Six Weeks In

It's been a pretty busy and intense past couple of weeks for me. As I am nearing the end of my 6th week here in Costa Rica, I'm happy to say that I'm adjusting pretty well.

Lets catch you up!

On September 15th, I - along with 16 others - graduated from the International TEFL Academy- Costa Rica course! What an AMAZING 4-week course and experience!

August 2017 ITA TEFL Class

The Tuesday prior to graduating, I had a second interview with a company called Idioma Internacional. They are a language institute that services large corporations and Colegios (High Schools) here in Costa Rica. I was offered a full-time position with them later that evening! Whoo hoo!!

Also that day, I went to view an apartment for me and Casey to hopefully move. The unit was a 5th floor condo, 2 bed/2 bath, fully furnished with a washer and dryer (very rare here). The rent was $800/mo. After showing my roommate the videos, we decided that we wanted it! We had keys in hand by Friday afternoon and were all moved in by Saturday evening!

Everything fell in place pretty quickly for us. I started training for my job last Thursday, Sept. 21st and finish today!

Unfortunately, I lost my phone in an Uber on Saturday morning. I tried all day to get in contact with the driver to no avail. I reached out to Uber and the driver multiple times and Uber finally stepped in. Just when I was about to give up hope for getting it back completely, the driver called me yesterday (Thursday- 6 days later) and returned my phone! PTL!

I'm excited to have finally received my official teaching schedule as well! I have 18 teaching hours/wk right now. That amounts to one 3hr class that meets once a week, one 2hr class that meets twice a week, one 1.5hr class that meets twice a week and two 4hr classes that meet once a week. My two 4hr classes are with high school aged students and all of my other classes are corporate classes.

I'm also training to become a BELT (Business English Level Test) Evaluator. This is a test that is administered by our company to test and assign English placement levels. Companies come to us to request testing for internal purposes, recruitment and for class placement. Individuals come to us as well for personal assessment. Once I finish the training, I'll add BELT shifts to my schedule.

Another thing I'm pretty excited about is the opportunity to do some social media and marketing work for Idioma. Thanks to my background, the Academic Director of the company wants to assign additional hours for me to work on special projects. I'm looking forward to being able to use my other skill sets as well as my newly gained skill sets.

Last, but certainly not least, I'm starting to focus on my personal business again. Looking forward to growing my company, Kelli Marie Consulting, LLC. I'm currently accepting work as a Virtual Assistant. If you or anyone you know needs assistance virtually, please email kellimarieconsulting@gmail.com.

I think that's all I have for this update! Hopefully, now that I've settled down, I'll be able to post a bit more regularly and about different topics regarding teaching, my experiences and the country of Costa Rica itself!

Until then, Travel and experience new things, Live for today and not tomorrow, and Be whoever you want to be! 

Love Always, 

Kelli Marie