This country seems hell bent on self destruction, well when I say the country I mean every individual who lives here...they aren´t born survivors, if it wasn´t for the fact that every single person who lives here wasn´t just as idiotic, the people would be well and truly extinct.

My current gripe is Jacky´s nephew, he´s demonstrating signs of Meningitis, well a very high fever and a rash...Jacky told me and I had about 5 minutes to quickly check him over before rushing back to work. Unfortunately I was lacking in a glass otherwise I´d be able to have checked him myself. I´m now hassling Jacky to hassle her mum to do just that...Jacky told me though they´re going to wait until tomorrow...I wasn´t amused.

This 1 situation sums up everything that is wrong with this country, every single decision Peruvians make is the wrong one, I´m not sure why but Peruvians are born without common sense. I hope that Alex doesn´t have Meningitis or if he does it´s viral, I can´t imagine that if he has a serious infection they´ll be able to treat him effectively, as a matter of fact I think that if I ever get a serious infection the hospitals won´t be able to treat me effectively. I really feel like leaving this country, honestly, I have 6 months left before my contract expires, then, well I think I´m done with this hole.

Nothing mucn has happened in my life, as always, I´ve been working as a substitute this last month, in one way I like it, a lot of the time I´ve been out of a classroom and doing office work, preparing materials and grading exams mostly...but I´ve had to do a lot of teaching as well which is what I´ve been trying to avoid...one week I was teaching 7-8 hours every day...I know for an office job that´s normal but teaching is a lot more taxing than an office job and I was burning out a bit.

I think though I have just 1 more lesson to teach and then I´m officially not a teacher anymore...it´s a nice feeling...today i´m finally going to be organising my contract and negotiating my pay...everything seems to take forever to organise here.

What else, I got a puppy, might have mentioned that, I don´t know.

Yeah anyway, as I said, nothing much to say really...I guess I could write about how I feel...mostly good, life passes by which is nice...I work and I sleep, I occasionally see my friends...very occasionally unfortunately...I feel slightly homesick, I´ve been away for what feels like a long time and although i´m content here I don´t know if I truly feel settled...I´ve found that I don´t really make friends, more because of the life I live than anything, I don´t drink or party much so I´m cut off from what most people do...also I feel that I don´t have much in common with most of the people I meet...anyway, I´m thinking of moving to Asia in the next few years, obviously that´s a long way off so who knows.

Anyway, i´m going to go see if my meeting will happen, if not then i´m off home for a few hours.

Haven´t done anything much with my time off but relax, Sunday I did an 8 hour hike which really wiped me out, Monday was spent convalescing, had a massage and laid around watching tv and reading mostly...tuesday I decided to try and sort out my visa...I need to apply for a more permanent visa...it´s taking longer than expected, I still have 8 days to finish organising it all though...otherwise I´ve been doing fairly menial things, hanging out with Jacky, trying to train her family´s new puppy, it doesn´t want to be trained, yesterday I put it on a lead for the first time and in the space of 10 minutes it vomited because it had choked itself pulling backwards and urinated on the floor through me shouting at it to sit, in a similar vein I´m trying to train Jacky´s nephew, my godson...he´s proving trickier than the dog...the past month I´ve been trying to encourage him to eat by himself with some success, yesterday I tried to convince him to do his homework without someone sitting looking over his shoulder...after about 3 hours he got it all done so Jacky and I took him to the park as a reward, hopefully he´ll learn that if he is good then he will get a reward...the other trickier issue will be teaching him not to piss on the floor, god knows why he´s been allowed to develop that habit but it seems he has...more rewards I guess if he pisses in the bathroom like a human...i´m sure over time I´ll discover many other problems that need to be ironed out.

Anyway, I now have 4 days more of vacation before going back to teaching, this month I have 1 week of grammar review to prep my students for their exam and then a week of exam. Then I have 1 months more teaching before moving over to the office staff, I´m hoping that´s going to be a refreshing change although it will mean long hours.

