One step closer

•October 5, 2010 • 3 Comments

Making progress.

Last week, I sent the deposit for my Spain program.

Additionally, my mom was looking at flights. She wanted to see if she could use some of her American Airlines points to pay for at least part of my flight. After calling, she learned that she apparently has enough points for *three* round trip tickets to Spain.

Furthermore, my parents have a timeshare that they’ve never used. So given that airfare would be free, they’re thinking of coming to Spain the week before my classes start, all 3 of us, and having a vacation before dropping me off at my new flat.

I don’t want to get overly excited about all of this until the entire program is paid for, at least…but I will say that I think all of this is pretty cool.

Posted in Still prepping and planning, Trying to finance my dream

buscando empleo

•September 13, 2010 • Leave a Comment

I’ve been job searching for the past week or so. I have been unemployed for a while and receiving unemployment benefits. When I initially got let go, I had a hard time finding work that even surpassed my unemployment, much less surpassed it enough that it justified giving up receiving money to not work. During that time, I focused my efforts on preparing for a research conference I was attending, taking private Spanish lessons, and my diet and exercise. It was time well spent.

My parents said they want to help with my Spain trip, and they’ve been saying that since I got let go (well, my mom has been saying that anyway lol), but I feel like I must be more proactive, so I started again with the job search.

Initially I was only looking for work near my home (southern Chicago suburbs); I figured if my job wasn’t going to pay me well, I need to not spend a lot of money to get there (i.e. gas, parking, public transit). After a few days, I realized that was unrealistic, so I expanded my search into the city, upped my desired salary, and found jobs to apply for.

Yesterday my mom said I should try CareerBuilder.com, and although I had looked earlier last week, I looked again. I found an ad for a staffing agency that’s holding interviews on Tuesday. The ad specifically said that office staffed for the Northern suburbs, given that that staffing office was in Mount Prospect, but then I went to their website and found their office in the Chicago Loop. So my interview is at 9:30a tomorrow.

I’m hoping the interview goes well. I’m good at interviewing. It’s weird, because I’m not the most outgoing person, but I really shine when I’m trying to convince you to give me a job lol. I *do* wonder if it’s an interview interview, or if because this is a staffing agency, if they’re more so just asking what I’m looking for in a job. We’ll see.

Either way, any interview is better than none.

Posted in Trying to finance my dream

What I’ve been up to

•September 1, 2010 • 6 Comments

Well, my Spain plans are still underway. I’ve changed some things about them to hopefully make it into a reality.

1) The date that I’m aiming to leave is January 29, 2011. Before I wanted to be there in September. Then October. Then November. Since early November isn’t happening, the next best date is late January. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday (1/19), I think this is the next time I should go. I could go, in theory, in early January, but I don’t want to be freshly in the country right before my birthday. I wanted to already be there so I could have already made plans and have a fun Spanish birthday, but oh well. I plan on living in Spain during my birthday in I’m accepted into the language and culture assistant program, so I still have a chance to experience my birthday overseas.

2) Instead of living in a homestay and taking classes for 24 weeks, I plan on living with a Spaniard and cooking my own food and taking classes for 20 weeks. This will save me $4k, and if you compare my current plan with a homestay for 20 weeks, $3k. I don’t plan on eating $3k worth of food. Also, I’ve lost 30 pounds in the past few months on a unique diet that consists of me alternating between a high and low amount of calories. If I lived in homestay where someone cooked for me, I’d be wasting food by continuing my diet. Now no food will be wasted and money will be saved.

I’ve been doing a few things in the meantime, before Spain becomes a reality.

1) I’ve made my relationship with God a priority. Before, my thoughts and dreams were in Spain. I wasn’t ecstatic with life here- I don’t have any close IRL relationships (just a part of growing up, I guess), but I figured that wouldn’t matter because I’d be going abroad soon, so it really wasn’t important that I wasn’t happy with my non-immediate-familial relationships because I’d be consumed with life in Spain, learning Spanish, the culture, traveling, and meeting new people. When I realized that if I do make it to Spain, it won’t be for a while, it made me reflect on how empty my life felt. I decided that it felt empty because God wasn’t the priority in my life- Spain and my relationships were.

In addition to reading Christian books, my friend Maria I are going to TD Jakes “Women Thou Art Loosed” conference in October. Since I knew I wouldn’t be in Spain in October, I seized this opportunity to finally spend time with my friend and get closer to God. I’m excited for it.

2) I’ve decided to become a volunteer for IMAlive. IMAlive is the first online crisis counseling network, basically a suicide hotline of sorts via instant messenger. I feel that I’d have a lot to offer this organization, plus I’m very eloquent online. Plus, if I make it to Spain, I could volunteer when it’s late night in America, as I remember what it was like to need help at 2am. Also, it’s nice that I can volunteer on the couch in my pajamas.

