NEW BLOG!!!

I will continue my adventures on a new blog "The Tongue of Mexico City" Please Check it out!!

UPDATE!!!

Hey! It's been quite a while since the CELTA course. It's now then end of May and I just TODAY finally got a job!!! It's in Mexico City!! and I'll be leaving near the end of June to start teaching for IH Mexico City. www.ihmexico.com I'm super excited!! I'll be teaching business English for local companies around the city. I'll be going to the businesses to give classes in English. So it's pretty important stuff. :P I'm very excited and also very lucky to have my first job with an IH school (International House.. the most widely credited and acclaimed foreign language schools) Hopefully I'll get lots of experience, both with teaching AND with learning and speaking spanish! so wish me luck! And keep in touch!!! And I'll keep ya posted!

VERY Last day.

My last day was the longest most fabulous day! Casto and I met some of the other teachers near CLIC for a coffee. Then we went to lunch with Aleksa. The dishes were HUGE and fabulous!!! I think it was called La madraza or something kinda like that. We were so stuffed afterwards I thought I was going to burst! Then Aleksa had to get some things done and go to the gym. So Casto and I went by CLIC and I got to say goodbye to Claire and Ian one last time. Then we decided to take a nice leisurely stroll around the city. We ended up walking forever! But we got tons of colorful pictures by cool buildings and places. By the time we finally caught the bus we were already almost up to the animal bridge on the other side of the river!! Then when we got off the bus, it left us right next to the Plaza de España. That is where they filmed parts of the new Star Wars movies. Afterwards we met up with Emma for more sushi at a smaller place in Triana. And once we had stuffed ourselves again, I said goodbye to my dear dear Emma, and met Aleksa for a drink. The place we went to served drinks and ice cream. It was really cool, and a very nice last place to go spot. It ended my night perfectly and I couldn't have asked for a better last day in Sevilla!

Last days

Well lunch with the tutors was great! I love Claire, she's so sweet, but unfortunately she had to leave early... woooooooaaaaaaaooooooooh!! :P Anyways, it was a pretty good lunch. Afterwards was even better though, cuz Josh and I snuck over to the candy shop to buy some more sweets! HA! We ate them in like .02 seconds. Then later Casto came over and hung out with Emma and I. "Bless" and we all went and hung out with the students. They were fun to hang out with, but I guess I really enjoyed just getting to hang out with some of the other teachers before we all go our seperate ways. And of course hanging out with Casto was loads of fun!

The next day most of the other teachers had left so Emma, Casto, and Aleksa (another teacher who's from Canada) and I decided to go out for Sushi (Emma had never tried it). So we went to a place that Aleksa knew of called Buddha. It was very nice but a bit pricey for me. At first I was sulking at the incredible expense. (20€!) That's like $30 or more! But it turned out to be okay. In fact well worth the money! Aleksa had arrived early and had to reserve out seats because the restaurant didn't open until 10:00pm. She had been talking to the waiter at the bar before we got there (and Aleksa is gorgeous) so he bought us all a chupito of Bailey's and free dessert and drinks all around (except I had ordered water...dangit!). By dessert I mean Chocolate mousse cake, cheesecake, AND fried ice cream!! So we really got hooked up! Aleksa is my hero!! :P AND then we all got a free drink from the bar! (rum and coke)YUM! The restaurant turns into a bar/dance club at midnight and has a second and third floor for dancing. So we all went upstairs to bust a move. But we didn't stay very late because we had decided to all go to the beach the next day (thanks to Casto's GRACIOUS invitation). Emma had already made plans with an English girl she met here named Becky so we invited her along as well! (Or Casto did!!) :) we love you Casto!! So we all met up in the morning and after a few traffic glitches ;) we headed out to the beach. The beach was absolutely perfect and after Casto and I proved ourselves to be the king and queen of paddleball (which is funny cuz i have no hand-eye coordination and haven't played a day in my life! of course the other girls aren't all that athletic... well maybe Aleksa is but anyway, i was better at paddleball...hahaha) then we went in for an enormous and delicious lunch! (I took pictures cuz I'm a huge dork!) It was great! Then Casto's dad serenaded us on the guitar! My friends and I were so impressed by his voice, his guitar playing, and just his coolness in general! Then he had to go "think" for a minute (think=sleep, siesta time 4pm-6pm) So our gang took a walk along the boardwalk in search of ice cream! I bought ice cream AND sweets! Well actually casto bought the sweets for me cuz he's such a SWEET heart! :P and then we took pictures! After we finally left the beach Casto took us to this great restaurant with huge servings at low prices! It was great! Great day.

The Museum...

