bite the bullet

Last Friday I made the journey into Chicago to visit the Ecuadorian Consulate and apply for my visa. After the difficulties encountered in just scheduling this appointment, I was a little apprehensive about this whole process, especially the potential language barrier. I had prepared what I thought I would need to say in Spanish, but I was still nervous. I arrived in time for my appointment to find a very small room with two glass windows. I spoke to the lady in the window marked Visas Poderes and started passing my paperwork through the window. First of all, language was a small problem. I was so nervous that I didn't attempt the Spanish, and the lady did not speak much English. Then, I had the wrong application, so I had to fill out a new one. Next, the lady points to the list of required documents and tells me I need a copy of my passport and a copy of my airline ticket. I tried to explain rather foolishly in English that I didn't live here and didn't have it with me. She tried to give me directions of where to go to print it out. So, after a panicked walk around downtown Chicago, I found a Kinko's and was able to print out my ticket and make a copy of my passport. I gave myself a pep talk on the walk back to the consulate and decided that I would finish this in Spanish. In the end, everything worked out, and I now have a lovely visa stamp in my passport. I realized that I'm not going to feel comfortable speaking Spanish for awhile, but that I just need to do it. It will be more respectful to at least make an attempt, and it's the only way that I'm going to learn.

pardon me while I gush

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with Ecuador.

I was so excited to open my new issue of InStyle today and shrieked when I came across the article At Home with Josh Groban. In my family, we commonly refer to Josh Groban as "my future husband," so I was ecstatic to get a glimpse of his inner sanctum.


Okay, so that sounds slightly stalker-ish; it's just my inner schoolgirl talking!

two months and counting...

In two months (!) I will be waking up in Quito and starting a new chapter! I am so excited to get there and see what life has in store for me on this new adventure.

sort-o-matic

As I mentioned earlier, I am currently sorting through my clothing, trying to decide what to do with it all. I have three piles: Take, Sell, and Toss (aka give to Goodwill.) I cannot believe all of the stuff I have held onto for the last several years. I still have clothes from high school, and other clothes that I have not worn in years. Why did I ever think I needed all of this? I now believe what they say is true: you do wear 20% of your clothing 80% of the time.

Here are my three piles:

This looks all very neat and orderly, but let me assure you--it isn't. Here is another tub of items for my sale:

And I cannot even bring myself to post a picture of my bedroom--there are clothes everywhere. It looks like I'm sleeping in my closet. So the sorting continues...

poor baby

My little dear was so tired tonight that he fell asleep in this very uncomfortable-looking position:I guess it's whatever floats your boat!

no habla espanol/ingles

Today's task was to call the Ecuadorian consulate in Chicago to set up an appointment for my visa. The phone call went something like this:

Male voice: Hola.
Me: Hello?
Male voice: ahh uno momento...
Female voice: Hello.
Me: Hi, I will be traveling to Ecuador this fall and I need a cultural exchange visa. Do I need an appointment, or should I just come to the consulate?
Female voice: Yes es necesito to make an appointment. When you come?
Me: Next Friday the 20th.
Female voice: This week?
Me: No, next week.
Female voice: Okay 9:00 next Friday.

So I did not get the chance to ask the fifty million questions I had about what I needed to bring, including the very important question about whether or not I need to have Tobey's paperwork from the vet with me. This was a good lesson for me to learn--I need to be more prepared for the language barrier. It also reminds me that my Spanish is going to be just as elementary, and I need to be patient now because I will be hoping for the same patience in a few months. I will definitely be prepared to speak with them in Spanish next Friday--time to do some translating!

I am starting the Grand Sorting of Clothing today. I will try to post some photos of the ridiculousness soon.

spitalian

So I'm trying to brush up on my Spanish--most people in Ecuador do not speak English. I'll be teaching in English (thank goodness) but when I'm out and about in the city, it will pretty much be all en Espanol. I had four years of Spanish in high school that is slowly making its way to the front of my brain, and I'm pretty good at picking up languages, but I'm having a small problem. First, a little background: last summer, in preparation for my European adventure, I spent a lot of time working on my Italian. Spanish and Italian are closely-related languages--they have similar sounds, and some of the words are very much alike (example: esta and questa.) Therefore, my brain sometimes gets confused, and I end up speaking what I like to call Spitalian. I start out in Spanish, and inevitably throw in a word or two of Italian. or sometimes French, but that's another story. You see, I've have enough of three languages to not be close to fluent in any one of them, but I remember enough from all three to form a complete sentence or two. Whether or not that sentence is all in the same language is another matter. So for now, I am trying to forget the Italian and concentrate on Spanish.

what time is it (summertime)

yes, shameless reference to High School Musical 2. I teach middle school, folks.

I have been a little delinquent in posting this week. There was a lot happening, and I am just now starting to digest. (Why do I feel like I say this about every week?)

We finished up the school year last week--Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday--which was nice and happy and crazy and stressful. The last week of school is always super busy for me--I have two classrooms to wrap up and two schools to turn in paperwork for plus finals to administer and grade at the high school, and let's not forget commencement rehearsal and commencement itself the following Sunday. As if that isn't enough, this year I had to pack up and move out for good. This created much more work, naturally, as I usually am so tired by the end of the year that I will just shove things into dark corners and call it clean. Not the case this year. I finished packing up my middle school classroom and started throwing things out at the high school. My colleagues at the middle school had a nice send-off for me, and I felt happy with just a little sadness at leaving. Friday was a frustrating commencement rehearsal (as the band director said, We run productive rehearsals for a living; why won't they just let us take this over as well?) Anyway, commencement is over now and I am officially moved out of both schools. Yay!

I always feel that it takes me some time to process and recover from major happenings, i.e. quitting one job to take another. I have kept fairly busy the last couple of days, but tomorrow I am planning on having a crash on the couch all day long kind of day. I'm going to be lazy for a few days and then jump into the next phase of preparations.