Saturday, July 30, 2011

Last Day

Well, this is it. Today I leave Chile to return home after almost one year away. Of course I am feeling a poutpourri of emotions, but above all I feel happy and blessed. I am so glad to have seen what I've seen, to have met so many wonderful people, to have had so many great experiences, to have learned so much. I wouldn't change a single moment, I don't have one single regret, which is a fantastic feeling. I will forever cherish the memories I am taking with me; of time spent with family (including my new family in La Unión), my time spent teaching so many great (although challenging at times) kids, the time spent at the orphange and getting to know the beautiful, rich culture of Perú, and of course the time spent traveling. I feel so lucky to have been able to see so much, experience so much, learn so much. This past year has far exceeded my expectations in so many ways. It has been wonderful, but, I have accomplished all that I have wanted to from the beginning-- learned Spanish, gotten to know some of my family better, lived and worked as a Chilena, traveled, volunteered, experienced new cultures-- so it is time for me to return home.

And it is time to begin a new chapter in my life, which I am very excited about. I will be moving to Los Angles, California, where I hope to begin focusing on developing a career in the non-profit sector working for a cause I strongly believe in. I am looking forward to the nice weather, the new friends, a new job (hopefully soon), all the new learning experiences to come. But one thing is for sure, I will return to Chile. I don't know when, or for how long, but those details don't matter right now. I just know that there is no way that I won't come back. I have too many loved ones here, and I am leaving a bit of myself here in Chile, for now I feel more Chilena than I ever have and I know I will always feel at home here. I have truly come to love this country, for all her beautiful landscapes, for the proud, generous, and loving people that inhabit her, for the richness in culture and nature, even for her faults. Chile, I will truly miss you. But this is not goodbye for long. Hasta luego, mi Chile querida, o sea, hasta pronto.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

All good things...

Today is my last day in La Unión and a week from today I will be touching ground in the US for the first time in nearly a year. As one would expect, I'm feeling a lot of different things; happiness, sadness and everything in between. But what I want to do right now is share a little bit about my trip to Uruguay and Buenos Aires. This past week has been very busy, I was working at the Winter English Camp with a group of High Schoolers. That was a really lovely way to bring my teaching experience here to a close. I met a great group of kids and had a lot of fun leading different activities. One day we went bowling which was funny as most of the kids had never bowled in their lives. We were all pretty terrible at it (myself included of course). It was a busy and tiring week, but very nice, now today I have to pack everything up, spend my last moments with the most wonderful host family in the world, and then sadly say goodbye. But before I get caught up in feeling sad about that, let me back track a little bit and think about the cool places I've seen.

Uruguay
Uruguay is a tiny little country with a population of only 3 million. Half of the country's inhabitants live in the capital city Montevideo. I spent two nights here. It's pretty small as far a cities go, and rather chill and quiet. This is not the place you would go if you are looking for a lively night life. Also, it's very expensive. Poverty seems to be almost non-existent in Uruguay, it's a fairly well off country, especially compared to the rest of South America.

Montevideo
1. We went to one of the biggest and best markets I've ever been to. I know I've made that claim before, but I think I really mean it this time. I never saw where this market started and ended and we walked around it for at least an hour of two. It just kept going and going in every direction. And they sold literally everything.
2. The people here are seriously obsessed with maté. I mean OBSESSED. Even though it is not that practical, everyone takes their maté with them everywhere they go. Driving, walking on the river path, shopping in the market, walking the dog, wherever; everyone you see has their thermos of hot water tucked under their arm with their maté in hand which they drink out of a gourd or something similar and sip with a metal straw.
3. Montevideo is a very nice, clean, and safe city. And they people are very calm and actually kind of quiet, although not all that friendly. This city feels much more like Europe than it does South America.
My friend Harry tossing a rock in the water.

The center of Montevideo.

Somewhere in the center of the city.
Along the river is a great walking path, kind of like the lake path in Chicago. We tried to count how many people were walking with their maté in hand while we walked along this path, it was definitely the majority.

Montevideo at night.

Colonia de Sacramento
1. Just a two hour bus ride from Monetvideo, we spent one night in this small touristy town before crossing the Río de la Plata in a boat to get to Buenos Aires. This town is small but very beautiful. It is the oldest city in Uruguay and was first colonized by the Portuguese, which is noted in the architecture and cobble stone streets.
2. Also very calm and clean and relaxing, but I think I liked Colonia better, it's just very beautiful. Lots of buildings of different colors and many cool little cafés and art stores. Also the weather here was great.
The beautiful cobble stone roads of Colonia.

