by Yes, I’ve got the job at the language school and I’m trying to sort the contract out now. I’m not exactly au fait with Romanian legalese and all the various acts and declarations and what have you. Assuming everything does get signed off, I still don’t know when I’ll start, what I’ll be doing precisely, or indeed whether I’ll be any good at it. What I do know is how much I’ll get paid, and it isn’t a lot. It’s marginally less than I get from my private one-on-one lessons. But taking the job should have all kinds of long-term benefits, so I’m excited to have the opportunity. I’d have to go back to 2004 for the last time I felt excited at being offered a job, and in that case the excitement wore off inside 24 hours. As for the job with the council, I wasn’t excited so much as relieved to be getting an increased salary and, more importantly, turning my back on the insurance industry.
Now that August is behind us, the one-on-one lessons are picking up again, or in yesterday’s case, two-on-one. I had my first lesson with a young couple, aged just 20 and 21. It wasn’t easy because he was at a much higher level than her and had far more confidence. She has highly ambitious plans to be near-fluent by next summer, so I’ll have my work cut out.
I’ve lived in Romania for almost a year, and now it all feels incredibly normal. I have no desire to go back home, wherever home even is. New Zealand is a great country but what would I do if I went back there? After going through the motions for so long, here in Romania I feel relaxed, comfortable in my own skin, alive! Slowly but surely I’m going somewhere I actually want to be. It’s bloody amazing really. I’m proud of myself for having the courage to completely change my life, but I’m also very lucky. Most people just aren’t in a position to do what I’ve done.
This morning it looked like the big Badea Cârțan market had disappeared. Oh no! But not to worry; it had just moved to Piața Traian for three months while Badea Cârțan is being renovated. The markets are great at this time of year, with stalls practically overflowing with bell peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes weighing up to a kilo each. There were also plenty of homegrown apples, some that wouldn’t have made the cut when I was a kid (I used to sell apples from our trees). As always there were lots of cheeses, but so far they’ve been a bit disappointing. Here you can buy many varieties of cow, sheep and goat cheeses but they look and taste surprisingly similar. Finally this week I chanced upon a sheep cheese that had a much richer, farmier flavour.
New Zealand’s latest suicide figures came out early this week. They are ugly reading, and to make matters worse, nobody quite knows why New Zealand has such a high suicide rate. It’s probably a combination of reasons. But one thing’s for sure: the cutbacks to mental health services that the country has seen under the present government have been inexcusable.
