Mutt and Jeff

I've been waiting for Jules to send me this picture...and it just came in the mail. We have no shame. Love you Mutt! See you soon.

Lately...

What I've been up to when I haven't been at the academy working...

Scrapbooking


I always make scrapbooks of the trips we've taken. The only problem is that I get really far behind. Right now I'm working on a trip we took in 2005 to Italy, Austria and Germany. Yeah, I get really far behind. But lately I've been getting more creative with my scrapbooks thanks to Shabby Princess. She's got some great stuff on her website if you like making scrapbooks.


Editing Home Videos

It's tough work. Jose got me a video camera two Christmas' ago, and I'm just now starting to edit the videos. I've gotten pretty far behind in that too. (Do you see a trend here, people?). But I just finished our Portugal 2006 trip and even burned a cool cover design with my new Light Scribe DVD burner. I'd show you a clip of the final product but I already erased it from the computer because the files are huge.


Keynote Presentation


I have to teach a really important English class the first week of March and I'm preparing iWork Keynote presentations to use with the new projector we bought at the academy. Keynote is like PowerPoint on crack. It's great.


Drying clothes

Love the new dryer. It sounds silly but one of the things that I love the most about it is how it removes the lint and cat hair from our clothes. It's the little things that make me smile.

Reading

I alternate between reading books in Spanish and in English. I prefer English, but I know that I need to read in Spanish to improve my vocabulary. I just finished reading "The Road" in spanish, and now I'm reading "Neither here Nor there" by Bill Bryson in english. Funny, funny man.

San Valentin

Jose hates Valentines Day. I mean, he really loathes it. And I have to admit that I don't like it either. Living here in Santiago de Compostela there's not much marketing when it comes to holidays. The stores aren't dripping in honey and hearts and I don't think I've ever seen a Valentines day card in the stores. No Valentines candy either. So without all that "stuff" in the stores, the day just kind of slips by as any other day. You forget it exists. The only way you know it's Valentines Day is by the occasional florist shop with roses in the window. And to be honest...I don't like roses either.

Jose's never been to the US in February. I'd love to see his reaction to all the store windows.

It's kind of nice not having all that materialism thrown in your face here. You may think we're some sort of sick Valentines cynics, but we're not. I don't care that everyone else celebrates it...I just don't particularly care for it. For me it's a forced holiday. "Well damn, I guess I've got to say I love you today."

We didn't do anything special except for eat out for lunch...and that was mainly because I didn't have anything in the fridge :)

For all of you Valentine junkies out there...Happy Belated Valetines Day!

Paco pimping it Siamese style

How could you not fall in love with this thug? He's hardcore.

Strange Stories

I have this great excercise that I use in my English classes when we practice writing stories. We think of titles for different genres: adventure, mystery, romance, comedy, science fiction, etc. Everyone starts a different story, but they only write for five to ten minutes. Then they have to pass their story on to the next person who continues it. This goes on for awhile until the story is finished. Here are two of the most recent stories my students wrote...

In Another Dimension

James woke up in the middle of the night with sweat pouring down his face. He looked around and could see white walls covered with tiny little spiders. The bed that he was sitting on was invisible. "What is this? Where am I?" James was terribly frightened of spiders so he jumped up and ran to the door. The door knob was a slimey, octopus-looking thing with tentacles that moved all around. James began to talk to the octopus because it really looked friendly, and the octopus told him this, "James I'm the king of a small planet, the spiders are my soldiers. We come in the name of peace. That's why I'm smiling. We can change our appearance but I'm a lover of the sea and I've always wanted to be an octopus." The octopus became friends with James and James was very happy. But James didn't know what the octopus wanted. The octopus turned to James and said, "You are the new king of this very small planet."


The End

The Crazy Life of Bob

One day Bob went out very early because he had decided to take an excursion in the mountains. When he arrived, he saw a big bear and started to scream and go into a panic. The bear was very good with the people who arrived on the mountain. Bob thought and decided to run back, because he wanted to be the bear's friend. Three days later, Bob and Bear were good friends. From that day on, Bob didn't have it in for the bear anymore. Bob and the bear would spend hours on end skipping through the forest. They played hide and go seek, tic tac toe, and Bob even taught him how to play scrabble! The bear was really sweet and caught fish in the river for Bob to cook on the fire. But soon winter arrived and Bob got very cold. He suggested that he and the bear go back to his apartment in Lugo. The bear agreed. The people in the local pub thought the bear was great too. They gave him a T-shirt from the local football team and he even started to understand the rules of football. But bears sleep all during the winter and Lugo is a cold city. One day Bob and the bear were in the bar, both with their "Crazy Peña" football T-shirts on, when suddenly the bear fell down on the ground. Bob went into a state of panic and started to scream. His best friend was dead. He called the vet and was given good news. His friend was hibernating as bears do. And Bob returned to his normal life. Next spring his friend will return to his normal life too.

The End.

I love teaching.