I believe it's been a bit...
Seems as though I haven't blogged about dancing in a while so why not do so now?! I'm still into it full swing, pun intended, and am still loving every minute of it. My dad and I have actual dance shoes now and joined the swing club so I take that as meaning that we are hard core professionals now! Or not ;)
We have graduated from the beginning to intermediate classes although there are certainly some things that I have yet to master from the beginning class such as my poor frame. I just can't seem to keep good compression when I partner dance! That probably makes no sense unless you've partnered danced before! Regardless of my poor frame, our hearts are still in it and we at least feel like we do well :)
Last night pops and I went to a bar/restaurant out south for dinner, a few drinks and an introductory lesson to salsa! It was a blast! After the lesson, they open up the floor for whoever wants to dance! We really had a great time and I'm sure I'll return next week! Apparently, every Tuesday, they have an introductory lesson to all sorts of stuff (rumba, salsa, cha cha, two step, night club sway, blah blah blah) and then afterwards the west coasters show up and swing!
Not 100% sure I'm going to my normal lesson tonight though. I've either got a really slammin' (and not in the good way) case of allergies or I've got a cold. My head is filled with crap and I can't seem to hold my eyes open. Blah.
Even though it may be the weather making me feel like this, I can't ignore that it is FREAKING BEAUTIFUL outside this week! We have a FULL garden now and the mister has started working on renovating our deck which I am SO excited about! It really needs a facelift!
Also, Monday was my last day to teach this semester. It's always bittersweet it seems. I totally miss my students and being in front of the class but I also love the extra free time I have to do whatever! Now, I still have a stack full of projects to grade so I'm not out of the woods yet but I'm not lesson planning for a while! I start a summer course up on June 1st so it's just a little break really.
Sorry if any of this seems disjointed or discombobulated or whatever....my brain is struggling through all of the snot today. Nice image, eh?
OH! Also, I am thinking of making this blog private so if you're a reader I don't know about and would still like to read this, let me know so I can invite you to it!
Ta Ta! Bodaciously ;)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Baby Book Treasure Trove
So my parents have found many old momentos from all of our pasts that have been in storage for many a year. One such momento is my baby book! Now, I didn't start out as the cutest child in my opinion, but I blossomed into this supermodel you see today! Or something like that ;) Reading through my mom's notes in the book, I found some amusing little tidbits:
*She has a mole birthmark on her back (it's sort of like a freckle - flat)*
My note about that: That mole grew with me and became the most hideous looking thing a girl could have on her back, making me forever self-conscious about my back. At the age of 22, I had that sucker removed due to fears that it was a cancerous little devil. Fortunately, we later found out that it wasn't. Now I've a big scar on my back to replace the hairy, misshapened and large birthmark. I find it funny that it was once described as being like a freckle :)
*9 months - doesn't like to share*
I'd like to say that has changed but it hasn't ;)
*5 months - laughs and gets very excited over Bilbo our cat*
I still get excited about cats.
*first word - bye-bye & waves, cookie, daddy, kitty, hi*
All but cookie are still part of my daily vocabulary.
*first sentence - broken balloon*
I'd sure like to know what this means! I'm actually quite frightened by balloons to this day. I HATE popping balloons, almost as much as I hate the toy Jack-In-The-Box.
Special Aptitudes:
from 6 months on - loved to dance in some way or another
4 years - tries to break dance
How rad of a kid was I?!?! I totally laughed out loud when I read the break dancing part!
Of course there's all sorts of other goodies in there but I doubt you'd like to hear about my immunizations, dental development or when I crawled and walked so I will spare you ;)
*She has a mole birthmark on her back (it's sort of like a freckle - flat)*
My note about that: That mole grew with me and became the most hideous looking thing a girl could have on her back, making me forever self-conscious about my back. At the age of 22, I had that sucker removed due to fears that it was a cancerous little devil. Fortunately, we later found out that it wasn't. Now I've a big scar on my back to replace the hairy, misshapened and large birthmark. I find it funny that it was once described as being like a freckle :)
*9 months - doesn't like to share*
I'd like to say that has changed but it hasn't ;)
*5 months - laughs and gets very excited over Bilbo our cat*
I still get excited about cats.
*first word - bye-bye & waves, cookie, daddy, kitty, hi*
All but cookie are still part of my daily vocabulary.
*first sentence - broken balloon*
I'd sure like to know what this means! I'm actually quite frightened by balloons to this day. I HATE popping balloons, almost as much as I hate the toy Jack-In-The-Box.
Special Aptitudes:
from 6 months on - loved to dance in some way or another
4 years - tries to break dance
How rad of a kid was I?!?! I totally laughed out loud when I read the break dancing part!
Of course there's all sorts of other goodies in there but I doubt you'd like to hear about my immunizations, dental development or when I crawled and walked so I will spare you ;)
Friday, April 3, 2009
Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time I did a short stint as a student in Mexico; Tepotzlan, Mexico to be exact. Nearly ten years ago, I began my first real travel experience out of the country. I had never flown alone before and had certainly never been out of the country alone before. It was truly uncharted territory I was uncovering.
Tepotzlan is situated about 30 minutes from Cuerna Vaca and is technically not even large enough to be considered a town, but rather a municipality. Many spoke Spanish, of course, but many more spoke native languages indigenous to the region. I stuck out like a sore throbbing thumb, blonde and pale thing that I am, and had a terrible terrible time adjusting. I never realized that visiting a country so physically close to your own could cause such terrible culture shock. I nearly went home shortly into the visit. But I toughed it out and still remember this travel experience as one of the most important I've ever had.
