Tag Archives: work

rescheduling

30 Monday Aug 2010

Posted by in fitness, gym, health & happiness, home, life stuff, work

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As anyone who does freelance work knows, scheduling is important not only for making sure you have enough time to get your work done, but also for having time to do other things you enjoy. Back when I was only teaching English for a living it was easier to organise my time because I simply worked around the weekly scheduled classes. But since I started “diversifying” the line between work and my own time began to get a bit fuzzy. This is good in a way because it means that I am finally attaining a goal I set for myself over 25 years ago – to have my work be the same as what I would want to do anyhow when I got out of bed in the morning – but it also posed the challenge of making the most of my waking hours…

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london calling…

26 Thursday Aug 2010

Posted by in food & drink, friends, london, sevilla, tapas, travel, trips, work

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What a week it’s been! I got back from my holiday in Málaga on Sunday evening and was quite looking forward to a tapas tour that had been booked for the next evening. Little did I know that Simon, Clare and Joe were about to become good friends. The tour started off pleasantly and we were all having such a good time by the time it finished that we ended up at my favourite rooftop bar having a few drinks …

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getting back on my feet

25 Wednesday Aug 2010

Posted by in cancer, change, friends, work

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I’d had such high hopes after last summer about returning to work and getting back on my feet. You may recall that thanks to Manolo and Agustín I was able to spend much of last August in Málaga and Zahara de los Atunes recuperating from the effects of four months on chemo, so by September-October I felt quite ready to get back to work. I thought I’d be able to line up enough English classes to live on while I worked on my other various projects – the big plan was to diversify so that if/when I got sick again there would be at least some work that I could do from home in my pyjamas. Plus I was ready for a change after teaching for almost 20 years, and it also seemed wise to not have all my money making eggs in one basket anymore … boy, was I ever right about that last one. Because it turned out that the teaching market had really bottomed out and I was unable to find enough to live on, especially as I was also helping Nog get teaching work too. And then this summer I lost the apartment next door and the small monthly income from that. So, it’s been a very long and difficult year, but it looks like things are finally coming together…

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summer jobs

15 Thursday Jul 2010

Posted by in cancer, chemo, home, summer, work

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I have to say that this summer is going so much better than the last two. Not only for the obvious reason of this being the first summer in three years that I haven’t been on chemo, but also because of summer jobs and work projects. First off, Nog has got a gig this month teaching a couple of intensive English classes at the language school across the street which – fingers crossed! – might also mean work in August, and perhaps a steady part-time position afterwards. This takes a whole lot of stress off of me as it means Nog will be able to pay his share of the rent & bills, at least in July. Meanwhile, my long-time student, good friend and GP Agustín has continued with his once a week English classes this month. He has always taken a “time out” from July-September and so I reckon these are kind of sympathy classes, but what the heck – I’ll take em! And I am continuing with my social media part-time job, which I am LOVING. Which for me sums up all the paid work I am doing, however…

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eppie

27 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by in gadgets, home, work

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Here is Eppie, yet another more-necessary-than-fun gadget purchase. But the time had come. About a month or so ago I noticed that my old Epson 3-in-one printer/scanner/photocopier had run out of ink. And then I saw that they had a special offer at Fnac on a new Epson model for about 60 euros. Doing the math I reckoned that buying new ink cartridges for about 40 euros for an old machine that printed like crap was not worth it if I could get a whole new machine including cartridges for 60. But then I decided that, as it was getting close to the end of the “school year”, I probably wouldn’t need the photocopier much until September anyhow, and the massive HP Deskjet that Susan left with me last year when she moved to Florida served fine as a printer, so I let that idea go thinking I could use that 60 euros elsewhere. And then today I bought this. I blame Loki…
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