Freebies

Just a quick note on last night's festivities. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so in place of the generic bar photos that everyone has about 6 million of, I am attaching a picture that was in the paper earlier this week. I recommend going in for a closer look. The caption reads roughly: "The wind and drizzle that came down in some parts of the city close to the mountains briefly cleaned the air of the capital as shown in the first photo, taken at 3:40 in the industrial sector of Providencia. But by 4:44, the habitual image of the pollution returned." LA, eat your heart out!

Ok, so back to last night: after a pretty abysmal showing by my students on their 4th quiz of the semester, all of the TIPS (except Simon, who was mysteriously MIA) were debriefing in the teachers' lounge when we decided to move our rap session to a bar so that we could express our confoundedness (don't think that's a word, but I think it does the trick) with our students' inability to grasp the most simple of concepts in a less precarious venue.

After our second rounds of drinks, the night became a lot more entertaining. We were all reminiscing of the best summers of our lives, and sharing stories about our past when Meghan, the BU educated blonde from Ft. Collins, made a shocking discovery...

"Damn, guys! We are YOUNG!"

While the words themselves aren't of earth-shattering consequence, the implications were certainly not lost on me. Nothing against any and all of my friends who are at back in the US doing amazing things. In fact, the opposite. I want to heap praise on all of you for doing what you are doing. I have no doubt that you all will be among the most successful and influential people of our generation. Still, being surrounded by so many brilliant and successful people all the time has sometimes left me feeling like I am way behind and running out of time to get back in the race. Last night, however, with the help of Meghan´s repetitious promulgation of the above epiphany, I felt pretty good about the fact that I still have 40 years or more ahead of me to work. As much as I would like to have a six-figure salary and some job and financial security, hanging out with Meghan, Ryan, and Ashleigh last night was a big wake up call that, irrespective of the constant pressure I put on myself to make something happen right away, I still have some time to figure stuff out. I AM young... And that´s a good thing.

Enlivened by this realization, I asked the gang if they would be interested in a round of free shots. That is, assuming I could get us a round of shots on the house, would they take them. Silly question, right? Well, true to my word, I walked up to our waiter, told him our situation - that we were poor teachers trying to have a night out on the town, and that our friend just had her birthday (all of which was true, btw) - and within a few minutes he came with a tray full of 4 shots of tequila, salt, limes (well, lemons. Chileans seem to believe that limes are just underripe lemons, so they don´t really exist here), and all free of charge. The four shots had a menu price of about $7 each, so we basically received a $30 gift from the bar.

I spent a few minutes trying to explain to my incredulous friends about my ability to get free stuff, before we closed out the tab and left.

Assuring the other TIPS that this wasn´t an aberration, we then went to another high end martini bar, not far from where we were. The only reason I knew about this place was because I had applied for a job there. Well, I tried my tactics to get a free round of drinks, but unfortunately the owner was there. Also, because she was a foreigner herself, I think she has less of an affinity for foreigners try to carp free drinks. Still, she did give us about a 30% discount on all our drinks (which saved us about $2 each), so all my efforts weren´t for naught.

With Meghan nodding off in the seat next to me, Ashleigh running late for an argument with her Chilean boyfriend, and Ryan out way past his bed time, we decided to disband for the night and all headed home. Normally I would split a cab with Ashleigh because she lives just around the corner from me, but as I said, she had a prior engagement, so I was left to fend for myself. Rather than simply waiting on a street corner for the next cab, I started walking toward my house, as each step closer to home was a little more money in my pocket. I was holding my arm out to signal to any cab that might be passing by, so when a car pulled over to pick me up, I was inside before I even realized that it wasn´t a cab. It was a straight shot only about half a mile to my house, so I wasn´t too concerned. The guy dropped me off at the intersection near my house, and I was home, once again, free of charge.

It probably wasn´t the best idea to hop into a random car with some strange man I had never met, but I guess I´ll just chalk it up to being young.