...(continued from previous post) ... okay well maybe watching the movies Saw and Seven time a thousand!!! It was done by some Austrians and was called the Crucifiction, and it wasn't just about Christ or anything, it was about crucifying the human body. Anyway, don't want to go into details, but afterwards we toured the old monistary which helped to clense our minds. Then we decided to LOAD up on "sweets" and went to the best candy store ever! And I got a ton of candy ("sweets") for like 1.50€! Sigh...I'm in love! Ha! anyway, it was a great time. I guess that pretty much brings me up to today. Nothing exciting really, although we're getting together for dinner tonight (teachers) and then going out for drinks. Tomorrow we don't have to go to class until NOON!!! After class (which is only 2 and a half hours long) we're going to lunch with the tutors (on CLIC!!) and then we're meeting the pre-intermediate students for drinks in the evening. Oh that reminds me! We went to coffee (just my group of teachers) with our current students (the pre-intermediate) and one of the guys "Rafa" made me a carnation/rose out of napkins, it was so cute!

crazy art and more!

first of all, let me just say I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to write and update you on everything that's been going on. The course is winding down now and we're just a few days away from all going our own directions. This has definately been a whirlwind of an experience and I look back to the first day I got here. I have definately come a long way, and I can honestly say that I will be sad to leave. I know that another journey is right around the corner though, and this time I am armed with knowledge. I may pass on some of my new found knowledge but not til later. (so you have to keep reading the boring stuff to find out!!) HA! :P wait a sec...boring?! I'm never boring!! :P Anyway, let me fill you in on the latest. After feria it was back to the old wind and grind. Lessons to teach, things to learn, papers to write until 4:30 in the morning and coffee to buy at 9 in the morning. The usual. But this last weekend/week has been quite refreshing. Casto invited my roomies and i and another mate Hairy Josh from the course (he's brittish, hence "mate") to his house to cook with him (because I've been begging him to teach me how to make a Potato Omelette a.k.a. tortilla de patata) anyway, it was so much fun! We ended up being goofs and playing silly games and truth or dare half the night. Then the other day Hairy Josh and I went to check out this art museum in an old monestary and you will never guess what one of the exhibits was! Cadillac Ranch in Texas! It even features that foto in the brochure! Anyway that was pretty cool. Over-all the experience was a bit disturbing 'cuz when we first walked in the lady working there held up a piece of paper with writing in English and said "is okay"? the paper said basically that the exhibit had graphic content and to be aware before entering. I thought it was strange, and come on, we're in Spain.. nothing is too graphic in spain. Or so I thought when I figured the paintings must be sexually explicit. Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw....

feria, continued

So we were sat at feria with casto's brother and his friends, and before you know it, all this food kept getting put on the table. I mean amazing delicious food! One tray after the next! And all of casto's aunts kept coming by to check on us to make sure we didn't need any more food/drink. They brought us this drink called rebujito. Which is a particular type of white wine that is kinda strong, but then mixed with sprite to water it down. To tell you the truth i didn't like it a whole lot, but when in rome. It was a new experience and it was an amazing night. After filling our bellies with loads of food, we went to find another of casto's aunts casetas. We wondered around for quite some time and finally after one of casto's brothers friends bought all of the ladies little roses (they were plastic/fabric) then we finally settle down in one of the caseta's with lots of music. They actually had a live band and we danced and goofed off and it was so much fun!! I also learned a trick to dancing flamenco... pick the apple, put it in your pocket... or screw in the light bulb, squash the bug. HA! anyways, great fun!! Then when it was time to walk home we stopped at the "sweets tent" and got candy apples and carmelized nuts! Best candy apple I've ever eaten!!! It was one of the best nights in Sevilla EVER!!!

Feria de abril! (feria de abRA!!! :P )

I'm positive i wont be able to finish writing all of this right now, but I'll give it a shot... and i'll finish it up later. Anyway, Feria was absolutely awesome... i loved it so much!! the first couple days it was raining really hard, and when i went to the first night with a big group from my school, it was a pretty frustrating experience. It rained and everyone got soaked, and to make matters worse, as soon as we got there two people got their purses stolen!! and one of them was my roommate!!! i actually didn't know what had happened until after she had left for the police station. but when we found out many of us decided to turn around and head home. For the next couple of days it rained pretty hard and although casto kept inviting to go with him, I just couldn't convince myself that it would be worth it. Finally on Friday the weather cleared up a bit, and I decided to give the feria another shot. This time I went with Casto instead of other students. Charlotte (a friend from the golf team at bsu from canada) was also in town for the week, so casto, Charlotte, and I all went to the feria together with casto's family. The feria is basically a fair, with tons of tents all set up right next to each other that families can basically buy the space. The family then hires someone to cook, sets up tables for their close friends or family, and and eats and drinks the night away. These tents are called casetas and there are hundreds of them. They are all numbered, and unless you know the number of your family's caseta, you will never find your tent!! some of them are mostly for dining, and some are centered around dancing... flamenco being the most common dance of the feria. All of the women dress up in these gorgeous traditional spanish dresses... probably typically flamenco style. Most of the dresses have polka dots as apparently polka dots is the high fashion of feria week!! Anyway, so when we got to casto's family's caseta, we were greeted by all of casto's aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends. Of course with the traditional spanish kisses!! (one on each cheek). The kissing is fine with your close friends, but a little awkward as a form of meeting someone for the first time. I'm getting used to it though. Then we were all ushered to the back where the kitchen was and sat at a table with casto's brother who normally lives in madrid, and some friends that came to sevilla with him for the week. to be continued...