We enjoyed the sunset over the Río de la Plata.

A picture of a door in the old part of the city, I dedicate it to my dad.

Loving my life.

The boat we took to Buenos Aires was huge and kind of like a cruise ship, complete with a restaurant, duty free store, a game room.

Buenos Aires
After crossing the river, we arrived to Argentina's capital, a very cosmopolitan and international city, a place that some call the Paris of South America. Of course I loved it. Buenos Aires was pretty much the opposite of everything in Uruguay. It's a huge, always busy and lively, noisy, and dirty city. This is the place where the nightlife doesn't really get started until 3 AM and goes strong until 9 in the morning. Some of my favorite things about this city:
1. Like I said, it's international. This is the first city I've been to in this continent that I really got such a worldly vibe. You see people from everywhere here, and they are not just tourists, but living here. That aspect is comparative to New York or Chicago.
2. The tango. Of course the sensual dance is what this city is known for, and it is everywhere. You can find people dancing in the streets in the touristy neighborhood La Boca. But the best tango I saw was in this warehouse converted into a tango dance club. We went there on a Tuesday night and still it was packed with Porteños (what people who live in the city are called) dancing just for themselves. It was so beautiful and sexy to watch. It's such a subtle, sensual, graceful, and intimate dance. I would really love to learn how to dance tango someday.
3. The MALBA, the modern art museum which features only Latino artists. It was probably one of my favorite art museums I've ever been to.
4. The cemetery La Recoleta, which I know I talked about in the last post.
5. It was really easy to find vegetarian food here, one day while spending hours walking around by myself, I stumbled upon a fantastic and cheap buffet of only vegetarian food owned by a Chinese family. I felt like I was in Chicago again, it was great. Also the gelato here is incredibly good.
6. The president lives in a pink house, La Casa Rosada. It's the funniest at night when it is lit by these bright pink spotlights. It's looks more like a party house than a place where important political decision are made. The design of the city in general is very chaotic and lively, very much like a party itself.

Plaza de Mayo, the city's main plaza.

In front of Teatro Colon, a very well known theater for it's extravagant decor inside. We wanted to see it, but you had to pay the equivalent of $15 just for a tour.

La Casa Rosada

The very colorful La Boca neighborhood.



Overall it was a fantastic trip and I returned tired and happy. And like I said I've had a great last week hanging out with the high schoolers, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed working with this age group. They are easy to talk to since they are almost adults, but they are also funny because really in a lot of ways they are still kids.

Tomorrow I will be in Santiago and I will spend this last week visiting all my Tíos and Tías saying all my last goodbyes. Oh querida Chile mia, I will miss you so.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Last Trip


Last week I embarked upon my final big adventure in South America (in two weeks I will be back upon North American soil, eek!); with a few friends I traveled to Uruguay and Argentina, spending time in Montevideo, Colonia del Sacramento, and Buenos Aires. I loved all of it, especially Buenos Aires; I very predictably fell in love with that city. Right now it's late and I have to wake up and teach English to a group of High School kids tomorrow (which has already been more fun than I thought) but I'd like to share some pictures, since I took un montón. In my next post I will talk about the cities I visited, but here I will share some of my favorite photos I took at the Cementerio de La Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

If you know me well, you probably know that I love cemeteries. I find them to be peaceful, beautiful places, and I love how unique each one seems to be. Cemeteries always have very specific characteristics about them that are unique to that one place, that town, the people buried there, whatever. The one in Buenos Aires was huge, and quite a tourist attraction. It was filled with some of the biggest mausoleums I've ever seen as well as some really great sculptures. But, it wasn't my favorite. It lacked grass and that peaceful and tranquil vibe of cemeteries that I normally dig. Regardless, I did take several photographs, some that I actually like quite a lot, so here are some my favorites. Stay tuned for a better update about my trip...





Monday, July 4, 2011

Sorpresa!

Today my fifth and sixth graders threw me a surprise party for our last workshop together. It was out of control adorable from the way they tried to distract me (while others were setting up) by taking me on a "tour" of the gym, to how they made me walk an unreasonable distance with my eyes closed, to the way they decorated complete with their interpretations of my face drawn on the white board. It was quite impressive actually, because they organized it and set it up all on their own. Such initiative. Really, it was great. I'll let the pictures (most of them taken by students) do the talking. It wasn't exactly the way I normally celebrate the fourth of July, but I did manage to give each kid a chocolate chip cookie I baked from a pre-made mix Sarah brought me, so that was a pretty American thing to do, I feel like.