The school. (that's not me in the picture but another gringa looking quite similiar to myself)
I've not kept in contact with anybody who studied there with me. I've no one to share memories with about the trip. Let me rephrase that. I've plenty of people to tell about this time but no one to talk about, remember this and remember that? It's the only trip I've no one to do those things with. I often dream about Tepotzlan where I'm back there walking the streets back to my house. I miss that place more than I realize sometimes.
About ten years before I arrived in the village, the locals uncovered a pyramid atop the mountains that surround the town. In the picture above, you can see it in the mid left region of the photo at the top of the mountain. They built a very crude hiking trail to the top which takes about an hour or so to hike, depending on the number of people ahead of you. We went on the 'free' day, thus our hike took a couple of hours as there were SO many people with the same Sunday afternoon plan. Once atop the pyramid, we sat on it, and stared down at the village we had called home for 5 weeks. We left Mexico the following day.
My time in Tepotzlan taught me more about myself than I thought possible in one trip. I learned that I can do it. And by it, I mean anything. And I can do it all alone. And in many instances I have. And I can do it again. I learned what it felt like to be the minority. I know what it feels like to be stared at unrelentlessly because of the color of your skin. I know what it's like to be so frustrated with not being able to communicate your point because of a language barrier. I feel like this trip, among others, taught me lessons that would eventually serve me in being the best teacher I can be; it taught me to put myself back in the student's position as someone who is not a master of the culture's language, who is trying to figure out cultural norms and who is trying to figure out themselves.
I've been wanting to blog about my travels for a while now. I call myself Worldygirly yet I've seen a mere 10% or so of the world. I feel like the title I've bestowed upon myself though goes much deeper than how much I've traveled or how much I've seen. I feel like it also includes being sensitive to those that share the world with us or having the willingness to yearn to learn about other lands. Through conversations with my students, I feel like I step a foot into other worlds every day. Teaching ESL gives me more than a paycheck, more than the satisfaction of helping someone learn, but it also fulfills this insatiable desire to learn more about the world through the amazing and diverse people who fill it.
I plan to write more on Tepotzlan and the adventures that surrounding that experience. I also plan to talk about other travel experiences I've had over the years. If blogging had been around during all of these trips, I probably would have blogged about them then. Too bad for you blogging wasn't as grand as it is now which means you get all of my past travels now. I'm going to wrap them up with a pretty bow for you. Consider yourself gifted. By me ;)
Tepotzlan is situated about 30 minutes from Cuerna Vaca and is technically not even large enough to be considered a town, but rather a municipality. Many spoke Spanish, of course, but many more spoke native languages indigenous to the region. I stuck out like a sore throbbing thumb, blonde and pale thing that I am, and had a terrible terrible time adjusting. I never realized that visiting a country so physically close to your own could cause such terrible culture shock. I nearly went home shortly into the visit. But I toughed it out and still remember this travel experience as one of the most important I've ever had.
The school. (that's not me in the picture but another gringa looking quite similiar to myself)
I've not kept in contact with anybody who studied there with me. I've no one to share memories with about the trip. Let me rephrase that. I've plenty of people to tell about this time but no one to talk about, remember this and remember that? It's the only trip I've no one to do those things with. I often dream about Tepotzlan where I'm back there walking the streets back to my house. I miss that place more than I realize sometimes. 
About ten years before I arrived in the village, the locals uncovered a pyramid atop the mountains that surround the town. In the picture above, you can see it in the mid left region of the photo at the top of the mountain. They built a very crude hiking trail to the top which takes about an hour or so to hike, depending on the number of people ahead of you. We went on the 'free' day, thus our hike took a couple of hours as there were SO many people with the same Sunday afternoon plan. Once atop the pyramid, we sat on it, and stared down at the village we had called home for 5 weeks. We left Mexico the following day.
My time in Tepotzlan taught me more about myself than I thought possible in one trip. I learned that I can do it. And by it, I mean anything. And I can do it all alone. And in many instances I have. And I can do it again. I learned what it felt like to be the minority. I know what it feels like to be stared at unrelentlessly because of the color of your skin. I know what it's like to be so frustrated with not being able to communicate your point because of a language barrier. I feel like this trip, among others, taught me lessons that would eventually serve me in being the best teacher I can be; it taught me to put myself back in the student's position as someone who is not a master of the culture's language, who is trying to figure out cultural norms and who is trying to figure out themselves.
I've been wanting to blog about my travels for a while now. I call myself Worldygirly yet I've seen a mere 10% or so of the world. I feel like the title I've bestowed upon myself though goes much deeper than how much I've traveled or how much I've seen. I feel like it also includes being sensitive to those that share the world with us or having the willingness to yearn to learn about other lands. Through conversations with my students, I feel like I step a foot into other worlds every day. Teaching ESL gives me more than a paycheck, more than the satisfaction of helping someone learn, but it also fulfills this insatiable desire to learn more about the world through the amazing and diverse people who fill it.
I plan to write more on Tepotzlan and the adventures that surrounding that experience. I also plan to talk about other travel experiences I've had over the years. If blogging had been around during all of these trips, I probably would have blogged about them then. Too bad for you blogging wasn't as grand as it is now which means you get all of my past travels now. I'm going to wrap them up with a pretty bow for you. Consider yourself gifted. By me ;)
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