being back...

what i miss...
plantains
la idioma! espanol
nature, the outdoors- walking, swimming
not needing a car to get around
the heat and humidity
new friends
reading
not having a television or cell-phone

what i enjoy about being back in the states
flushing toilet paper. it clogs all the toilets in central america.
home-cooked pilipino food. i'm taking a break from rice and beans.
diverse foods
shopping
familia
my bed
tobey, mi gordo gato

y mis cosas favoritas (random)...
color: hunter/forest/emerald green
musica: rock y electronica
beck- saw him in concert. he's so funky, eclectic!
fiona apple- her lyrics...
rjd2- "hidden track" song. i have it on constant repeat. aqualung- i'm like a year behind. cursive- "the recluse"
drama songs- cure "pictures of you," beck "everybody's got to learn sometime," bill withers "ain't no sunshine"
makes me want to dance- kylie minogue "love at first sight," bjork "big time sensuality," guster "amsterdam," portabella "covered in punk"
please oh please get bep's "my humps" out of my head. novette was so right when she said that it would get stuck in my head. my humps, my humps, my lovely little lumps...

trying new things-
bikram yoga- half-naked people doing yoga in a 105 degree heated room. sweaty and intense. i am so sore!
cooking- learning more about vino. made yummy bruchetta that i've been eating for 3 days. i love french bread and pumpkin butter. dark chocolate bon bon's rock. all day, drinking lemon ginger tea by yogi... la dolce vita!

other happenings:
looking for a public healthish job ANYWHERE . please keep an eye out for me.
still doing real estate. showing new homes downtown and in the boonies. anyone know where hemet, california is? didn't think so. fyi-it's an up and coming retirement community.
-------------------

OH, FIONA...

"Parting Gift"
I opened my eyes
While you were kissing me once more than once
And you looked as sincere as a dog
Just as sincere as a dog does,
When it's the food on your lips with which it's in love

"Red Red Red"
I don't understand about complementary colors
And what they say
Side by side they both get bright
Together they both get gray

But he's been pretty much yellow
And I've been cryin' blue
But all I can see is
Red, red, red, red, red now
What am I to do

I don't understand about
Diamonds and why men buy them
What's so impressive about a diamond
Except the mining

And it's dangerous work
Trying to get to you too
And I think if I didn't have to
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill myself doing it
Maybe I might not glisten so much for you

I've been watching all the time
And I still can't find the track
And I wanna know is it okay
Is it just fine
Was it my fault
Is it my lack

I don't understand about
The weather outside
The harbinger to the words
That somebody lied

There's solace a bit for submitting
To the fitfully cryptically true
What's happened has happened
What's coming is already on its way
With a role for me to play

I don't understand
I'll never understand
But I'm trying to understand
There's nothing else I can do

dia de los muertos

for halloween this year i am a pirate! arrgghhh...

halloween es mi favorito dia de fiesta! me encanta halloween. the costumes, the candy, the little kids...

on saturday i went to a halloween party downtown. there were some really great costumes- rainbow bright, strawberry shortcake (i thought the costume was little miss muffett), bat girl (chessa). there was this group of guys dressed as a penis, vagina and sperm. they were hilarious- passing out condoms, pantyliners, and other appropriate items.

hoy, i am trick or treating with my little cousins. que divertido!

ya en san diego

san diego... it is so cold here! i think i'm coming down with a cold because of the huge climate change. i was sleeping with a fan every night because it was so hot and humid in mexico.

it's still sinking in that i'm in san diego... i think the ten weeks caught up with me. i'm so tired! and i'm jet-lagged so i get tired early at night.

so far in san diego, i showed a condo that i'm working on selling, i signed up to continue taking spanish classes twice a week! i start next tuesday.

i miss the language and traveling already, i'm kinda bummed to be back. the weather is so gloomy! but it's good to see my family an eat pilipino food.

