Primero Entrevista

A month or so before I left for Valparaiso I decided to send my CV to a English school called Tromwell. They emailed me back right away asking how long I would be in Chile and what my availability would be because they thought they had something for me. I responded and then, not much from their end. When I got here I resent my CV, got the same email about availability and then... nothing. So last week when I was posting fliers in Vina, I walked right past the Tromwell offices and figured I'd try the face to face approach. I had a short interview in Spanish- which I got through, and then Tuesday got an email about coming in Wed 30 November for an interview. Figured they must mean tomorrow- so I rocked up and as I suspected it was a group interview- and I met 4 nice American girls and one guy who didn't speak to us. 

We got ushered into a classroom and were given English language proficiency tests that we're insanely easy for a native English speaker- we corrected the test in "class" while the woman administering the 80 question test read allowed each question and answer sets and then decided for herself which selection was correct-  what I'm saying was there was no answer key. I'm not sure if you can understand the ridiculousness of this situation 5 young adults sitting in a room with a woman who dressed and acted like a former nun, while she read to herself an 80 question test and then stumbled over recognizing the correct answer while at least the 4 of us American's thought to ourselves, listen were native speakers, let me just tell you the answer and we'll all move on with our lives. This is the kind of interview where 5 minutes into the cattle call you know 1. you're never going to get the job, and 2. you actually don't want the job no matter how poor you might be. While we were correcting the exam we got pulled out by a guy named Erasmus who spent about 5 minutes talking with us in Spanish- he asked me where I was from, where I was living, my work experience (with my CV in front of him) and whether I liked teaching- when I answered enthusiastically that I did like teaching, he seemed suspect and said "really?". 

I miss teaching more than anything else in Chile- so the fact that I am not doing any hoping and praying must say something dear readers... Not to mention the job starts in November and is part time... 

When I got home I told Sylvain I'd eat his dirty socks if I got the job. Here is why I know I am not a candidate- they're interviewing candidates for a position they don't need filled for a month- they told me they'd let me know in two weeks- so that means every other day for the next couple weeks they will herd native English speakers in to test and interview for this one sad part-time position. I know that most of those candidates will be recent American graduates who actually have a degree in Spanish or studied abroad in Spain etc and therefore are quite able to sell their enthusiasm for teaching and whatnot in the interview... But an interview like that is humiliating, you become desperate for a pittance of a  job that is well beneath your education and experience, the money is negligible and in the long run won't make much of a difference, and when you're correcting your own exam knowing full well that you scored perfectly, yet a former nun sadistically goes through the answers with you but isn't even sure if her answers are correct- often asking us, a, yes, I think a, is a right? 

Well I came home anyway, and Sylvain and I had a look at a couple possible apartments to move into- priced about half of what we pay now... So they were about half as nice as where we're living now... We found out Gabi- Sylvain's friend from QC is coming to visit us for 2 weeks Oct 10th and he will stay with us so we have that to consider as well...