Job Discussion Forums

[matttheboy]

[Guy Courchesne]

Holy smokes Ben you are right! I stand corrected.

http://realestatepv.com/info/ for example

100 km from a land border and 50 km from the coast. I guess a good business to be in would be real estate law in places like Cancun, Acapulco, PV, Huatulco, etc, etc. all of which would be entirely under the 50 km rule.

DF is 500 km from the nearest coast and 1,000,000 km from reality in any sense. Guess it's far easier here.

[moonraven]

Huatulco has never "gotten off the ground" as a tourist spot. Probably because it has the reputation of being a sleepy, semi-ecotourism spot. The majority of tourists who frequent the big international draws such as Cancun are in the market for drugs, sex and shopping.

The irony is that Huatulco struggles because the tourists who are not after the aforementioned sex, drugs and shopping see Huatulco as too "planned" and too developed....

[Guy Courchesne]

[matttheboy]

I think the best description of 'bronca' that i've heard is that written by Miranda France in 'Bad Times in Buenos Aires' (Phoenix, 2000):

"There was a word i kept hearing:"Bronca". An Italo-Spanish fusion, like most Argentines themselves, the word implied a fury so dangerously contained as to end in ulcers. People felt 'bronca' when they waited in line for an hour to be served at the bank and then the service was bad because all the cashiers had 'bronca' too."

A really interesting read if you're interested in Argentina and the Argentine psyche. Although a bit out of date (first published in '98 but written between 94 and 96) it certainly give some good pointers as to why Argentines are, well, like Argentines...

Happy queueing!

Matt

[shmooj]

[Guy Courchesne]

I think one of the difficulties in Mexico's case is that the first-world expectations of arriving teachers are often foreign concepts to locals.

People here, of course, seek financial stability in their regular careers. But talk to a doctor working for in a government hospital and earning 4000 pesos per month (that's under $400 us) and ask what he thinks about the TEFL industry, He might just be tempted to switch careers.

Not all doctors earn that little of course...it's simply that Mexico is a place of extremes. On the whole, there is not much sympathy here from locals for someone who comes in from abroad and immediately demands to earn far more than locals do with a tenth of the training. That makes Mexico a difficult place sometimes if you are coming in from the 'first-world' but not altogether unmanageable.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

[moonraven]

Guy--The only highway from Oaxaca to the coast is the roller coaster that you rode....

[Guy Courchesne]

My wife's cure for the roller coaster ride was to consume a bag full of lemons...seems to be the suggested cure for everything. That or tequila.

[moonraven]

I never became carsick on that highway--but that's because I didn't try to read while traveling.

[thehairyhorse]

glad to see so many responses to my post---

The mind numbingly boring section in this thread about �house prices�etc.. only proves my theory of this farcical profession.
If you can bother to write such dross (ie. Guy Corchesne et al ...the �real teachers, directors�) then you must be so incredibly bored and unstimulated with your life.
MOD EDIT
I know what kind of tefl ��career�� I�d prefer.

[some waygug-in]

Who cares? I do.

I get particularly incensed by that attitude. "Oh EFL-ers are just beer swilling, lazy, womanizing (in the case of males), partiers who want a
"free ride". (yes, some are, but not all)


That is precisely the attitude I got from my brother back home in Canada, when I was trying to scrape by in Mexico.
I was wondering how I was going to EAT over the "3 weeks of unpaid Christmas vacation" and he was thinking, "What a jerk! Getting to live it up down there and party with all them young senioritas."

Or the following year, after I had since moved to Korea and decided to come home for a visit. He and his wife started spreading the rumour that I was flat broke and come home to sponge off the relatives .......

What a joy it was to show them that not only were they wrong, but that I had money enough to travel abroad for my vacation, and then pay my own way back to Korea. (and still had money in the bank )

Perhaps I am not the foremost educator, but I have always tried to do my best in whatever situation I've found myself in.

I'm glad you feel so highly about the profession you have chosen for yourself. You do a great dis-service to those of us who do try to do a decent job of things.

Gee thanks.

[Guy Courchesne]

I am very much in agreement with the above...hope my post is around long enough to stay in agreement.

[Gordon]

How can a career be a farce? A particular job can be and certainly people's attitudes are.