In other news Jacky has the option of moving about 6 hours away from Cusco to work at a hotel, she´s leaning towards saying yes as it´s a good job and opportunities here aren´t exactly the best, what´s holding her back is our relationship which she feels will be strained by the long distance, although things will be difficult I think it could work as I have a lot of holidays and it would probably only be for a year, she´s going to think it over this month before making a decision.

Anyway, I don´t think I have anything much more to write, oh yeah I´m healthy for once which is very nice.

Bye all!

It's my last hour in La Paz, thankfully, i'm down to my last 10 Bolivianos, the equivalent of about 80 pence, it's enough to get me to the bus terminal and nothing more.

I'm about to do just that and then spend 12 hours(fingers crossed) on a bus direct to Cusco, my last journey was 17 hours because i had to change twice. Yesterday I got my visa, it's really crappy, when I've seen people's visas for other countries they've been these beautifully printed designs, the Peruvian one is 3 postage stamps stuck in my passport, i'm highly disappointed.

Ok it's time to head off for my bus, back to work, more or less.

It's quite nice really, it's big and pretty polluted(but not as badly as Lima), it is very cityish, surprising that isn't it, it being a city and all...except that Cusco is a city and really isn't very cityish at all.

I think the best thing about being in La Paz is not being in Cusco, I don't hate Cusco even though I do say some pretty bad things about it...but I do get very very tired of Cusco...so a change is nice.

Unfortunately i'm unable to make the most of my time here, I didn't realise how much i'd have to pay for my visa so the amount i budgeted for the trip is tight. I have all the essentials covered, bed, visa and transport...food is another matter though...I have a budget of about 80 pence a meal...in Cusco I can handle that easily...La Paz I don't know though so my selection of eateries has been suspect...tonights meal consisted of 2 sausage sandwiches and 2 plates of egg and pasta...all street food...we'll see how my stomach holds out.

Tomorrow I get my visa but the rest of the day I don't know about, there's a park a few blocks away which i'll probably chill out in most of the time, it reminds me of my first trip where I didn't have the money to do anything so just hung out in parks and read books, it's a very enjoyable pastime to be honest. Wednesday I have to head back to Peru and then Thursday is teaching again. Oh well.

So recently i've been thinking about my future and I really don't know what it entails, the near future that is...next year is most probably going to be spent at Maximo Nivel...but i'm unsure how much of next year, I really don't think I can handle 18 months more there, i'm looking at returning to Europe after I finish up, i'm feeling a bit homesick for it, i'd like to travel around a bit, I definitely want to do the road to santiago. Afterwards I was looking at China as an option, there's a big network of schools who hire for china so that's a possibility, it's not great money but it's definitely a lot more than I earn here.

Ok, I'm going to go make some phone calls, i'll write again sometime, probably on my return to Peru or maybe before, depends how bored I get tomorrow.

Bye!

This week i´ve been missing out on a lot of sleep, 2 nights with only a few hours sleep for no real reason other than i couldn´t sleep, i feel wiped out now, i´m thinking of missing my spanish lesson, except i don´t want to waste the 2 pounds 50 i´m paying for it. I should sleep, i need to sleep.

I have a break coming up soon, 2 days off next week then exams once i get back, then i have to teach for a week and a half before i have a 9 day break. Then I teach for a month and have a month off(I hope). It´s going to be nice, i´ll be able to enjoy my time for once.

Ok, i´m really feeling wiped out, i´m heading home.

Job wise, don´t know if I´ve updated at all, had the interview, went well(enough), unfortunately i had to have a spanish exam, my spanish isn´t up to scratch yet so I can´t do the job I wanted. Instead they´ve said they´ll put me working in the Academic office, unfortunately i discovered yesterday that it won´t start until Jan 1st, damnit, teaching for another 3 months.

