A wonderful job come and gone, and a new language about to start

I found this awesome job with a group called Dandelion Hiking(http://www.chinahiking.cn/). A Chinese lady runs the group, and she needed an English speaking assistant/secretary to help her translate emails, put adds online, and translate on the hikes for any guests that can't speak Chinese. AWESOME! We went to an old part of the great wall two weekends ago, and this past weekend we went to JingXi ancient road, an old roadway that has been used for hundreds of years since the Yuan Dynasty (that's the one that the Mongols established). The pay wasn't great, but for the ease of the work and how much I enjoyed it I was pretty satisfied. Also, the groups tends to go to more "off the beaten track" places, so there aren't lots of other tourists, and there is a lot of calm and nature. Unfortunately, the boss sent me an email last night saying that she would rather have a female assistant. As much as I enjoyed working for her, I am gonna have to find something else to do now. *sad*

I am still waiting for my English Teaching companies (I am now with three of them) to get me some students. I really want to get some more, but I don't like just waiting for them to contact me. I have called my original company again, telling them again that I want some more students. I am, however, a bit unsatisfied with my current work situation, so I am gonna resume searching TheBeijinger.com for work. I have done the voice recording again, and they called me up to do it again tomorrow, which makes it an average of once a week. However, regardless of how nice the pay may be, I don't want to rely on that as my base income, since it is freelance work, and thus by definition unstable and unreliable.

This means that I am back to my original situation: the only steady reliable income I have is from the two high school students that I teach English to twice a week. Although that 440 RMB a week is enough to cover my food, transport, and other living expenses, it is not enough to earn back the money I paid for this apartment, nor enough to pay for the acrobatic school I plan on for August. I just picked up another expense too: I am gonna take Spanish class. I think it is cheaper here than it would be to take a community college class in the US, and I have free time up the wazoo. So tomorrow I am gonna take my passport and 1,750 RMB to the Cervantes Institute of Beijing, and sign up for a three week super-intensive Spanish class. It will be from 9am to 1pm, Monday to Friday for three weeks, and it starts next Monday. I am glad that I can sign up so last minute, and that they have this kind of a short-term intensive class, particularly since I can't make a commitment to a longer term study due to my plan to attend the acrobatic school in August.

I also need to take care of my visa stuff. Specifically, I need an extension. I found a company that can help me for a bit under 2000 RMB. I called today but there was no answer, so I am gonna talk to some of the other foreign students I know that are still in Beijing to see what they are doing. Getting a visa is pretty important, since staying here is impossible without one.

Yeah, I guess I am a little worried about the job stuff and the visa stuff, both of which are pretty important. I am excited about learning Spanish though. My roommate, Veronica, can speak Spanish, so if I have questions I can just ask her. I am also excited because I am getting closer to being able to juggle 5 balls. I'm still not there, but I can feel progress. I can't think of anything else to write, so I am gonna just end it there.