The whole gang.

Pretty.

A picture of me.







They even had a table cloth for a part of the table. They managed to set all this up in less than 15 minutes, pretty impressive.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Before I forget

I wanted to share with you an article written by Ella Smyth, another Traveler Not Tourist volunteer from England, who I lived with and worked with in Arequipa at the orphanage (which she talks about in the start of the article). It's a well written piece about the complications and harsh reality of family planning and poverty in Perú. Sadly, this is an issue that, of course, is not only a concern in Perú but in the entire world as unplanned pregnancies are an unavoidable fact of life.
Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and so clear that you can see the peaks of the Andes mountains, so far away. I took advantage of this gorgeous day and took a long, satisfying walk that found me following a muddy road that took me way out into the country. For I long time I kept going, I barely saw another human, but I did see lots of animals. And to my right I could see a volcano (I think of Orsorno), the white cone shape standing out nicely against the blue sky, and straight ahead I could see the the ash cloud that continues to pour out of the Volcano Puyehue nearly a month now after if began erupting. It was a great walk.

Yesterday, with a friend, I went to Entre Lagos, a town that lies on the western side of Lake Puyehue, and yes, on the other side of that lake is the volcano. We hoping to be able to see the volcano, but it's not possible due to all the ash. But you could definitely see the giant ash cloud. We stood on a dock out on the lake and watched as the cloud changed shape, and actually the ash is moving quite quickly. You could also clearly see where the wind is blowing the ash. It looked as if someone with a VERY big hand, smeared a light grey, purplish color of paint across the sky. It goes for a very long way. Entre Lagos was a lovely little town, and the lake one of the calmest I've seen. I picked up a few volcanic rocks (pumice stones) to take with me as a memory. They are super light, almost as light as popcorn.

Happy 4th of July to everyone! Tomorrow I will be celebrating with my 5th and 6th graders as we have our last workshop together. I will probably bring in some potato chips and oreos or whatever I else I can find.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Long Weekend Trip

This past Monday was a holiday (for what I'm really not sure) so my family and I took advantage of the long weekend and went to stay in Lican Ray, in the house owned by my host-dad's brother. We had a wonderful, relaxing time. Lican Ray is a really small town on a lake (like so many other places I've been to in this area of Chile), the kind of town that's poppin' during the summer but nearly deserted at this time of year. One of the highlights was all the volcano ash. Not a single bit of ash has fallen here in La Unión, but there was a thin layer covering Lican Ray and many of the surrounding towns. It was most noticeable on the beach and on plants and trees. Turns out I may be allergic to volcano ash, it made me sneeze a lot and my chest felt heavier.

On our way back on Monday we drove to Huilo-Huilo, a national park. Yet another beautiful spot with a waterfall. There are so many beautiful lakes and parks here, I think I am getting to used to it. I will miss it when I'm gone. Speaking of when I'm gone, I only have one more week left at the school, I can't believe how fast the past 4 and a half months have flown by! A month from today I will be on a flight back to the United States. My goodness how the past 10 months have flown by!! I have a lot of mixed feelings about leaving, but mostly I am feeling ready to come back and dive right into my new life in Los Angeles. I'm looking forward to yet another fresh start. And maybe this time I will stay in one place a little longer...

Some pictures:
Huilo-Huilo

Volcano ash on the beach.

Part of the cloudiness is caused by the falling ash.



Wednesday, June 22, 2011

School

Here some pictures of me and the kids that Sarah took. Thanks Sarah!

Simon Says.

Fifth and sixth graders. Their assignment was to make the shape of letters and numbers with their bodies.

So crazy. Always making me laugh.

Fifth and sixth graders.

I blend in pretty well with the eighth graders.

Sometimes they listen to me.


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Sarah in Chile

I know, I know, it's been ages. That's because I was busy entertaining my bff who came all the way to the south of Chile to visit me! Basically, it was great. I loved having her here, and I admit I have been suffering from the slightest depression since she left on Sunday. It was just so nice and comforting having someone here with me who has known me since I was twelve. And I liked being able to share some of my life here with her.

