What do you do for a living?

The past few blog entries I´ve published have been overwhelmingly positive. Which isn´t to say that there aren´t things that bother me about being here. But the main thing that´s been getting under my skin isn´t something true only of Mexico. My pet peeve is when first meeting people hearing the question, ¨So what do you do?¨ Whether it be in Spanish or English the question grates on my nerves. I usually answer, ¨teacher,¨ but it doesn´t seem an honest response. I´m not currently ¨teaching¨ and I have never really felt comfortable categorizing myself as someone who teaches. When I first started teaching English in Japan it took months for me to feel comfortable in that position. I´ve always felt that I had much more to learn from other people than I could ever teach. Even last year when I was teaching Elementary school I took whatever opportunities I could to put the kids in groups so they could learn from each other rather than have to listen to me. What do I really know about anything? The only thing I do know for sure is that I love meeting new people. But I get frustrated when I have to defend the fact that I´m not working. Like I´m not allowed to exist unless I´m a contributing member of our consumer society. Like I need to be making money in order to be a ¨real person.¨
I haven´t started looking for a job here yet because of two reasons: A) I haven´t recieved my papers back from the Mexican embassy in order to apply for a work visa and B) I´m not sure what kind of work I really want to do. I´ll probably end up teaching English - as I have so many times in the past - but I´m not really looking forward to it. I don´t want to work just for the sake of working. Or just to have something to do. I want to enjoy what I´m doing and feel what I´m doing is worthwhile. I´d love if rather than asking about my profession people were to ask me, ¨Who are you?¨ That´s why I´m here in Mexico; to figure that out. Which is something really worth talking about.