Posted in Still prepping and planning, Trying to finance my dream

Only a matter of time…

•June 27, 2010 • 5 Comments

Not much to report in the past couple of months.

It appears that Spain may indeed become a reality, in about a month or so. Maybe 2 months.

Assuming everything goes according to my current plan, I want to leave in October. Preferably early October.

Posted in Still prepping and planning, Trying to finance my dream

Now we wait…

•May 2, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Well, I finally bought my Volunteer Latin America guide. I wanted to wait until I got my tax return, and right when I was thinking, “screw it,” and just wanted to buy it anyway, I checked my bank account and voila! Part of my tax return was in there lol

The guide is supposed to come via email in 1 – 10 working days, so very soon I’ll have all my options available to me, and I’ll indeed see if I can get this to work out by September/October.

Right now I’m aiming for Argentina, Chile, or Costa Rica. I’ve been perusing the Bureau of Consular Affairs website to get the lowdown on the crime throughout Latin America, since my main factor is choosing a country is my safety (cost is a very close second, but if I also need to see how much safety I can afford). Argentina and Chile are the safest countries, given that they have the highest standard of living throughout Latin America. Out of the all of the other Latin American countries, Costa Rica seems to be the safest, relatively speaking. Crime is rising in Costa Rica, but it still doesn’t seem to be high yet, and there’s not really an abundance of violent crime.

Posted in Still prepping and planning

long time, no post

•April 12, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Not much to report here. My Spanish classes are still going well. I’m kinda regretting not applying to be a language and culture assistant in Spain this year, since I don’t feel assured that the language immersion program in Seville is going to happen.

So plan B. Volunteer Latin America. This has language immersion programs and various volunteer sites throughout Latin America. Some volunteer programs through this have free/discounted/some Spanish classes offered within the program, while you volunteer, but if you buy a specific guide, VLA gives you information on various language immersion programs that you can do separate from voiluntering. I emailed them a while back and they mentioned that language immersion programs can be as cheap as $60 a week [in Guatemala]. When I at first heard that, I was like, “What exactly am I getting that it’s only $60/week? How good is the program?” and now I’m like, “Well…might as well look into it.” Plus volunteering through VLA is cheaper than other organizations I’ve seen because they cut out the middleman. They give you the information and you contact the organization. You have to pay for the information though, and since they’re based in the UK, the info is pretty pricey. But still, much much cheaper than the thousands of dollars that I’ve seen to volunteer elsewhere.

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hablablablabla

•March 17, 2010 • 1 Comment

I can’t wait until Spain/Latin America becomes a sure thing, if it indeed does happen. I’ve been living vicariously through some bloggers who are doing the Language and Culture Assistant program that I want to eventually do. I can’t wait to write about my own adventures, but for now, the prep that I’m doing to eventually get there will have to do.

I loved the main assignment for my Spanish class this week. My teacher gave me a list of idioms and expressions that use “tener” and a short list of some other expressions. She wanted me to create a dialogue. I especially liked this because it allowed me to apply these expressions to “real life,” and creatively too, which helped me to commit them to memory. Usually, I get a list of vocab, look it over, remember some words, forget others, but with this assignment, I do remember every expression that I used in my dialogue. I was given about 40 – 50 expressions/phrases and used 20 in my pseudo-play. I’m so proud of it, you have no idea lol. I want to have a similar assignment every time I get a list of new vocab to learn.

The hardest aspect of Spanish for me is listening. I know all the verb tenses and when/where to utilize them, my vocab is ok, but I listen to the radio, or watch TV, and I can’t follow well. The thing is, when I’m watching TV and put the closed captioning on, I can follow like 95% of what’s going on perfectly, so it’s not that I don’t know what they’re saying, I just can’t really hear it. Also, if someone is speaking who knows Spanish at an advanced level, but has somewhat of an American accent (or, apparently, a German accent, since one of the presenters who led Spanish club last week was German, and sounded quite non-American when speaking Spanish), I can follow them very easily. Even though their accent is not how Spanish is supposed to sound lol. Furthermore, if a Spanish speaker is talking *directly* to me, I have a *much* better time keeping up than if I’m sitting with a bunch of people who are having a conversation and I have to follow each person.

I hope my listening improves. I’ll be oh-so-excited when my listening improves.

Posted in Spanish classes in Chicago, Still prepping and planning
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clases!

•March 13, 2010 • Leave a Comment

Yesterday was my 2nd Spanish class. I’m taking private lessons. Originally, I was going to take a conversation class, but I would have missed the first 2 classes. The receptionist told me that there’s a private lesson package that costs the same as the class would, so I decided to sign up and I’m *loving* it.

I told my teacher that listening is the part of Spanish that I have the most trouble with, so my 2nd lesson had a huge listening component. My homework for next week involves idiomatic expressions, which is definitely something I also need work with. I love how customized these lessons are, and I’m definitely glad I went the private lesson route.