Some highlights:
1. Sarah came into school with me a few times when I did workshops. The first time she came, it was literally as if I had brought Justin Beiber or Miley Cyrus to school. Of course the kids noticed my bleached blonde gringa friend immediately. Within the first few minutes ofour arrival, slowly a curious few came up to me, asking who my "beautiful friend" was. By the time we were upstairs en route to the classroom, the mad rush began. Now as you probably know, it is custom here to saludar or greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek. Some of the kids regularly saludar me, others don't. But EVERYONE wanted to greet Sarah. Quickly they all started crowding around her. It happened so fast, I looked up and it seemed like suddenly there were at least, no joke, 50 kids crowding around waiting for their chance to kiss Sarah on the cheek. I really wish we had taken a picture. I think it was a bit surreal for Sarah, having to kiss so many children. She told me one of them was really sweaty.

2. The first weekend we went to Puerto Varas where we stayed in a pretty nice hotel for very cheap. On Saturday we went to Los Saltos de Petrohue, one of the beautiful spots I went to with my parents. The next day we visited the always lovely Frutillar and had lunch at the market in Angélmo of Puerto Montt. Sarah braved through her phobia of shell fish to try curanto, a typical dish of meat, seafood, and potatoes. I did have to help her remove some of the creatures, but I was really proud of her because I know that years ago she would not have had the courage to try such a meal. The weekend a lot of time was spent being gently rocked to sleep on many a warm bus.

3. One day we went to Valdivia because I had a meeting and even though it was quite cold we walked around a bit. Sarah tried sopapillas, and this time when we had lunch at the market there, she stayed away from the shellfish.

4. We walked around a lot in La Unión, discovering places I had never been to on my own. My favorite was a cemetery which is built onto some hills. It is probably one of the most disorganized cemeteries I've ever seen, with tombstones and graves of all kinds, colors, designs. I loved it. We also discovered a cute little coffee shop that I had walked by many times but never noticed. It was great, offering me the greatest variety of tea I have found in any place in South America.

5. Last weekend we went back to Valdivia and from there took a collective to a coastal town, Niebla. It started to rain, so we stayed just long enough to greet the ocean, the we headed to a brewery called Salzburg. After enjoying some beer, we walked to another brewery. It was a beautiful walk, even though it was along a road that I don't think it meant for walking. It was also a bit longer than I thought, but worth it, because we were feeling happy from the beer and scenery around us was gorgeous.

After Sarah left, her absence was felt. Luckily I will see her again in just less than two months.

We saw a rainbow in Puerto Montt.

Yes!



Monday, June 6, 2011

A wedding and the volcano

That was my weekend. I went to a wedding with my family in Temuco. It was the wedding of one of my host dad's nephew's, who happens to be in the military. Other than the special salute and the arc of swords that the bride and groom crossed under as they left the church, it was pretty much like any other wedding. The ceremony was very Catholic. Very solemn, and lacking in music, I found myself feeling more on the sad than joyful. Luckily, the reception was much more joyful. The bride and groom entered by singing a love song to each other while accompanied by a guitar player. It was pretty adorable especially since neither of them were that great of singers, which only added to the charm and cuteness of the moment. From the moment we entered the reception, the consuming began. It started with drinks (pisco sour, mango sour, juice) and a variety of and hors d'oeurves, then we headed to the tables where and began the actually meal, which had several courses. My favorite was definitely the dessert which was actually three different desserts which were all delicious. You'd think the food might stop there, but oh no. Then there were the homemade chocolates brought to each table (not to mention the entire table of chocolates and white chocolate fondue), later there was the cake, and then at about four in the morning, they brought little sandwiches. I certainly was not able to eat anymore at that point, so I really didn't mind that they weren't vegetarian sandwiches. Besides lots of eating, there was also LOTS of dancing, which was a bit difficult at first with all the food in my stomach. But I managed alright and had a great time dancing despite the fact that I had never heard most of the songs before in my life. There was a whole lot of cumbia and salsa and bachata and 80's music in spanish. Whenever a song in English would come on, I would get excited and sing along.

Everyone warned me that Chilean weddings tend to last pretty much all night, so I was prepared for a late one. Sure enough, we were there until nearly 5 in the morning. When we left, there were still several people going strong on the dance floor. I don't know how they did it, my batteries had pretty much run out at about 2:30. At one point in the night, I was pretty sure I felt an earthquake (just a small tremor), and found out later that I was right, and there had been one. In La Unión, there had been tremors all day as a result from the exploding volcano, but in Temuco, we only felt one. I will talk about the volcano in a moment, but first some pictures of us dressed up for the wedding.

Posing with Carolina, the daughter of José's brother Sergio, and her beautiful little girl Valentina. Every single thing I am wearing apart from my necklace was borrowed. It felt funny to wear things I probably normally wouldn't have chosen for myself, but great that I didn't have to buy a single thing.

