Blah teaching English blah blah

So, I just got home from teaching English for 11 hours straight without breaks. Which seems a bit illegal, but.. Come to think of it, everything about my employment here is under the table, so whatever. I'm alternately so sick of thinking about/talking about teaching English but then it is kind of the majority of my life here - all of my friends are either English teachers or students. And it has such lovely moments. Like today, I had a new student who is a total beginner, doesn't know how to say hello or how are you, who I was kind of dreading, but then he turned out to be totally sweet and adorable AND, has one of the most amazingly hilarious situations that I have ever heard - after about an hour of struggling through English we took a break and switched to Spanish so we could get to know each other and chat. He showed me a picture of his beautiful wife and three gorgeous daughters and told me that they are all English teachers. Except the youngest, who is fifteen, but she speaks English fluently. I guess they like to chat in English when they want to leave him out of the conversation! He is also very well-traveled, so I can't imagine how he's managed to escape English for so long.
Anyway, after that class I had a student who makes Jude Law look like Quasimodo, who I kind of try to behave normally around but get distracted by his gorgeous green eyes while he's doing the TOEFL speaking section. He's the student who I had a running joke about with the director of my institute, because he has been my student for weeks and weeks and had never brought up his girlfriend - which doesn't sound strange, but if you are studying for the TOEFL, you pretty much have to discuss every aspect of your life with the teacher, and he is a family friend of the director so we knew he had a girlfriend. I like to think it was because he was flirting with me, but who knows. He finally did mention his girlfriend, last week, in the sentence, "My girlfriend's dad is the president of Banco Nacional." Guess I can't really compete with Señorita moneybags, le sigh.
And speaking of my institute, it's totally become like a little home to me, which is really lucky and really rare for English teachers in BA. Most never meet another teacher at their institute and one girl I know picks up her salary from the institute's director once a month on a designated street corner. Safe and classy. But my institute is like a fun, cozy little clique of girls and women. There is hilarious Lili, the recepcionist, who jokes (?) about loving much younger men and recently called one of the students "feo pero, feo feo!" Pobrecito.
There's always celebrity gossip on the computer, various chocolate and candy, and someone to giggle with when the hot students come and go. "Bonbones!" as Lili would say.
There are things I love, and don't want to leave. But then, I kind of remember that I am getting paid so little that it feels more like volunteer work than a real job. Saving money is not an option. It's too bad that that that matters so much, but it does. C'est la vie of being an English teacher.

P.s. (unrelated) Sorry, this is like some horrible stream of consciousness creative writing assignment, but I'm exhausted and ranting. So here's some more: I've been kind of playing the 'naive foreigner' card with this whole political situation, because I don't want to offend anyone that I talk to, but I'm over it. Not that anyone in the United States will know what the heck I'm talking about, BUT - in my opinion, Julio Cobos saved this country's ass, for the meantime at least. If that tax law had passed, there would have been a total crisis. A disaster. I'm sick of seeing all these Pro-Kirchnerista posters about how he's a traitor and "real democracy" would have been to blindly do what his party told him to. Are they serious? The Argentine girl I live with is Kirchnerista and was telling me that it is the president's right to do what she wants and it should be that way, and that the farmers make a ridiculous amount of money. Well. I kind of just said, claro, claro, and smiled when we were talking, because I don't want mala onda, but! I so completely disagree with that. The whole point of a federalist system is that the executive branch doesn't have all the power and can't just act on its own, unchecked. And well, maybe the farmers make a ton of money, but shouldn't the taxes be distributed by income and not by industry then?

Okey. Ya basta. Besoooos...

Before Sunrise

I stepped outside and into the city this morning, and something was different. The heartbeat, the flow, the mood and molecules of the city had changed.
All because of something that happened in the middle of the night, 7 blocks from where I was sleeping.
Last night was a big, big moment in Argentine politics & history. Whether it was good or bad depends on your point of view.
Here's some very, very condensed (and mildly one-sided) background information: in March, la presidenta CFdK wanted to raise taxes (from 35 to 45%) on the farmers, and they were like, no, we think we'll strike instead and she was like, well I'm not negotiating with you people, and they were like, fine, we'll just strike forever then, and also perhaps you should stop flaunting how crazily wealthy you are and how you never wear the same outfit twice while you are chastizing us for not wanting to redistribute wealth and help the poor. Or something like that.
So anyway, the proposed tax law, which was very unpopular and totally polarizing the country and becoming a very sad and seemingly deadlocked situation, was passed in Congress and went to a vote in the Senate last night. The Pro-K's were clustered in Plaza Congreso and the ruralistas in Palermo waiting for the results. The Senate debated for 18 hours and came to a tie at around 4 a.m., so it was up to vice-prez Julio Cobos to decide. No pressure there...
And then, in this totally heartbreakingly brave speech right out of some old Hollywood, Mr. Smith goes to Washington-esque movie, Cobos votes against the president, against his own party, and for the campo, saying, "Some say I have to go along [with the president] but my heart says something else. I don't think this is a reason to put the country, the government, and social peace in risk. This is one of the most difficult moments in my life... I don't believe it makes sense to pass a law that is not a solution to this conflict. History will judge me, I don't know how. I'm a family man like all of you and I have a responsibility in this case... this doesn't mean I'm betraying anyone.
May history judge me, my vote is against."*
*Which all sounded better in Castellano.
I don't pretend to know every detail, or even most details and information, about this. But I do know what most of my students and friends here have told me, and that is: this is democracy. They feel for the first time in awhile that democracy is alive and kicking in Argentina, and that the federalist system is working. Someone dared to speak out against los K. The mood on the street just feels a little lighter, a little happier, a little more proud.
Also, I totally have a crush on Julio Cobos now.

P.s. just to clarify, not everyone in Argentina/Buenos Aires is happy about what happened - far from it. The feeling I have about what happened is just what I've gotten from talking with my students and other people and trying to understand a very complicated situation as best I can.