habana vieja

cuba

fui a cuba! what an experience... i spent two days and one night in cuba and most of my time was dealing with immigration and at the airport. but despite all the drama, it was worth it. habana vieja was amazing. the music, the dance, the people, the architecture, the old cars... i'm so glad i went.

mi viaje was full of craziness... going out with a bang. i went to habana with two other spanish students. one of them did not get up in time and missed our flight, but the flight was full anyways. all cubana airlinea flights are overbooked and you will most likely not get on your flight. at the airport i ran into immigration problems. it seems that when i crossed the border from belice into chetumel, mexico they did not stamp my passport. without proof of when i arrived into mexico, i was basically screwed. i had no proof that i was not an illegal immigrant. to make a long story short, when the immigration official said "cerra la puerta or close the door" i knew what was going to happen. i had to pay off an immigration officer over $50 to leave mexico. thank goodness this happened early, when trying to enter cuba, instead of today when returning to the us.
after that experience, the cubana airlinea avion, (i forgot the word airplane! just now) was falling apart which was no big deal except that i read that they don't have the best flight record!

i thought all my immigration problems were over after bribing the mexican official, but i ran into problems in cuba as well. the friend i was with had absolutely no problems passing through the immigration check right before me. it took me an hour. and then more questions in customs, where again my friend did not get any questions. it was funny because at one point when they were finally starting to be cool with me, they had a good laugh passing around my passport to show all the officials. here i am- this obviously pilipina/asian, with an american passport, that says i was born in spain, i am speaking to them completely in spanish, and i am staying in cuba for only about 24 hours. 20 minutes was spent explaining why my classmate, nick, was not my boyfriend, whether he could understand the spanish we were speaking, and if i wanted a cubano boyfriend. depues, while in a taxi ride to the hotel our taxi driver crashes into the curb! will this drama ever end? no because when returning to mexico my flight was overbooked and i had to take another flight on another airline in order to get to cancun before my flight today. i had to take a flight to mexico city and fly back to cancun from mexico city. i spent over 14 hours at the airport/airplane! but i made it back in time for my flight today back to san diego. it was another 9 hours of traveling today.

cuba... i had dinner at this beautiful restaurant in this cathedral plaza. there was a cuban band playing, there was a wedding going on in the plaza. after i walked around taking in all the statues and buildings in habana vieja. visited the capitola building, basically a replica of the white house. drank pina coladas, mojitos, cuba libres... went to a dance, music joint... watched the stars and lighthouse from the embarcadero... slept for two hours to wake up and eat breakfast, return to old vieja for an hour to quickly see what i had just seen a few hours before, but during daylight. i went straight to the airport to spend most of my time waiting for my new flight and figuring out what type of cigars to buy at the airport.

cuba....

cuba hoy?

es mi ultima dia en mi escuela.

yo pruebo a ir a cuba hoy, pero tal vez si o no. vamos a ver. me gustaria voy a ir a cuba antes de perdiremos de fidel castro. vamos a ver....

ESTAR

ESTAR=to be (temporary)

presente- estoy, estas, esta, estamos, estan

preterito- estuve, estuviste, estuvo, estuvimos, estuvieron

imperfecto- estaba, estabas, estaba, estabamos, estaban

futuro- estaré, estarás, estará, estaremos, estarán

gerundio- estando

part. pasado- estado

¡muchos verbos uso son irregular!

