Things warm up...

Two hours a week of teaching is obviously great and I'm sure you're all very proud of how hard I'm working, but like any sensible megalomaniac I want more, more, more.

And the good news is that the work is there. I'm already up to 6 hours a week! I'm starting a second course on Monday which is a 1-to-1 and I had an interview this morning which led to me getting a couple of hours with a student at another school.

Add to that the 800 bars and pubs that I've applied in, and I should be well on my way to earning enough money not to die a lonely death on the streets of Strasbourg. I should be. I'm not yet sure.

Having left my appartment in Toulouse in such haste, I didn't have time to give the contractual one month's notice nor to find anyone to take the room. So whilst the girls are doing everything in their power to find a flatmate, as things stand at the moment, it's me who pays the rent for March. Shit. Not really something I can afford to do as the money will have to come out of my deposit, which I will be needing if I want to move in to my own houseshare (which I'll have to do by the end of March at the latest as Sophie is coming home for three weeks and there aren't enough beds for us all here!

So, things are tight at the moment. In fact, tight is not really the word. Desperate is much more accurate. Fortunately, as far as I can make out from my French contract, monthly pay means calendar month, which means that in 4 days (thank Christ it's February and not one of those horrible long months like, say, July. Ugh!) I'll be receiving my very first pay check from Gera-langue, my new employers. It will be for 6 hours of teaching plus 3 times the milage fee (I have to get where I'm going and they pay me for the miles) which works out as around €100 before tax ( = €80 net). So that's about enough to cover the food and beer that I've consumed since being here but not even a start towards the cost of the flight, the potential payment of March's rent in Toulouse or my planned purchase of a second-hand scooter to get around on let alone HA! any money to put aside for silly things like paying rent. But still, it's a start. It'll be the first money to actually go in to my account in France for a very long time.

So there it is. My financial situation in a paragraph.

I'll let you know how things progress as I battle against students, rip-off language schools (much warned about, little seen as yet) and the sometimes crushing loneliness that comes with having just moved cities and once again not knowing anyone. Cinema on my own tonight? Why not. It's what I did last night after all...

Love from,
Rob
xxx