A New Hope

Image via http://www.indesignlive.com/articles/projects/mexicano-nuovo

I finished my resume earlier today and submitted it to the University for that job I mentioned last week as an International Student Support Officer. I am actually really, really excited about it and after I read over the job ad again I thought to myself, "Yep, this is it, this is the job for me" so I am hoping I get an interview for it and with any luck will get the position. Keep thinking positively for me. I am trying to and I am even starting to have dreams about myself in the position so hopefully my mind is giving me a sign, somehow, that it is meant to be. We are getting way ahead of ourselves (and I know I'll be majorly disappointed if I don't get this position) and have already thought about what we'd do with my paycheck (save for a house, wedding, and honeymoon, as well as emergencies) and try and continue just living off of Boyfriend's paycheck. It would be such a great thing to happen for us. Plus, I could really use the confidence boost after having such crappy luck finding a job last year.

Boyfriend and I saw Robin Hood this weekend; it was pretty good. I liked it; didn't love it, didn't hate it. I agree with the one reviewer who Russell Crowe got mad at for saying his accent sounded Irish at times. The other big excitement from the weekend was that we went down to our local mall and they now have a decent Mexican fast food place there called Mad Mex. We both had burritos, which at $9.90 are pretty steep if you're thinking in terms of American pricing, but not bad for here. I liked that they actually had black beans and their chicken was seasoned decently. They put a lot of rice in their burritos and it is plain tasting white rice and nothing special so I'd probably skip it next time. Boyfriend got 2 different kinds of Dos Equis beer and they were $7 but worth it he said. We also ended up scoring free churros and some really good hot fudge dipping sauce. I think we'll be eating a lot of Mad Mex from now on because it's only a little bit more expensive than going to KFC or McDonald's and a lot tastier! I also see that Mad Mex are selling franchises right now so maybe if the University job doesn't pan out I could get my parents to invest in a Mad Mex with me and put one in up near the University and all those American kids desperate for some somewhat authentic Mexican food.

Oh, Mexico....Baby's Hungry and the Money's All Gone

We've been eating very healthily around here for the past week and Dad and I have been trying to get our 10,000 steps in a day (he's been doing better than I have, sometimes getting as much as 16,000 a day, but I am at least doing 30 minutes of working out each day) and since I do the cooking around here, I also do the menu planning. One night I made fish tacos, another night I made lettuce wraps, and one night I did Mexican chicken and rice, which I had never made before and that turned out amazingly! Since I thought it turned out so well I wanted to share what I threw in to the pot with you in case you want something delicious, healthy and super cheap some night. (Skip to the bottom of the post if you could care less about the recipe because there is more news from me down there.)

Mexican Chicken and Rice

You will need:

4 Chicken Breasts

White Rice, I used what we had which was basmati...probably about 2 cups (I just dumped part of the bag in to the pot)

1.5 tablespoons of minced garlic

2 Large Chicken Stock Cubes...I used the Knorr brand which are bigger than stock cubes I've seen in Aus, so might need 3 if you don't have access to Knorr

3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil (this is approximate, I just dumped some in to the pan that I thought was right for the amount of garlic and onion I had)

3/4 of a brown or yellow onion

1/2 red bell pepper

A couple of shakes from No salt Mrs. Dash or whatever multipurpose seasoning you use for cooking

A couple of dashes of cracked black pepper

A 28 oz (794 g) can of tomatoes

Water, about half of the empty tomato can's worth

1/2 Can of Diced Green Chiles (I used Ortega Fire Roasted Chiles, these are mild), you could probably use fresh green chiles, just a lot less

Instructions:

1. Dice up your onion and red bell pepper fairly small.

2. Pour olive oil in to a large pot and start heating it up. Add garlic and onion and saute for about 2 minutes, you just want to sweat the onions, not get them brown.

3. Add the red bell pepper to the pot and saute them for a minute, before adding the green chiles and sauteing them for another minute.

4. Add the can of tomatoes, water, the stock cubes, and the spices and let cook to boiling for 5 minutes. Make sure you keep stirring the sauce so it doesn't burn on the bottom.

5. Add the chicken breasts whole to the sauce and turn down to simmer. Cook for approximately an hour and then try to shred the chicken breast with two forks in the pot. Let the sauce and chicken cook for another 30 minutes and then shred it further if you couldn't get the chicken to shred in to small pieces before.

6. At this point, you should have a lot of sauce in the pot still. Mine looked pretty watery. I was going to originally serve this as a stew over rice, but when I noticed how runny the sauce looked, I decided to pour the rice directly in to the pot and let it simmer for another 20 minutes.

7. After 20 minutes all the liquid should be absorbed and you should have a delicious pot of Mexican Chicken and Rice.

I was surprised how good this turned out. My Mom ate it for lunch and dinner the next day in San Francisco and called me raving about how good it was. I'm already craving it again so it's a good thing that I have all the ingredients in the cupboard still because we will be having this for dinner again this week at some point!

Still no ETA for when I'll be back in Australia, but Boyfriend and I have both been working on my visa stuff this week. Hopefully his stuff will arrive by Thursday next week and then I can send off all the paperwork to the Washington office on Friday and then fingers crossed that I have a quick turn around time for my visa being granted and can be back in Australia by April.

Tonight Boyfriend is headed down to Sydney with Bob Marley, the Miner, Croc, the Teacher, Tinkerbell, and the Farmer to see ACDC. I'm bummed that I am missing out because I think it would've been a really fun night with everyone, but I'm glad that my ticket could go to Bob Marley in my place.

