One Step at a Time
I've lost track of days already, I've been neglectful to my own personal diary and even more neglectful to the learning of Portuguese.
But my attention has turned elsewhere to building a base. I returned to Ipanema to begin laying down some foundations. I had a 3 step plan that seemed so easy.
- Get a Laptop
- Rent a place
- Get a job
As advised the visa was always going to be difficult, and although people do seem to work on tourist visas under the table or even having met a few illegal immigrants, it appears it can be done. But it doesn't really seem legit so I've decided to follow my good friend Poggo and teach online from here to kids in China where the market is and the pay is good. Particularly as the Brazilian currency is still dropping.
It all seemed so easy, simple to do and was flowing into position so perfectly yet with the pace of the Brazilians, one small step at a time. I stumbled into a place I could get for a month for a mere £150 with a double bed, desk, TV in a clean flat with some other young people. This is day 1 here. I also bought the laptop on the same day and had applied online. I had received my interview date as Sunday. I'd checked the internet in the place. It was the easiest thing in the world. All the steps occurring naturally and together.
Until I reread the email and the upload speed here does not quite reach the minimum speeds required to teach. Bollocks. I should have been chilled going to bed with a smile on my face dreaming of hammocks and beach football. I had found a place to lay my head, watched films and eat pizza before my life begins. Of course it was not gunna be that simple. Classic
Instead it became quite the opposite, turning into a mini negative spiral, figuring out a plan to make it through the interview elsewhere, devising several back up plans due to inevitable plot twists all the while listening to a backing track of worries about missing or messing up this opportunity. It still might require that but for now I have decided to take a step back. I'm rescheduling my interview.
If I had made it through the interview, I'm then in a position of trying to blag my way through training and working whilst looking for a better place all at a million miles an hour trusting in the internet that got me into this sitch. Fuck that, have I not learned anything from these guys? Take it slow, its all good, tudo bem, hakuna matata
What this "too good to be true" room has done though is give me more time and allow me to hopefully build a stronger base whilst premier league football and movies keep me entertained. It was too good to be true but also too good not to take, and true, some of the others had better internet but they were inhabitable, damp and just shitty, even by my standards of living.
A friend who has lived abroad told me to be patient, it takes time, 3 days ago I was scoffing at this thought, I had several lined up and one I'd claimed, but now I come back tail between my legs, wiser and less naive about the whole thing.
So on I go, first real hurdle, I initially reacted fairly badly and was stressing a bit but pulled myself together with a little help from a few friends who help you see it clearly and for the small hiccup it is. As Harry reminded me this comes with the nature of just heading down South in pursuit of work, its not all gunna go perfectly, and whereas an hour ago this was the perfect life and I must have it, I've realised if it doesn't work out, I'll just be heading down another path. No biggie, I'm actually pretty peaceful about it all and it helps me gain perspective that if this is the biggest worry in my life, I'm ridiculously lucky.
I'll continue to house hunt and in the meantime just be slightly more frugal. By going to the beach, or reading books in hammocks, or watching films with pizza. I think I can handle that.
