, so I can hold pretty well everything, and it’s only the size of GameBoy. Pretty sweet. Even better, I managed to get it on Ebay so it was about half the normal price – around $200 instead of over $400. Works great too, except for the headphone jack. Luckily it has an output jack, which is all I really need – I don’t necessarily want to use this as a walkman. More details to come…
Passport has arrived
Picked up my passport today from the post office. It only took a week for them to send it to me, impressive. Guess I should send in my contract now – I should check out all the details first though. Time to talk to Emma…
Hurry up and wait
Holy crap, hurry up and wait! It took forever to put in my passport application today. Apparently it wasn’t nearly as bad as normal though – I couldn’t imagine. I picked up the application and then had my pictures taken. THAT was odd – apparently we’re not allowed to smile for passport photos anymore. It turns out they’re planning on implementing visual identification software in the future that relies on recognizing facial features sometime in the future – and any kind of expression on your face messes it up. Sounds like it’s REALLY reliable, no?
With that done, I went to see Mo to get her to be my guarantor (always nice having lawyers as friends). Then I headed back and spent 2 hours sitting around reading Scientific American. It took all of 5 minutes for me to actually go through the process. I didn’t even have to do anything – really, it was a waste of time being there. But, if I’d just mailed it in it would’ve taken much much longer to get the passport in. It should only take 2 weeks (10 working days); we’ll see. The sooner the better – I want to get the info into Colombia as soon as possible.
Oh yeah – Happy St. Paddy’s Day!