While my Spanish is definitely nowhere near fluency, I think it’s probably better than I give myself credit for. Today I went to Spanish Club, and it was apparently a special one about Spanish cheeses and sangria, with each available for us to partake in. One of the presenters was a student from an advanced class, and I thought, “Hmm, my Spanish isn’t *drastically* different from hers.” Also, before the club started, a couple of students were talking about words, phrases, verb tenses, etc., they didn’t know yet, and were wondering if there was a way to say “blowdry your hair.” I was like yeah, and explained what the phrase was (secarse el pelo) and how to apply it to yourself (me seco el pelo), and they seemed *oddly* impressed by that lol. Son las cositas que me hacen feliz 😉

Posted in Spanish classes in Chicago, Still prepping and planning
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Earthquake and future plans

•March 2, 2010 • 2 Comments

Well, like the rest of the world, I heard about the Chilean earthquake. I’m probably partially to blame- a few weeks ago, when I was considering heading to Chile soon, I thought to myself, “You know, I can’t recall the last major natural disaster to happen in Chile. One will probably happen any day now.” I was out of town at a rehab psych conference in Tuscon, AZ, for the past few days and told my parents of my prophecy when I got back. They were dying…said I should go to AZ to learn Spanish lest I jinx another country.

Anyway, part of the reason I brought up the conference is because it may affect my future plans, with regards to time spent abroad.

Like I mentioned before, learning Spanish is my top priority, with regards to my time abroad, then meeting people, travelling, and teaching children English. Learning Spanish has basically become part of my life’s mission lol.

Anyway, I was unsure as to what I should with my life, career-wise. I had some ideas- I could get an MSW, but really, social workers don’t make what I would consider to be a satisfactory salary. I’d need to have a private practice were I to do that, so I nixed that idea. I took a semester’s worth of prerequisites in speech-language pathology, but I then realized that only stuttering appealed to me (my own speech has varied from a severe stutter as a child, to a moderate one from adolescence to early 20s, to a mild stutter now). I could work with just stutterers, in a fluency clinic, but I needed something else to fall back on if that didn’t work, so I moved on. I thought about getting a Master’s in Early Childhood Ed, but if I did that, I’d want to open a Spanish immersion [Montessori] preschool. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t want to be a preschool teacher, so that was out.

The only field of study that has a variety of realistic careers that appeal to me is Clinical/Counseling Psych (my BA was in Psychology). However, I’d need a Ph.D. to do that, which intimidated me prior to this conference. Not that I couldn’t hack a Ph.D., but I’d be in school for so long, 7 years on average. And I’d have to do a post-doc for 2 years. Then I’d need to get licensed. Plus I *need* to learn Spanish first because, like I mentioned, it’s part of my life’s mission, and get full-time research experience. A study I’ve done is in the works to hopefully get published, but I’ve still have yet to work in research full-time.

Clinical psych programs, on average, accept about 2 – 5% of their applicants (less “selective” ones accept maybe 10%), and from talking to a variety of people, it seems like full-time research experience is key, particularly if you’re like myself and don’t want to get a Master’s first. Honestly, getting a Master’s in Psychology is a waste of money, in my opinion, unless, 1) you’re not sure about getting a Ph.D. and you just want to get your feet wet, as far as grad school is concerned, or 2) your grades and GREs are such where you absolutely cannot get into a Ph.D. program, even with solid research experience, strong POI matches, and you applied to a variety (meaning selectivity) of 15 – 20 programs (most Clinical Psych applicants apply to at least 10 schools). Master’s degrees, even in Clinical Psychology, DON’T shorten the time of your Ph.D. program, and tend to be unfunded.

Anyway, long story short, I had a great time at this conference, and my research was very well-received, so I’m going to try for the Ph.D.

So here are the new plans.

-Go abroad to learn Spanish.
-While abroad, apply for language assistant positions in Spain AND for research assistant positions in the US. That way, if I don’t land a research assistant job (a paid one if it’s not in Chicago), I can still teach English
-If I get a research assistant job that I’m happy with, I’ll do that
-If not, I’ll go teach English and try to get a research assistant job when I get back

Posted in Still prepping and planning
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job searching

•February 18, 2010 • 2 Comments

Not much going on. Since I’ve come up with September as my “go abroad” date, I figured I should exhaust Craig’s List and the like looking for jobs to help fund this. The tricky thing is I receive unemployment benefits, so I can’t just apply for *any* job. You gotta factor in transportation costs, meals, your unemployment salary, and a little extra, to make it worth your while to go off unemployment.

Earlier today I was…I don’t know if offered a job, is the right phrase, but received an email from a supposed potential employer that seemed really sketchy. So I applied to more jobs, and was offered an interview today. I think, anyway. It’s for a receptionist position at a day care center, and since I have administrative experience plus experience working with very young children, I figured I should go for it. I just need to see if I’ll be offered enough hours to justify giving up my unemployment benefits.

Posted in Trying to finance my dream
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