John:
So, at about 11 today, Paola, our trainer, came into the room and asked if I wanted to go for an interview. The school had had a call from one of the local language schools who needed a teacher ASAP. Well, seeing as how that's the whole reason for being here I said yes.

So we've had our first interviews. And it all seems fairly positive. There's a round of courses starting after Easter weekend so I think it's likely that we'll both be working then.

Mind you, it could have been easier. The interview was at 5:30 some 15 blocks from our apartment. It's a humid 26 at that time in the afternoon and there was a bit of a strike cum demonstration that was bringing traffic to a standstill and, I think, having some sort of effect on the bus engines: they seemed to be belching more smoke than usual. We got to the institute and found that it was on the sixth floor. Waited for the lift for a few minutes, then decided to walk up. So in the manual on how to have a good interview I'm not sure it says 'arrive sweaty and out of breath' but the staff were all apologetic once we blamed them for the lift .

I was interviewed by the institute director, Liz by her assistant. I think I was interviewed about a different job, at least I had a different set of questions, but no problem: my Irishness helped, the director's daughter lives in Dublin so we had a little chat about that.

The phone has stubbornly refused to ring though (weird thing, my mobile is 64469244 but if you ring it from a land line you need to put 015 in front, from a mobile 011, goodness knows what you need to do from another country).

  ¶ 1:48 AM