Gringo In Peru

It’s not the name of a new sitcom, but it could be.

Since I had the day off from the English Factory™ fellow factory worker Diego Lu and myself decided to take the opportunity to get the results from our English. The results have been in for a while, we just hadn’t had the time to see them. I’m still a little bitter about taking the test. I felt at the time (and still feel today) that I’d be better off flushing $100 down the drain. Still, the English Factory™ insisted.

This reminds me, I didn’t write much about the test at the time. Here are the CliffsNotes. There were four parts. An oral test, where I was put in a room with my friend Gonzalo and asked to talk make a decision about a certain situation. For our test, we were organizers of a film festival and we had to pick the marquee film for the festival.  Together we had to debate the pros and cons of each film and decide which movie would kick off the festival.

Then there was a traditional written test made up of an essay, a fill-in-the-blanks grammar/reading section and a listening section. Honestly, I felt the listening test was the most difficult. There were something like 30 short conversations (each about 10-15 seconds), we would hear the conversations then answer a multiple choice question about the meaning of the conversations. The rapid-fire nature of this section gave this native English speaker little time to process the questions. Plus, the conversations used a lot of informal language and phrasal verbs, which are not emphasized at the English Factory™. I can only imagine how the ESL crowd fared.

Needless to say I passed the test, with honors. That’s the highest score you can get. I even got a certificate saying so. It’s all just real expensive toilet paper. Really, what’s it going to do for me?

Besides, that wasn’t the highlight of our trip. We got to see one of our long lost friends, Susy. See, Susy was a supervisor at our branch before she got transferred to the main office. Even though she wasn’t my official mentor, nobody helped shape me more as a teacher than she has. It was good to see her and chat over her all too short lunch break.

The peached-colored confines of Lima, France

Lu and I didn’t eat much, because we had our eyes on something else. France.

This may be surprising for most readers, but the French government sponsors a chain of language institutes around the world to promote its nation’s culture. It just so happens one of the locales was down the street from where we picked up our test results.

Life in France is much different than the English Factory™.

The building itself is a sprawling, peach colored villa (French inspired maybe?) with a fountain in the middle and a white-table cloth French restaurant tucked in a corner.

We each had some beef number surrounded in a heavy cream sauce. Lu’s was cheesy, mine was dotted with peppercorns. They were both good and paired well with the wine. Yes, there’s wine at the French institute. All we have at the English Factory™ is mostly Peruvian junk food.

It was a good day, good time, good food and good friends. Now I’m inspired to visit France.

Long time, no blog.

Don’t worry, here are the highlights.

This week I submitted my resignation at the English Factory™. In typical English Factory™ bureaucratic style, my last day seems to be in limbo. I will be working through April, that is for sure.

Where things get complicated is Saturday. Since next week is Easter (no class) and Peruvian Labor Day is the first weekend in May (no class) that means the last day of Saturday classes is May 8th. Originally, I agreed to stay through the 8th. We don’t leave until the 20th and the administration agreed. Now, human resources say they have to check with the lawyer to see if I can continue working into May. By staying that one extra day I’m making less work for them since they don’t have to find substitutes. Who knows if the lawyer will see it that way.

Why are lawyers always involved?

Baby is growing. Everything seems to be going smoothly. Vanessa is real tired after work and since I work until 8:30 every night I dont’ see that much of her during the week.

One thing that’s surprised me is in these days of blogs, facebook and twitter feeds, is many people are late to the “we’re pregnant” party. Over the past month I’ve heard from about one friend a week who’s been shocked and awed by the news. I guess I just assumed that everyone who wanted or needed to know would know by now. I guess I’m wrong.

This makes me wonder could this be the underlying problem of being too plugged in, things falling through the wi-fi? Is there too much information? I know our situation isn’t important news to everyone, but our news has been a good exercise in how people find things out in the digital age. If I was more of a researcher, there could be a study somewhere in there.