Also, GREAT news: Boyfriend went in for an interview this week and he got the job!!! Woohoo! He is really excited about it and the company seems pretty cool: they are an engineering company who focus on building sustainably. I'm so happy for him and can't wait to hear all about his first days there.

I Miss You, I Miss You

I just got off the phone with Mom and we realized there are only 6 weeks until I am back home in CA now! The time between now and then will just fly by and I can't wait to see my family again. It'll have been nearly 9 months since I was last with them and that is about my limit of away time. When I leave, I'll be conflicted because it means nearly 2 months without Boyfriend and I'll miss him that whole time, too. That's really the life of an expat, no matter where you are, you are always missing someone you love, and because home is in two places, you are always missing one version of home, too. Here's a list of the things I am looking forward to once back in CA and a few things I'll miss when I'm there:

Getting to be in the same room with my family and hanging out and not just being on the phone with them while they are preparing Sunday dinner.

Getting to see family and old friends.

Getting to see Mom and Dad's new San Francisco apartment.

Hanging out at the beach house.

Feeling like a real family again.

Feeling normal again-not the weird American girl who says things funny and has interesting ideas on how life should work

Free refills and non-sweetened ice tea anywhere I go

Coupons for grocery shopping

Decently priced food and clothing

Old Navy, Target, H&M, American Eagle, Ann Taylor Loft, the Gilroy Outlet Malls, Trader Joe's, Safeway

Clothes that actually fit me, ditto for bras/sizes I understand

Cool Whip

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Sourdough Bread

Bisquick Mix

Real Mexican food

Sand dollars, sea otters, and sea lions

Costco

Beach walks with my Mom

Hanging out with my Sister

Treasure hunting with my Dad

Exploring the coast when Boyfriend comes

Chopping down our own Christmas tree

Hanging out in the living room watching the ocean while it rains and having a nice fire burning

Lots of variety at the grocery store

Being able to go to the grocery store or any store past 6pm

Cheap books

Watching trashy tv in real time, rather than downloading it or getting a series 3 years late (ala Gossip Girl being on Season 1 here right now)

Stocking up on all the things I need/miss through the year like clothes, makeup, and food

Getting a job and making some money

Celebrating my first Halloween in 5 years, even if they don't get trick-or-treaters way out at the beach house

Cheap manicures, pedicures, and eyebrow waxes

Pedicures where they can mess with your cuticles (they aren't allowed to trim them here, it's against the law or something...cuticle cutting is one of the best parts of the whole thing, too!)

Things I will miss about Australia:

Boyfriend

Beach walks with Boyfriend

Waking up to Boyfriend's bright and smiley face everyday

Boyfriend's family and bbq's with all the cousins and aunts and uncles

Seeing LC and Lo and their dog Bas a few times a week

Not getting to go to the Hairdresser's baby shower/see her when her baby is first born

All of our friends, especially our adventures with Croc and the Teacher

Getting to see what happens in our garden that Boyfriend's Dad is going to give us seedlings for

For the Workforce, Drowning

While I was out dealing with cops and kids, everyone else in my course had already done that round of practice teaching, so they only had about an hour of school for 2 of the 4 weeks then the rest of the time was spent getting ready for our Departmental interviews and doing projects that needed to get done before Internship. I had to do all these things and teach at the same time. I was frantic. Everyone told me my Internship school would be a walk in the park compared to my last school and I lucked out by getting the nicest class in the school. My teacher was alright, he didn’t give me as nice of a report as I think I deserved, but that’s because he didn’t really watch me teach. It was good cause the class became mine and I really learned a lot, but bad cause then he only had the first few lessons of mine that he had critiqued to go off of when writing my final report. I really enjoyed the kids and the work and was ready for a class of my own. The staff at the school were all really great and would do anything to help any of us interns out. After our last day, they took us out to a bar. I wasn’t going to drink, but one of the young teachers (who’s husband happened to be my supervisor at the tough school) was like, “Meh, get drunk, I usually do” so I did and I was embarrassingly drunk and became emotional when I got home that night (and thankfully not at the bar!) and called S. I was just upset about my final report, especially after someone at the bar had told me that not everyone agreed with the final report either and didn’t think it reflected the effort or work I had done. So I was totally embarrassed when I saw S the next day. On top of that, I was a classy bitch and threw up on the train on the way down to his place. Luckily, I must have been psychic that day as I just happened to have thrown a barf bag and a juice box in my purse that morning!
Over the next few weeks, I got my Teacher Research Project done and had to present a portfolio to a professor and a peer justifying to them how I had achieved all of the teaching standards for NSW.
When that was all said and done, I threw myself a Mexican/Halloween/Graduation party at S’s house. It was a good night, I got most everyone super drunk ( I was still over drinking after throwing up on the train) and we had good food and a piñata and most people dressed up as a Mexican or at least Australia’s version of a Mexican or in some type of Halloween outfit. S was a cholo and I was a chola. I found a video on Youtube that was about applying makeup like a chola (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CR0PykHTYY) so I tried to follow it but I have no skills and it ended up looking pretty funny. I got a sharpie and drew “Thug Life” acrossed S’s knuckles, a heart that said Madre on it, and another tattoo on his arm or chest that said Brown Pride. He also had been growing a beard/mo combo for awhile and he shaved off the beard and came out looking sooooo dirty with just the mo!
I a) couldn’t afford to keep my room while I went back home and b) had decided I wanted to live on the Coast closer to S and c)wanted to try living on my own again so I moved out of Benny Boy’s apartment in November and made my way home to California.