President Elect

My culture class here in the Rica took me to congress last week, and we ended up being lucky enough to meet the president elect: Laura Chinchilla. It was soooo cool! We also got to see the congress buildings which was a plus.

rain on a tin roof

Rain sticks, I need to buy some when I get home because I'm going to miss the sound of rain on the tin roof while I take an afternoon nap. It reminds me of the house I lived in when I was a little girl, it had aluminum awnings that used to make the same noise when it rained...so nice especially with a breeze blowing my curtains

write that down...

When speaking of someone´s height here in the rica we don´t use the same hand gestures as in the U.S. Instead of using a flat hand to describe how tall someone is you make a lower case r instead. A flat hand is to describe the stature of an animal such as your pet rather than that of a human. Good to know.

Fluent

I might have a new definition for fluent:
Fluent: (in a language) not needing to take out the dictionary in order to function in a spanish speaking country

that is i...

give me the newspaper here and i am not as fluent as before :)

Birthday Parties

Yesterday was the celebration of my tica sister´s birthday, her name is Marcela and she is a fashionista. It was so much fun, the whole family got together and there were about twenty of us eating in the living room for lunch together. It reminded me of my early years when my grandparents would have the whole family at their house for celebrations. It reminded me of how important it is to have family, it is great to travel but I want to have a family of my own one day and have generations of them sitting in the living room eating lunch for someone´s birthday. This experience broadens my horizons each day, and reminds me of how important the view outside my front door is at the same time. What a beutiful experience.

¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí!
¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí!
¡Feliz cumpleaños a Marcela!
¡Feliz cumpleaños a tí!

Black Market

Today while walking down the streets of downtown San Jose I saw many vendors selling movies, CD's, jewelry, etc. from black sheets strawed out on sidewalks. They were a little flea market of sheets organized through the brick streets shouting out prices at people passing by. All of sudden they all started throwing their stuff back into bags, folding up their black sheets, some of them folding the sheets up with the items still on the sheet and running...I was so confused. At first there was confusion and then I was a bit frantic too. The faces of the people were so convincing of danger until my friend pointed out the policemen walking through the crowd. The black market is illegal and this small town girl had never seen anything like this before. I hate having to admit that Dayton isn't as big as I make it seem. Ugh

feeling guilty about the lack of blogs lately...

“Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise.”
-Harvey McKay

I am very busy! Will post blogs and photos soon!

IAN DON'T FORGET....

TO TELL ME THE MAURY STORY...

Elections of Costa Rica

Costa Rica has elected their first lady president: Laura Chinchilla. Today was an exciting day in Costa Rica, the pride for the election process of today was overwhelming. I have never been to Washington D.C. during the elections, but I can only imagine after today what it might be like during such an event. People line the streets with the colored flags symbolizing their presidential candidate of choice and cars honk at the ones they like as they go by. This has been happening for a week along with flags attached to cars and election rallies. Today was so different people filled the streets last night and today and it was a big flag "showdown". The showdown was a competition to see how many flags of a certain candidate could fill a street=SO MUCH FUN! My host family took me to see the voting polls which was like a family affair. It was a huge event to get dressed and go to the election, unlike at home where the soccer mom's pencil in 5 mins to stop at the local school or library to cast their ballot. It was so neat here to see the different process...I have mixed views on the candidates and their positions for the country, but I am not from this country so I don't have a lot to say. My family took me all over the city today to see the events which I am greatly thankful for. We also had lunch at KFC today ;) Not much different from the US except the cole slaw is sooo much better (less runny) I ended the night with watching the colts lose the superbowl in an Irish pub called Stan's with many of my Unitedstasian friends. The bar had a guy play acoustic covers right after the game ended...he was the bomb. Sounds a bit like Roger Waters, but plays all kinds of stuff. He was a student here 17 years ago from Canada and he never left-he now has a wife, kids, and a great accent. What a great day.

Strange Event

I met a gentleman today who attended Wilmington University in Ohio and now teaches at Veritas...he is very interesting. I was sitting enjoying my hamburger from the hamburger stand in the sun with two friends when a man cam up and chatted about the upcoming presidential "elections" (i will soon figure out why they call it the elections (plural) rather than election?) and I jumped right in the conversation as I usually do...and we talked about that and moved on to other current world events..we then soon came upon a similarity in our lives. GOOD ole' Dayton, O-H..I-O. Breath of fresh air...he went to Wilmington U and back in the day played soccer for the "Dayton Kickers" which i didn't know still existed (or ever existed for that matter-oops)

He teaches the development of Costa Rica and an econ class here...I'm going to just go and watch on monday's he's a talker like me-can't wait.

His name is MILTON hehe, he's traveled the world, he likes to make students think...

He was sad to hear about 1. Antioch College :( 2. General Motors...he's a bit scared for us Daytonian's, my reply: they survived the damn depression, they'll survive today, tomorrow, and the next

I might have a new definition for fluent:

Fluent: (in a language) not needing to take out the dictionary in order to function in a spanish speaking country

that is i...

give me the newspaper here and i am not as fluent as before :)

Someone asked me if I was fluent in Spanish today...

am i fluent in spanish?

what is fluent?

the dictionary says a bunch of stuff about flowing and moving with grace..they give examples of walking (which I don't do well all the time) and they give examples about language (which who knows if I really do well all the time)

HERE WAS MY ANSWER TO THEIR QUESTION:

WELL...enough to watch a movie by Disney once and then want to watch it a second time to enjoy it even more...i am taking phonetics and phonology here took advanced grammar here and now ive moved on to electives like culture and conversation in spanish...so, what is fluent anyhow? define it...someone? the definition doesn't do justice for me, because im having conflicting thoughts on the word "fluent" these days...lol

BLOG MORE

I really love to blog, and yet I do not do it enough...I like to watch television in Spanish at night and I like to do my homework in Spanish, and I like to speak in Spanish and none of that involves blogging...I wish that I could telepathacally send my favorite memories to my computer so it could log it into my blog...but you see, then it wouldn't be blogging it would be logging, the fad "blogging" hasn't lived enough life for us to move onto the next fad of "logging", will someone please starting working on this invention? note to self: call a parapsychologist to advise them to begin work on logging invention: my list of things to "do" and "live" just keeps getting longer and longer I cannot possible invent a telepathic device at this time.

Skating and all...

Facebook status of the night

was supposed to meet people at the school to go skating, my host brother dropped me off at the rink instead so i wouldnt have to pay for a taxi from school to the rink. great on the wallet, but kind of a dumb idea=no one showed up!-i was the only gringa in the place- met lots of ticos, had a great time skating, was befriended by lots of little kids (mostly because i looked funny by myself, not to mention i look funny anyway) dont know what happened to everyone else but i had a great time,also, costa ricans skate like my mother (dance skating) it was so much fun to skate and dance and not be looked at funny like back in the states (my mother was born in the right era, but i think she was born in the wrong country) i saw lots of my mom tonight it tica ladies getting down lol

also note to self: i could own a skating rink and really enjoy it (could i teach and do it at the same time is the question) i think i would be an awesome skating rink owner because ive been to one in costa rica and a million in the states...i am creative, i have many ideas for it after tonight...i would make it so hip...i love to skate...i love music....and i think i could intrigue and persuade others to enjoy this as well...hmm??? there is so much to do and so little time to do it...i need to have more than just a list of things to "do" i need like a list of things to "live" :) I hope this note goes into my brain because I enjoyed it so much...