All the ladies. There were a lot of us. My host dad was the only male to accompany us, he said he felt a bit like a pimp.

Me and Ely, the wife of Sergio. She and her husband made me take like ten pictures with them, to have as memories, they said, so that I won't forget them.

As you may have heard, the volcano Puyehue in the Los Rios region (the region I live in!) has been erupting since Saturday. If you haven't seen pictures of it yet, you should, here are some really cool ones. The town I live in is not really that far away from the volcano, but luckily we haven't been affected at all because the wind has been blowing all the ash the other direction, more towards Argentina. But I can see the HUGE cloud of ash in the sky. It's really so big, it looks as if it is just still in the air. Many people have had to evacuate, but luckily, so far everyone has been safe and the damage hasn't been too bad. It is a pretty incredible sight though, reminds one of just how incredible nature is.

On Wednesday my dearest friend, Sarah, from so many years in coming to visit me. I absolutely cannot wait to see her. Hopefully, her flight from Santiago to Osorno will not be affected by the volcano. So far it should be okay, but you never know what the wind might do. Either way, I will make sure either she gets to me or I go to her. I am so excited to share Chile with her. I am so lucky to have two great friends (and parents, of course) who have decided to travel so far to see me!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Feliz Día Nacional del Completo

Today is apparently Chile's national completo (their version of hot dogs) day. I guess there really is day for everyone/thing in this country.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

More musings on the language thing

I apologize if this is not the most interesting thing to read, but I feel like sharing more of my thoughts about language learning because it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, as it is pretty much my primary focus right now.

Now last time, I believe I touched briefly upon the idea of language identities (I feel a bit like a professor after typing that out), but I wanted to share a little more about what I mean by that. When I step out of my head for a moment and listen to the voice coming out of my mouth when I speak spanish, I have noticed that it sounds different than my english voice. I realized this was true one day when my host sister commented that when she heard me speak english, I almost sounded like a stranger to her. I thought this was funny, and I asked other people if this happened to them, and most people said that yeah, when they speak a different language, they notice that something changes in their voice. It's like you become a different person for each language that you speak. Alright, I mean, it's not like when I speak spanish I suddenly sound like Speedy Gonzalez (the only spanish speaking pop culture reference I could think of at the top of my head), but I do notice something about my tone that changes slightly. I think it has to do with this idea of flow that I was talking about before. Because the way the languages flow differ between english and spanish, my voice slightly changes when I speak each language. And because I have learned (both languages) mostly by imitation, I suppose it's possible that I have adopted tone and intonation from the people I have been learning from. What's funny, is that sometimes, when I'm speaking spanish, a word will come out of my mouth and I will think, oh my god that sounded EXACTLY like my mom. What's more, is that it was probably a sound I used to (and still do) make fun of. Mom, you probably know what I'm talking about.

This is interesting to me because I actually haven't been learning spanish from my mom; we just can't seem to break the habit of speaking english, it's too weird to change the way you've been speaking to someone your entire life. But something I've noticed, is that my mom speaks english like a Chilena. She has adopted so many sounds and intonations that I would classify as typical Chilean, and uses them when she speaks english. This does make her unique, because most people don't speak english like Chileans. And I'm not talking about accents here, but more tone of voice, the expressive way she says certain words. I have spent the majority of my life making fun of the way my mom speaks english (come on, Justin, you know you have to). Of course it mostly comes from love, and sometimes she legitimately says really funny things (ex: quiet as a moose), but now, as I am going through the process of learning a language and finding myself making mistakes (a lot of them funny) all the time, I can't help but feel a little guilty. But more than the bit of guilt I feel, I feel that I now have a better understanding of why she speaks the way she does. Many times have I heard people say things in a certain way that has sounded exactly like something my mom would say. Except I realized that they were speaking spanish, her first language of course. Now this is not to say that my mom hasn't adopted the flow of english, of course her english is excellent, but I just mean that sometimes, she speaks it like it's spanish. It's part of what makes her the wonderful and unique woman that she is.

Sometimes, when I'm tired, I speak spanish as if I'm speaking english. To me, that happens when I'm feeling kind of lazy, because in my mind's ear, the sounds of english are lazier, heavier. Spanish (or maybe it has to do some with chilean culture) is more expressive in certain ways, people are a lot more dramatic. Spanish requires your tongue to be a bit more flexible (that rolling of the r) and lighter.

