a tragic ending

i'm leaving tomorrow morning at 8:45am.

i started searching for jobs for the summer in mid-march. the first thing i was offered was for a magazine called today's outlook. i wrote an article for them by the deadline they set for me and didn't hear anything back for 2 months, at which point i received an email saying that they wanted to publish it and to please get back to them "asap" if i could do some additional work on it. it's being published this month and i'm getting $85 for it, which amounts to approximately $0.05/word. according to freelancers i've spoken with here, anything less than $0.15/word isn't worth it. further, i couldn't get a straightforward answer regarding whether they would ask me to write additional articles for them.

the second job i found was with another magazine, what's up lebanon. i was hired as a freelancer, which means that i have to pitch ideas and then get approval. if i were to get said approval, i would get assorted specifications -- who i should interview, how many words it should be, etc. i was told that the first month, i could only write up to one article and it would be 1000-2000 words at $0.15/word. i submitted my idea early in order that if it weren't approved, i would have some time to think of other ideas before the deadline. the editor wrote to me nearly 2 weeks after the deadline saying that it was not approved.

next, i found a job teaching english at the american language center across the street from aub. i went for training and was told that the new session would start on monday, june 12. the number of hours i would teach would depend on how much i could handle. they pay $10/hour. i went there on friday, june 9 and was told to come back on monday to see how many students had registered. apparently, "finals and the world cup" had made for a low turn-out. when i went back on monday -- the day i was initially supposed to start teaching -- i was told that there weren't enough students registered to merit hiring a new teacher, but could i come back at the end of june? there would certainly be enough students for the july session.

in a slight state of panic, i thought about what kind of well-paying job i could possible secure for myself within one week and i remembered an internship that a friend of mine was going to take until she decided to go back to the us for the summer since she will be doing another semester here. i emailed the director of the company with my cv and he responded to me within 24 hours requesting a writing sample. i had a good interview with him and another woman on thursday and asked to come in again on saturday night to take a test and discuss my conditions for working there. i asked for $1500 for 6 weeks, which is about what i would have made at nassau. the director told me that he had to wait for approval from the headquarters in dc, but he was 99% sure that it would be fine -- except that they might not be able to pay me what i asked for. in the end, i was offered the internship, the director gave me a guarantee in writing that he would pay for me to change my airline ticket back to the original date if he found out today that it wouldn't work, but he still could not promise that i would get $1500 and said it might be closer to $1000. apart from being ridiculous because that amounts to about $4/hour, $1000 would mean that i would lose money after paying rent and changing my plane ticket to august. i turned him down. this all happened around 2:30am this morning.

i am in no state of mind to leave. i haven't had time to say goodbye to people, there is still a list that's about a page long of things that i still want to see (tyre, sidon, beiteddine when it's open, jeita grotto, my friend's village in the shouf), things i want to do (diving, rafting, exploring), and events i want to attend (festival in jbeil, festival in baalbek, festival in beiteddine). lately, i have finally been feeling as though my arabic is improving at an appropriate pace. this is the result of my moving into an apartment two weeks ago, thereby allowing me to actually live in beirut, as opposed to at aub where i'm treated like a child and everyone speaks english. i have made friends with the local grocer, my neighbors, my roommates, and other random people. i am figuring out the bus system, which has allowed me to travel nearly anywhere in the country for under $5 round-trip. i feel comfortable here and now i'm leaving tomorrow.

i hardly have time to take care of my own things, much less say goodbye to all of the people i've met here, take pictures of the city, and buy presents. i have been away for 5 months and i'll return with nothing to give anyone.

further, i am even more unemployed in the us than i am here. when i return, i will have to start looking for a job again at square 1. i don't have time for this shit; i have money to make.

had i been mentally prepared to leave, even if i hadn't done or seen everyone and everything i wanted, i would feel fine; but because this caught me off-guard, now i feel defeated and anxious. in my eyes right now, my experience here is glaringly incomplete.