Auntie ABBY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to be an aunt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sooooooooo excited!!!!!! i hope i didn't ruin the surprise for anyone... but oh well... DAWN AND DEVIN ARE GONNA HAVE A BABY!!!!!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!!!!!!! congratulations guys!!! that just about made my day on friday! i found out just after i left my other post... so that night everyone here celebrated the news! :) then saturday morning casto drove me and emma and lindsay (my roomies) to his beach house and we hung out at the beach saturday and sunday and drove back sunday evening. turns out his beach house is only 18km from portugal..but none of us brought our passports.. so next time we'll have to make a detour! Poor emma is burnt to a crisp... BRIGHT red! poor girl. Lindsay put on sunscreen and only got a bit golden-er. haha more golden. me... my usual, i got burnt on my face and chest and i'm still completely white everywhere else! i don't know why that always happens!! but that ALWAYS seems to happen... oh well. Tonight is monday and at midnight is the start of the feria de abril... so we're having some of the other "teachers" over for dinner, and then we'll head over for the festivities. i'm not sure if we'll see much though, cuz i've heard that the first night is pretty exclusive... oh well, we'll give it a go. Tomorrow i think we're heading off to granada another town a little ways away from sevilla, aparently it's beautiful. So we'll be there tuesday through thursday, and then enjoy the rest of the week of feria until we start class again. Not sure when the next time i'll be able to update this will be...so in the meantime...take care! miss ya'll!! and love ya!!!!!!!! :) k, byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

oh... PS... there was a comment from someone named tyler on the last post... um... i'm not sure who that was cuz it was in pura espanol... so if that was tj let me know! cool. that really threw me off...hahaha k, bye!!!!!!!

LAST DAY BEFORE BREAK!!!!!

Oh man, some crazy stuff has been happening here!!! So I've been doing okay with my teaching... not as good as i could be doing but with running on such a lack of sleep i don't think it's been so bad. Why the lack of sleep you ask??? Well... first of all we have like a billion things to do every night and NO time to do it!! Second of all, even if we are diligient and stay after school trying to work hard making copies and printing documents from the computer, there are several other people with the same idea so it's basically like a huge cluster fuck trying to get to the copy machine. Not only that but then you're got some crazies breaking the printer, so we've learned to improvise very well. To make matters MUCH worse, for some reason our bathroom keeps FLOODING!!! at first we thought it was a problem with the toilet... but now we've turned the water off that goes to the toilet, and we discovered that even if we use the sink, or take a shower... ten minutes later our bathroom is under an inch of water. Poor Emma's room is right across from the bathroom so the water runs right into her room as well. Luckily we have tile flooring so it definately could be worse. But this morning was the 6th time our bathroom flooded this week!! and the 3rd time in 24 hours. Last night around 11pm it flooded. We mopped it up. The landlady came out for the second time this week to very casually (as is the spanish way) dismissed the problem and said she would TRY to get a plumber... but it would be difficult as today is Friday, and it is hard to find a plumber on Friday, and then there is the weekend, and then feria week, and then another weekend. Then at 3:30am it flooded again. We mopped it up. This morning at 8:30am. this morning we had had enough, and were running late to class so we just left the house with an inch of water covering the floor. Hopefully they will fix the problem (although i have a feeling it is something with the pipes and may be difficult to repair) or we can be moved to a different apartment. Which is also hard to do during feria. So why am i so tired?? yeah. so anyway, despite that it's been really fun! All the people I've met are really cool, and my roomies are the best! It's nice because we all can ask each other advice and we're all cool about helping each other out. and a second point of view is always helpful! All of our students are so nice and fun to teach... so I'm loving the teaching aspect of the course. The observation side.. not so much. but it's a learning experience and i'm sure i'll have to be observed some time in the future, so now i wont be so nervous for that. anyways, it's really hard to think about what i'm writing right now cuz there are a bunch o people talking behind me. so i guess i'll go... k love ya, byeeeeeeeeeee!!