I'd really like to learn a third language mainly just to explore the sounds and compare the differences, but I'm not sure if my brain could handle it. I think I would get confused all the time.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Thoughts on learning a new language

I know I haven't written about this in a while, but obviously, as I am still in Chile, I have been continuing my quest to learn Spanish. I thought I would share some of my thoughts on what the process has been like for me.

Learning another language is definitely a process, it's a never ending process full of highs and lows, some proud moments, and definitely even more embarrassing moments. Every day you learn something new, and you never stop learning; there will always be a word out there that you didn't know the meaning of before. I would without a doubt argue that the best way to learn another language is to go to another country and learn it pretty much out of desperation, because you have to if you have any desire to communicate with people from the chosen country. This is not to say that it isn't possible to learn a language by studying it in a classroom setting (although that method of learning has never worked for me personally, but I am, without a doubt, a kinesthetic learner all the way), but there is so much you can't learn just by studying. Languages are complex, unique, full of idiosyncrasies, accents, and all of this varies so much by individual countries, individual regions, groups of people, social class, personal histories, etc. You just can't pick up on all that by learning from one person (native speaker or not), or one book. In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of a language to try to emulate as a learner is the flow. Every language has it's own unique flow, differences in sentence structure, intonation, and so on. And the best way to capture and imitate the flow of a language is to listen. A lot. For me, speaking spanish with the Chilean flow came relatively easy for me early on, because I had been exposed to it throughout my life. It was when I was hanging out with other spanish language learners along with native speakers when I realized how important this flow is. I have met people who speak really good spanish. Textbook spanish. They are always grammatically correct, have a decent vocabulary (these are the things I struggle with the most). But if they are lacking in the ability to flow, native speakers struggle to understand them. And it does not feel good when you are trying to communicate and the native speaker doesn't understand your pronunciation. You can't speak Spanish like you are speaking English. Or vice versa. Just like you can't speak Portuguese as if you are speaking Chinese. Each language has it's unique characteristics. And of course, it is really difficult (though not impossible) to master a second, third, fourth language the way we have mastered our mother tongues. But, I think it's really important to try and pay attention to pronunciation, to intonation, to flow. If you can speak a language comfortably, without nervousness, and with some consciousness of the language's unique flow, that's when people start complementing you on how well you speak. Even if you make mistakes all the time.

And that's kind of the level I'm at right now. I always say that I can trick people into thinking I speak spanish better than I do. The truth is, I still make mistakes all the time, constantly. I mix up tenses, the feminine and masculine, por, para, ser, estar, and many other things. And there are so many times when I just can't find the word I'm looking for in my brain, which can be really frustrating. But one of the biggest steps I have made in making progress was letting go of the fear to speak. I used to get all tense and worry about making mistakes. But now I realize that mistakes are essential in the learning process (life lesson?). So I just let the words flow out of my mouth, trying not to think to much about it. I think that's why almost everyone would say they feel like they speak another language better after a few drinks. Obviously, this is because alcohol helps you to relax. The more I allow myself to relax, the more I feel myself just letting the flow happen, the more confident I feel, and then that's when people begin to compliment me on how well I speak. And let me tell you, it feels great to hear that. I don't think it will ever get old to hear such compliments.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Día del Alumnos


Today we celebrated Día del Alumnos (Student's Day) even though nationally it was on Wednesday. I wish we had a student's day in the states, or at least we did when I was a student. They also celebrate a Kid's Day here, something else that we don't get.
Anyways, it was a fun day! It was only a half day, and the whole day was basically a party. The kids didn't have to wear their uniforms (which was very exciting for them) and the teachers put on a show for them. I was happy to participate, I imitated Miley Cyrus in my lively rendition of Party in the USA, I was in a dance to the Glee version of "Umbrella", (with, of course, umbrellas) and I did a dance to Single Ladies, chipmunk style (gotta keep it appropriate for the kids). Also, a few days ago we got dressed up as zombies and recorded a video of us doing the Thriller dance and today showed that video. The kids seemed to love every minute of the "performance". I think it was very funny for them to see their teachers dancing and being silly. At the end they got to dance in the gym and it was entertaining to watch them interact with one another. I saw some very excited fifth grade boys dancing with some eighth grade girls. It had all the vibes of middle school dances I remember attending, but with a little bit more freedom, a bit less awkward, and a lot more latino music. I kind of failed at taking pictures but here are a few.



It was so so hot in there, my camera got a little sweaty.