Luckily I have a 9 day holiday booked in October, I might also ask if I can have December off, I'm going to be going in to an 18 month contract on Jan 1st so i´d love to have some time off before that starts. The school might not agree though.

This month is a combination of easy and hard, it´s easy cause this first week there haven´t been many students to teach...a combination of it´s the first week and strikes...the last week is exams so that´s relaxing as well...problem is that means a 4 week course has to be crammed in to 2 weeks...so not too much teaching for 2 weeks and some crazy teaching for another 2 weeks.

Hopefully all will go well!

This feels slightly disjointed, or maybe I just feel slightly disjointed, ok, that´s all.

and it feels so good. I woke up this morning and I didn´t feel drained and tired, I taught for 3 hours and I only felt slightly tired instead of knackered. I´ve taught for one hour this afternoon and I still feel ok, i´m even not dreading teaching the rest of my classes today.

It´s surprising how this feels, I´d forgotten.

I had my interview on Friday, went pretty well, they told me if my Spanish is sufficient then I can work in the International Office like I want...unfortunately my Spanish isn´t good enough, it´s reasonable but needs polishing, also my listening skills can do with some work. Instead they said that in a months time, once I have finished my 6 months of teaching(I can´t believe it will have been that long), then I will work in the Academic office for a while(maybe) and once my Spanish is up to scratch I can move over to the International office. Because i´m getting a bit tired of teaching I asked if I can do the replacement teacher position for the next month, it´s not a particularly easy option as you get thrown in the deep end at short notice but it will mean I won´t be teaching so much which seems like a real plus at the moment.

In just over a month as well I should be getting my work visa which means a trip to La Paz courtesy of Maximo Nivel, i´m going to take some holiday and make it an extended visit, i´ll probably just visit La Paz, Copacabana and Puno and anything interesting around there...but this will be the closest i´ll have come to traveling in ages and ages.

Fingers crossed all turns out as expected. I shouldn´t have jinxed myself by writing this all out.

I´m trying to get an interview but the director is a hard person to pin down. On Wednesday I arranged to see him at 11, my class went 15 minutes over so he´d left by the time I went to his office. Yesterday I arranged to see him at 11 but he forgot and had another meeting booked, I re-arranged for 7 but he forgot again. Today I arranged to see him now and he´s out.

Do you think he´s trying to tell me something? Apparently he´s back soon so I´ll hopefully meet him.

In other news, I had a perfect class today, not a single student attended, it felt incredible. I am slightly concerned they didn´t attend for a reason though, recently i feel like i´ve taught some horrible lessons.

The rest of today should be a piece of cake, an hour watching The Blackadder and an hour listening to music. I have to teach for one hour but I may try and turn it in to a game, may!

Anyway I just realised I have to get hold of some music for my listening to music class so I better go.

Yesterday I was asked to teach a private lesson which I agreed to. The student is travelling to Ireland and wanted to practice conversation with someone Irish. The girl who works in the office, unable to provide an Irish teacher, opted for a British teacher(as they´re geographically close I guess).

My student turns out to be a Dominican Friar who resides in The Temple of the Sun(now a Domicican Friary if that part hadn´t clicked). I had a fascinating conversation with him, he is the kind of person who stands out from the crowd. We didn´t talk about anything particularly different, nothing which I haven´t already said or heard hundreds of times before, but something made the conversation different.

Since talking to him I´ve felt far more alive than I have in about a month and a half. I feel physically and emotionally better. I´ve said this before, that occasionally you meet people who stick out from the crowd, who seem to exist more than everyone else. This guy was one of them. Today he told me that in the past he´s worked miracles, normally i´m incredibly sceptical of these kind of things, yeah i´m a hippy and believe in all the crazy stuff, but I also believe that most of the people who claim to be capable of anything vaguely supernatural are liars. This guy I can believe that he´s worked miracles. As I said, he has something different about him.

Ok, I´ve written enough craziness for tonight. Be happy that I´m feeling better than I have in a long time. Bye all.