Word up

My new job as ass. director requires many hours. Too many hours at the moment. I start at 6:45 a.m. and finish at 9:30 p.m. I don't mind hard work, but this is crazy even by Peruvian standards. In Peru, the work week is 48 hours and everybody seems a little stressed. Throw me on top of the pile. Or under a taxi or combi. I don't give a ceviche. This month is a little extra wild because a couple of teachers bailed on us with a couple of days notice. So I had to pick up classes in addition to my schmoozing and catch-all duties as ass. director. Also, I "taught the teachers" in the TELF program in September, which means I taught three young women from the U.S. all about grammar, and I mean all about grammar. Everything. Todo. Word classes, conditionals, phrases, clauses (dependent and independent, relative and non-relative, adverbial and other kinds I don't care to remember), phrasal verbs, mains verbs, auxiliary verbs, the 12 major tenses, subjunctive, conjunctions, adjuncts. Had enough? We sure did. The ladies (see latest picture) -- all in their twenties -- were awesome, and pretty darn funny. We got though that class -- three hours a day for 18 days -- with lots of humor and cookies. We went out dancing one night. Well, they were dancing. I ran out of gas pretty early, got lost walking home (which is dangerous), and collapsed into bed. Oddly, still woke up before 7 a.m. the next day. Guess the early schedule is in my blood. By the way, my schedule WILL settle down next month or I'll start walking the earth barefoot.
Played a fun game of "telephone" with my class tonight. I told a student some phony information about me: "I'm married, but I have two girlfriends in Peru. Also, the police in the U.S. are after me because I killed a mule." The student I told had to share the information privately with another student, who in turn shared it privately with another student, until everyone in the room had been told. The last student then reported "the final version" of the story: "An American guy who is married twice bought a mule."
I took a hundred-sol bill to the bank today to make change, because nobody in town seems to be able to change anything over a twenty. The teller appeared really annoyed and gave me 2 fifties. Took a while to get that settled. Peru has its quirks, and on rare occasions I feel some anti-Gringo-ism. I just try to roll with it.
One of our teachers was robbed and roughed up by a taxi driver. You can't let your guard down. That's true in all big cities, but the taxi thing is creepy here. I don't take them unless I absolutely have to. The teacher was obviously rattled, but is OK.
I'm back with my favorite class at San Pablo until the end of the month -- there's a picture of them on the right which I posted with my previous blog. Those guys are great. It's like old times. And I'm an old-timer.