....... la semana estaba muy dificil para mi. mi clase es bastante dificil. me gustaria cambiar mi clase para una clase mas facil pero yo tengo dos dias mas solamente.

hoy, me quise llorar porque yo tenía mucha fructracion. al contrario, me quise ir a la casa.
¡dos dias mas de la escuela! ayyyyyeee... yiii.... yiiii....

i´ve hit a wall with my spanish. my brain is shutting down. i´m in a class that i feel is too advanced for me. all the people in my class have been taking spanish classes in their respective countries and lived in latin america for an extended period of time. i feel like the slowest kid in my class. it feels sucky, but i know it´s good for me. i´m learning a lot and i can speak better, but i still have a hard time understanding almost everything people say. despacio, por favor! there are so many new words and verbs to memorize. it´s tough, for reals...

i have 3 hours of grammar a day and after i have two hours of conversation class. conversation class is tough. we read stories of mayan and mexican history way too advanced for me. after reading these stories we have to answer opinion type questions or create our own stories. i have a whole notebook full of new words.

por ejemplo hoy, yo escribe en mi cuaderno...

la hoguera- bonfire
las chozas- shacks
el ladrillo- brick
la receta- prescription
pecador-sinful
sacerdote-priest
caña- fishing pole

sabiduría- wisdom
sastrería-tailor
papiro- papyrus
forastero-outsider, stranger
forajido- fugative, outlaw

tirar, lanzar, arrojar, echar- to throw

despuestas alrededor, suministraban, abastecian, proveían, desempeñado, desarrollaron...

what? i´m really suppose to know all these words? because everyone else did! that´s not even a tenth of the words written today in my book of new words!

i´ve spoken only spanish pretty much the whole time i´ve been here. but today, i just want to stop talking. mi cabeza esta muy cansado. yo pienso sobre mis ultimos dias en mexico y me gustaria ir a la playa y cuba. no me gustaria estudiar y hacer mi tarea. pero yo tengo miedo que perderé mi español cuando yo regresaré a estados unidos. i don´t want to lose the spanish i´ve already learned and have worked hard to learn.

comicó- en clase, yo no pude recordar palabras en ingles y cuando hablaba con un estudiante nuevo en ingles mi ingles era muy malo. i talked english today with a new student and my ingles was broken and out of order. crazy beautiful that i was actually thinking in spanish first and translating into english. the other night i had a dream partly in spanish! ¡que bueno!

conjugacion

un verbo muy complicado y irregular es SER= to be (permanent).
es un verbo muy importante y usa mucho.

infinitivo- SER (to be)

presente- soy, eres, es, somos, son
(i am, you are...)

pretérito- fui, fuiste, fue, fuimos, fueron
(i was, you were) one moment in time

imperfecto de indicativo- era, eras, era, éramos, eran
( i was, you were for a period of time

futuro- será, serás, será, serémos, serán
( i will be, you will be)

gerundio- siendo (being)

participle pasado- sido (been)

there are like 10 other ways to conjugate each verb! hay como dies otro formas por cada verbo!

mi ultima semana!

yo no puedo creer esta es mi ultima semana en mexico...

el fin de semana estaba bastante. yo fui a chichen itza con mis campaneras de escuela. chichen itza tiene un piramid muy steep :) y me gusta el castillo porque es possible ir al adentro y subir el piramid. hay un parte se nombre viejo chitzen itza. un observatorio tiene arquitectura muy diferente que otro ruinas. las historias de maya son muy interesante. es comicó porque mucho no sabe que la maya vive todavia. mucho piense la maya son muerto. además me gusta un parte de las ruinas se nombre ¨un mil columnas¨. hay un mil columnas, tantas columnas....
y tambien, chitchen itza tiene el grande juego de pelota.

el sabado, yo fui a una discoteca, coco-bongo. yo fui con mi campanero de clase y con sus amigos. coco bongo era loca. hubo muchas personas. normalmente, la cuesta es cuarenta dolares, pero mi amigo conoce un hombre y nosotros pagamos veinte dolares solamente. tenía muchos shows todo el noche como acrobatas y imitadoros. tuve un show como spiderman, matrix, y imitadores como lenny kravitz, elvis, jlo y michael jackson...

el domingo, yo fui al parque se nombre xel-ha. es un reservacion de naturales. yo iba esnorkeling y tubing y nadando . vía muchos peses y tambien tezones y iguanas.

