Portfolio Career

OK, OK! I know I haven’t been very good about keeping up with this blog. You’re probably wondering what I’m up to these days. Busy. Happily busy.

So, I thought I would do a quick post just to fill everyone in on the recent events of my life in GDL.

Right now, I’m very focused on work. I had a bit of a slowdown after I stopped working for the institute at the end of November in order to go solo. Since then I worked on legalizing my business (boy, that one requires its own entry!) and drumming up business. After many phone calls and endless conversations, things finally started to pick up in late March. I’ve learned so many (sometimes painful) lessons from that experience.

So, what exactly do I do? My career can be best described as a “portfolio career”; that is, I do several, mostly unrelated things; all of which I love.

My main source of income comes from my English teaching gigs. Both of them are business-oriented courses taught on the premises. I use textbooks but re-interpret a lot of the exercises and make them a lot more exciting from a creative standpoint. I love that part of the work though it’s time consuming but awesomely rewarding.

I also have a private client, a lawyer, who is in the process of applying for an MBA program in the US and needs help refining her English skills. We have so much fun working toward that goal!

My other major source of income comes from my yoga classes. I teach at the Pilates studio and at a mansion in a shi-shi neighborhood to a set of nine well-to-do ladies. Also, one of the companies where I teach English hired me to give classes there. How cool is that?

As a backup, I can also take the occasional translation work and do some technical writing through project bidding on elance.com. So, that’s what a portfolio career is all about.

My workload is pretty darn good. I teach a total of 12 hours of English per week and about 12 hours of Yoga. The drawback is that I always have to work around my clients' business hours (early in the AM, at lunchtime – 2PM here, and after 5:30PM). My work schedule runs Monday thru Thursday. Fridays are practically my day off though I run around a lot and leave weekends for total play and relaxation.

My worst days are Mondays and Wednesdays. I leave the house at 7AM, come in and out a few times and my last Yoga class ends at 9:15PM. I have decent gaps of time during the day which allow me to go to the gym, do costume changes, cook a healthy dinner, plan my lessons, and not to mention wind down a bit several times a day. Yes, I always have time to go to Starbucks! At the end of the day, I'm hardly even tired.

For exercise, I go to the gym Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for about 1.5 hours to lift weights and to practice boxing with an awesome teacher who is still a competitive boxer. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to the Pilates studio (where they have reformer machines) and also practice Yoga at home.

Since I am my own boss, I’ve instituted a pretty liberal vacation policy. My clients are pretty chill about that. The plan is to give myself a one week vacation every four to eight weeks, depending on the time of the year. Things are looking up in that respect. Next vacation destination? CUBA…before Fidel kicks the bucket.

There’s a lot of demand for both English and Yoga here though networking is essential. I could take on more clients but for now, I’m more interested in a healthy and balanced life. However, if a real interesting project comes along, I’m all over it. Some potentially exciting Yoga opportunities might be working with one of the world famous soccer teams (Chivas!) or with some tri-athletes. For English, I'm being considered for starting a new program with GDL's emergency response system (like 911) and I also have some leads at a couple universities. I feel blessed to have so many options.

Stay tuned for more entries…I have a lot of exciting stuff to talk about! Next up, I plan to write about my first year anniversary here. Yes, there’ve been some cultural challenges but I’m still here. 8-)