Lia made a wonderful presentation talking about the jobs she wanted to be as a child, the ones that inspired her so much and the jobs she had worked in.
I am going to start with common work phrases that we use. When you ask a person what his job is you say: What do you do? And the answer is : I am a journalist, a teacher, a doctor. To leave your job there are several ways to say it: to resign or quit( I don’t want to work here anymore), to retire is when you are old around your sixties. If you lose your job is when you want to be working but they say you are done or fired.To be dismissed or to get sacked are common phrases to lose your job.
Other job vocabulary:
Application: solicitud
Apply: solicitar
Benefits: beneficios
Career: carrera professional
Colleage / co-worker: compañero
Earn: ganar dinero
Employee: empleado
Full time job: trabajo a tiempo complete
Hire: contratar
Intern: pesante
Labour: trabajo físico
Occupation: ocupación
Overtime: horas extra
Part time job: trabajo a tiempo parcial
Qualifications: cualidades, títulos
Reference: referencias
Resume: curriculum vitae
Salary: salario
Shift: turno
Volunteer position: voluntariado
Workload: carga de trabajo
Wage: salario
Some jobs have specific names and others is a description of the job.
Types of jobs: musician, electrician, artist, fire fighter, dentist, mechanic, pilot, fashion designer, engineer, chef, photographer, architect, fitness instructor or personal trainer, doctor, lawyer, politician, construction worker, farmer, scientist, astronaut, physical therapist, waiter or lifeguard. These are common jobs that have specific names. Others describe the job such as I work in finance.
What are some jobs that can be boring?
Being a teacher or a clerk in an office.
A lawyer is dull and boring.
A pilot. Really? Why?
You only see the sky.
But the sky changes all the time. But I love flying. It is interesting. I think a bus driver would be more boring to me.
What are some jobs that you think are fun, like a fun job?
A lifeguard in the beach. He is always in the sun.
A pilot who travels a lot.
A dancer would be a super fun job or maybe a personal trainer. An artist, I would love to be doing an artist, a musician. Those are creative ones, something that is not the same every day, something that changes would be fun for me.
What do your parents do? What do your parents do for a living?
My father works in construction and my mother works in a factory.
My father is a truck driver and my mother is on leave.
When you leave here what are you going to do?
I don’t really know for sure yet. I know when the school year is over for me, I leave at the end of May. I am going to go and live with a family in Granada in an au pair position because I want to keep practising my Spanish. And I think if I live with a family I will get better. Then I will go home to the United States in October. And I don’t have any idea after that. I have no clue so we’ll see.
What do you think it’s the most inspired job?
For me personally I think that people who are photojournalist. I wanted to be a photojournalist and that’s why I studied at school, because all the photography that I saw of peoplewho were coming out finding interesting stories. Those stories were inspiring to me and so were the people that were taking the photos. And also people who work with refugees or for the environment. Those kind of things are like inspiring to me because those are the things I care about.
Is it in your country easier to make a living than in Spain?
I think it depends on what you do for sure but here the cost of living is a lot cheaper than in United States. So you can make a lot less money hereand have a good life. In United States you have to make a significant amount of money to get by month by month. And if you don’t work in those secure jobs you don’t get health care, you don’t get child care. Those things are not super accessible. They are very expensive so you have to work in an office settingly. But even teachers are not paid very well. Doctors are a very secure job. It is unfortunate.
When you go back to US what would you like to do?
I am going to find a job that is short-term. I’m used to waitressing like dressing tables for years in College when I was in University. Probably something like that because it’s supereasy to be working for only a couple of months. I would like to leave again so I’ll travel more to other places so something short-term.
What job did you like as a child?
When I was younger I love anything with animals. I was a more country person so I love horses, dogs and ducks. I really wanted to be a veterinarian when I was younger. And I also thought about teaching little kids like being a kindergarten teacher or Primary teacher. Being an artist or a writer or something was really cool. When you are little you can think you can do all the jobs.
What do you do in your free time?
In the free time right now here I go to the beach a lot. I meet friends all the time. I do photography or drawing and I read, I do lots of reading.
Do you like what you are doing now or you prefer doing something else?
You mean teaching, Yes and no. I’ve never done it before.So this is my first time teaching. It has some learning codes that I had to learn very quickly how to do it. I’d liked working with older kids more. I like that it’s more conversational like I talk to you guys that you are not that much younger than me. It feels very equal. I don’t like working with younger kids very much because you have to discipline them a lot and I don’t like that. They are just chaotic. But I really like teaching Science classes here because I like Science. And I like teaching English because it helps me learn Spanish and I also learn more about my own language when I teach English. When I am speaking to you guys I have to think so carefully about the words that I am saying. I really like it and it’s so interesting for me.
What kind of job is boring for you?
For me most jobs in an office. I couldn’t really work in an office. That would be boring. Cleaning is probably boring. I worked for a while at a National Park in United States at a resort. I was cleaning the rooms at the resort and that was so boring because it’s the same thing over and over. I think it is boring. I need more activity to change it.
In ten years do you see yourself in the same job as you are working now?
No, definitely not. Again there are still so many things that I would like to do. I have a lot of interests. I don’t think that I would do everything but a lot of my passions and interests can be bind and mixed like art, photography and writing and work for the environment and refugees. I would like to explore all of these passions in different ways. Keeping, changing , moving and creating but not the same. I think also that a lot of times things come the way that you are not expecting and there are so many jobs that I didn’t know they existed. I figure something will come along and that sounds great.
