One of the hazards of having an apartment as nice as the one here in B.A. is that, after a pretty gruelling week (including, let's not forget) four hours in the dentist's chair, it becomes far too easy to just lounge around at home, listening to the latest from Gotan Project on the CD player, and not accomplishing much of anything. Oh, strike that - it's not a hazard, it's a pleasure.
But a day where one's main achievement is cleaning the Augean stable of one's inbox (trimming the number of messages from over 20K to 10K so far, and we're not done yet, nosiree bob!) calls for a little more.
Maybe I'll head out in search of sustenance. I know a place just down the street that does a fine Chicken Maryland....
My latest American Express statement has entries like "dinner for two, including wine and tip - $45", "complete dental checkup and 2 inlays - $679". OK, that may not be the exact wording, but you get the point. This year things are even more ludicrously inexpensive than last year, as the exchange rate is considerably better. The U.S. dollar, which was valued at about 3 Argentine pesos a year ago, is now worth - typically - somewhere between 3.80 and 3.85 pesos.
Why don't I just move here and have done with it? (To any of my friends in SF, that's a rhetorical question - I'm not actually serious. At least I don't think so.)
This brings up the reasonable question of my long-term plans. After all, I hope to take the DELE superior, which is the Everest of Spanish proficiency exams offered by the Cervantes Institute, in November. Assuming it goes well, it leaves me only the flimsiest of excuses to take further Spanish language classes. My original plan had been, once Spanish was 'done', to repeat the whole experience in French. More recently, however, I've been having the thought that it seems a shame not to put the Spanish I've learned to some use. So the notion of perhaps trying to set something up where I would spend time as a visiting lecturer in statistics at a university in some Spanish-speaking country has crossed my mind. I hope to investigate this possibility further when I go back to Madrid in November.
Even if that idea comes to nothing, France as a backup option doesn't seem half bad.
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3 comments:
How about Pitjantjatjara? When are you starting on Pitjantjatjara?
I was just catching up on the past 2 weeks of gaelblog, and I would like to reiterate that I think this is an excellent idea. One could assume, in all actuality, that you could maintain a small flat in San Fran, BA, and Madrid, if you so desired. You could spend Jan-May in Madrid lecturing, May-Aug in the US/San Francisco, and Aug-Dec in BA lecturing. Your life could be summering in San Fran, book-ended by a perpetual spring.
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