Sleepy in Seville

So been in classes for about a week now, and it feels like it's been a month. I guess that's good because it means that i have learned a lot. I realized that all of my spanish classes have been crap, and i've learned much better ways of teaching a language and i feel like going and telling all my spanish teachers what they should be doing more of. We have been in class every day on the average from 9:30am to 5:30 or 6pm, but then we have lesson planning to do which means we stay at the school until 8 or 9 at night and then go home and work for another couple of hours. then arrive at the school early the next morning for last minute touch ups before we teach at around 8:45am. so basically we have no lives except for teaching. point is... i would tell you about what sevilla is like but i don´t have a clue. there are lots of orange trees. That´s about all i know.

too tired...

i'm so tired, i can't even think... i'll just write tomorrow

CLIC... The first few days

well i don´t have much time to write, but i would like to update everyone on how everything is going. I had a rough couple of days, but once i got settled in to my apartment I started feeling much better about everything! I absolutely love my roommates!! I really lucked out!! One of them is a girl from Denver who is trying to learn Spanish as well, and the other is girl from the south of England... I´m not sure why you say it that way ¨the south of England¨ instead of southern England, but that´s what she says, and it´s much cooler that way isn´t it. It´s so cool because both of the girls are absolute sweethearts, but really cool and fun as well. And they are both as motivated on the course as I am, so that´s nice. We all seem to have similar personalities as well. For example, we all picked our favorite three people in the class last night while we ate our home-cooked pasta dinner, and then compared... we all agreed with each others answers and we even had some of the same choices even though we are all in seperate groups, and are around different people. My group ROCKS by the way! I really lucked out!!! I like everyone in my group, whereas both of my roomies have someone in their group that they just don´t quite ¨get on with¨ (get along with). I have a guy from England somewhere, haha, a guy from Belgum, (don´t know how to sp that) and a woman from california. Both of the guys are just at my age and very sweet, and the lady is a little older, but very nice to chat with. I´ve started saying expressions that i would never have imagined using back in the US because of being around so many Brits. All of our teachers are from englands, along with several of my classmates. We change the groups we teach throughout the course, but my group of teaching peers remains the same throughout. We got lucky and got to start with the upper intermediate students so they have a little more advanced english skills. Sometimes they ask difficult questions that you don´t expect and don´t quite know how to answer. But all in all, it is a good group and fun to teach. The very first student I spoke with was a girl from PERU of all places. I was like, pardon me???? you´re from where?????? she said, PERU; LIMA, PERU. go figure. In fact there are only two foreigners (and by foreign i mean from outside of spain) one man from Romania, and the girl from peru. All of the others are from sevilla. Well, I have to get back to class, but the nice thing is that because it is Spain, everyone is really chill and they us use the internet for email and things. So I will get to post fairly often. Miss you all tons!! and I will update again soon!! love ya, byeeeeeeeeeee!!


in case i forget, pass: 8674

two days and counting...

Oh my gosh, I only have like two days before I leave for Spain, and I'm FREAKING out!!! I'm not even close to packed yet... actually not even close to started to pack yet!! ha! I'm almost done with the pre-task workbook they sent me, but I still feel so unprepared!! There's still so much I need to do before I leave. And I'm definately not ready to say good-bye to Mika yet!! :( Oh well, before I know it I'll be on my way, and if I forget something well then, I guess I just forget it. I'm just so anxious about the trip that I can't sleep!! Let's get this show on the road already!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!! XD (<--Spanish smiley face)

Getting ready for the big trip!

Well guys, it's true... I moved back home, and now i'm off again! I leave on March 20th, 2008 and arrive in Sevilla, Spain the next day, taking the first steps of the rest of my life. I've decided to get my certification to teach english as a foreign language. After certification, I may look for a job in Sevilla, however I will most likely look for work in South or Central America. I would love to teach under-priveledged kids and adults a skill that may help them get more opportunities out of life. Even for those who aren't necessarily "under-privelaged," I would love to help anyone achieve the education level they desire. For many people, learning English is as important a step in life as learning Spanish has become to me. In fact it may be even more important as some people are required to learn English to get ahead in their job, move to an English speaking country, acheive their citizenship in an English speaking country, or even go to college in an English speaking country. Education is very important in life, but as we all know, is not always very easy! Hopefully I can play a part in this to help better someone's life circumstances, and most importantly give something back for this wonderful life I was given. I have been truly blessed in my life, and I feel that none of this would have been possible without the grace of God, and my AMAZING family that supports all of my crazy dreams!! So, Thanks! And thanks to all of my friends who have been there to laugh with me at my inability to graduate from college! HA! I'm counting on all of your support to help me graduate from CELTA! And one of these days I'll walk that line! One step at a time!! As my dad once told me when it seemed impossible to even move, "just keep putting one foot in front of the other." So here I am, placing my big toe on the sands of Sevilla, one foot and then the other until I've reached where I was meant to be!