Instead I’m looking for a job. A friend told me this is a good time to apply because April marks the end of the fiscal year. Companies have just finished their taxes and are ready to hire. Things had been slow on the job front for a few weeks, but it picked up this week. I applied for two jobs in the Twin Cities that I think I qualify for. I know this sounds like a broken record, but I’m hoping things will pan out.

Until then, the wait continues.

Vanessa and I are busy playing the baby name game.

Actually, its not much of a game. We’ve got two names (boy and girl) and some possible back-ups.

(Drum roll please….)

Boy: Ethan Andrew

Girl: Annika Isabel

*Names are subject to change

My wife was against giving the kid a middle name. I remember grandpa telling me he didn’t have a middle name. When he was in the army, he had to fill out all his forms NMI (no middle initial). I feared my child would be running around as NMI (enn-emm-i) and pushed for something.

Vanessa really liked the name Matteo for a boy. I was OK with it, but I had some problems with it. Back in my school yard days every boy was named Matthew or Jeremy. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but there were so many Matts running around that I didn’t want to add another to the world. Vanessa decided against it (for now) because she didn’t want people calling him Matt.

We also considered Enzo.

Annika we both agree on. Vanessa really likes Isabella, but her cousin has a daughter named Isabella. She didn’t want duplication.

Lilly is also in the running.

Ethan is a bit nostalgic for me. My cabbage patch doll was named Ethan. (Yes, I had one. Don’t judge.) My sister also had another boy cabbage patch doll named Rocky. I used to stage WWF wrestling matches between “Ethan” Hogan and Rowdy “Rocky” Piper with the dolls. If I remember, Ethan usually won.

Maybe it was a harbinger of things to come.

We still don’t know the sex of baby V face. We should know before we arrive stateside.

I’m still on the hunt for my new job in the U.S.

I’ve applied for something like three or four jobs this week. I forget really. In this day and age of unlimited e-mail in-box space, the conformation e-mails keep coming and keep being forgotten. I haven’t reached this level yet, but the day may be coming.

During this quest, I applied for a job through one of those find-a-job website that offers resume reviews. I was game, it was F-R-double E (free) after all. About 24 hours later I got my review. Really, I’m not sure if my resume was read by a real person or if this was a computer generated form letter. There were sections pulled from my resume and quoted which gave it the feel of the “human touch”. There were some good ideas, and I used these ideas for a rewrite.

Of course, there was a sales pitch. I could have my resume professionally rewritten for an outrageous fee (or six semi-outrageous monthly payments). No thanks. The constructive criticism was helpful and maybe the tips will help me land a job. We’ll wait and see.

Back here in Peru. I’ve told the English Factory™ that we’re leaving in May. My boss has been understanding throughout this process and she knew it was coming. I did find out that I’ll get the chance to cash in some Peruvian benefits. Here in Peru companies make deposits each month in a personal unemployment account in all U.S. dollars. I’ll get that money 48 hours after my last day.

The English Factory™ will also pay out my vacation. That’s nice. It will be like working in May without having to work.

The countdown to coming home is on.

There are still a lot of loose ends.

We got our ticket.

V said she couldn’t wait any longer.

We will fly out of Lima at 9:20 a.m. on Thursday May 20th and arrive in Minneapolis at 10:15 p.m. In the middle, there is a three hour layover in Miami, which may not be such a bad thing considering we have to go through customs and immigration.

From there the next stop (the next day) may be Fargo depending on my job prospects. It would be nice to land with a job or at least a few legitimate leads. Many people have told me the “you’ve made it to the next round” e-mail from the IRS is good news.  Sure, it would be nice to have, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

Yesterday my inbox was hit with my first official rejection letter. It was for a job I had  just applied for on Friday. Either the company works quick or the job had been filled. I had also applied for a job with the same company, but at a different location. No rejection letter about that job, yet.

Today is my big day off from the English Factory™ so I plan to spend it looking for more jobs. If you know of anything that won’t be an embarrassment to my family (or my pride) let me know. We are willing to relocate just about anywhere.

The end is nye nigh.