además, yo fui al cine por una pelicula de mexico. el titulo es ¨siete dias¨. todo la pelicula era en español. yo intendía un poco de la pelicula!

hasta pronto!

mas español

mi cabeza esta llena a nuevas palabras. Necesito recordar y aprender muchas verbos y sustantivos. yo estoy en la clase intermedio, pero esta muy dificil para mi. yo seinto como tonta porque los otros estudiantes tienen mas grande vocabulario que yo. escribía cada otro palabra porque no sabía muchas palabras y frases. y tambien buscaba las palabras en mis dicionarios. yo aprendía conjugacion en preterito, imperfecto, futuro y presente de indicativo, participle pasado y gerundios. pero es mas difícil cuando estoy hablando.

cancun es mejor que antigua porque yo podía practicar mas. los estudiantes en mi escuela y en mi casa son alaman o swisa. es muy interesante porque mas estudiantes hablan en alaman y no intiendo. yo hablía en espanol casi todo mi tiempo en cancun.

hoy, yo hice un leyendo. iba muy difícil porque no recordé un cuento. yo dije el cuento de goldilocks en español. ¡que difícil! tambien, hoy yo aprendé comparitivos y impersonal oracciones.

mi español era muy feo...

por el fin de semana, voy a ir a chichen itza y xel-ha y una discoteca`coco bongo'. coco bongo es una discoteca muy popular por las turistas. es muy cara - cuesta cincuenta dolares por entrada. pero un viajero dije ¨si su dinero ultimo, pagó por coco bongo.¨ el club tiene un show con acrobatas y actors. el fin de semana proximo, yo iré a cuba.

hasta en una semana!

my clothes are still at the cleaners!

i didn´t make it to cancun yet. there was a tropical storm today, but the real reason is because my clothes are still trapped at the cleaners. i was hoping to get them today as i hunted down a person who knows the owner and tried to go to their house yesterday to tell them i needed my clothes, but they were not home. i will miss my first day of classes, but hopefully i will have all of my clothes with me. which actually isn´t much considering i only have like 10 pieces of clothing.

i can´t wait to burn the clothes that i have been wearing for the last couple of months. actually its been nice to simplify and accept the fact that i look like a scrub, a real life backpacking scrubette. but it´s been tough lately in fantasy world, italian designer, posh playa del carmen.

what should i wear today? hmm... let me chose from my one skirt, one pair of shorts, or my orange or blue pants with one of my 3 tank tops. my tennis shoes or my flip flops? blue or green bandana? all of my underwear is the same- 6 pairs of black sweat wicking material. and one bra is all i need since all my tanks have built-in sports bras. and to make me look even cooler- i have one of those safari, fisherwoman khaki floppy hats! hilarious.

loredonna y roman

lights out in playa

the power goes on and off in playa porque la lluvia es muy fuerte. it has been raining all day. and i chose the one computer in this whole internet cafe that is on a regular power source so i lost everything. what i wrote...

partying at the hottest spot in playa called blue parrot. they had a light show and everything. i visited cozumel the other day for a few hours. it was alright. the tulum ruins were cool because they are right off the beach. i spent more time at la playa que las ruinas.

i wasn´t planning on spending a week in playa, but my italian friend loredonna has me set up in this sweet situation. i´ve had an apartment right next to hers, she works in the tourism industry so she has all the hook ups and knows all the right people. i´ve met so many italians and i´m learning more italiano then español. 13 percent of the people living in playa are italiano. they own everything.

i leave for cancun tomorrow. voy a salir en la mañana y voy a comenzar mi clase de español a lunes. i start classes on monday. unfortunately, i brought all of mi ropas clothes to la lavanderia hoy, the laundry place today. i was suppose to pick them up before they closed. i couldn´t get back in time y i thought i could pick them up tomorrow. they are closed tomorrow! i only have one pair of underwear, two tank tops, tons of bikinis and a few socks. i think that´s funny.

tulum y la playa