Pardon the non-progress...

I know that I have not updated much lately. School is slowly drawing to a close (THANK GOD) and I have been busy grading papers, entering grades, updating finals, making final study sheets and many other things. As soon as things calm down and I regain my sanity I will be able to write more.

Finally!!!!

After four months I finally have my Spanish passport. Back in January, Karen and I went to sign the paper work for it on the same day so you would have thought that we would receive it on the same day. Nope-didn't happen. Karen got hers toward the end of March. My mom called the consulate in Miami to see why I hadn't received mine and they said that they had not received my paper work. They were wanting me to pay more money and take another passport picture. My mom explained to them how my sister and I had gone on the same day and that maybe my paper work was in her file. They said that there was no way that that could have happened. She told them to check anyways. Guess what-it was in my sister's file. Then when they sent me some paperwork I noticed that they misspelled my last name. Luckily, my mom was able to get them to correct it before they sent the paperwork that they had in Miami to Spain.

So yesterday I went to the post office to pick up the passport. I couldn't wait to get in my car an tear the envelope to look at it. It was so exciting. I know that I'm a little too excited about finally getting the passport, but to me it represents the four years that I have spent trying to get my double citizenship. I now know that it is all over and I am officially a Spaniard in addition to being American.

¡Olé!

I feel like I spent the weekend in Spain! My family and I went to to a "quedada" this weekend for Spaniards. A "quedada" is a get together. The Association of Spain from Florida and the one from Georgia got together at Altamaha State Park in Reidsville this weekend. It was a lot of fun!

My parents, my sister Karen and I all rode together to Alatamaha on Saturday morning. It was an interesting ride. My family is crazy-a fun kind of crazy. Karen drove her brand spanking new Toyota Rav 4 (which I'm going to steal, by the way). I think that my dad might have been driving her a little insane with the "you are going over the speed limit" comments. Then my mom was being totally obnoxious. She was hilarious and very loud. After a while I had to take a Tylenol because of all the noise. All the craziness was giving me a headache.

When we got to the park we found my aunt and uncle's RV. It was set up nicely with the Spanish flag. We met up with my aunt and then helped the rest of the Spanish ladies fix some of the food. I mostly peeled shrimp. After a while my aunt wasn't feeling well, so we all went back to the RV. We ate some barbecue sandwiches and some bagel chips. This was the beginning of me eating horribly this weekend.

The rest of the day consisted of eating food and drinking Sangria. There was all sorts of Spanish food-paella (yum), fried sardines (yum), Spanish tortilla (yum yum) and queso manchego (yum yum yum). There was even dessert! I had a madalena (kind of like a muffin) and something that resembled ice cream. My mom brought me more dessert and I had to tell her to take it away because I was full.

Karen and I even met some people our age. They were very nice. They were part of a program where they some to the United States to teach. Two of them had been here for three years and are going back at the end of June. Another one of them has been here for 9 months and will be staying for another two years. It was really cool to meet them.

Saturday night was more talking and more eating. I went to sleep earlier than my family and woke up later than them. I slept like a log. I slept so well that I was having a hard time waking up.

On Sunday we packed up and went home. The ride home was a lot of fun. I had a great time spending the weekend with my family.

The rest of the day a did a little yard work (mostly cutting grass). This week I'll be watching what I eat. I need to try and squeeze a little exercising in too.

Busy times...

This part of the year gets pretty busy for me. School is just about over (18 more days) and it seems like everything is getting thrown at myself and other teachers.

First off we had End of Course Tests last week. There is no EOCT in Spanish, but I did have to be an examiner for some two tests. Due to the EOCT, I was not able to teach very much last week. Luckily, I have managed to stay up to date on where I need to be in the textbook.

I had to help administer an AP test. I mostly had to help out with the technology aspect of the test (we have a hi tech language lab)-playing the listening section and recording the students when they get to the speaking section. I'm the only one in my department that has recorded students in the past, so I was asked to help out. Because of the AP testing, I missed my Spanish 1 classes today. They will not be very happy to see me tomorrow because I left them with a lot of translating (hehe). I had a vocabulary quiz planned for Spanish 2, but I have not had a chance to make it. Then I was going to give them a cultural lesson today. I'm was excited about it. They were going to watch a video on Gaudi and then they were going to have fun with arts and crafts. I was going to have them make mosaics out of construction paper. Well, the testing will ran into 4th period, so they had watch a video on bullfighting. That ended up being the plan for the rest of the day. With having to record everything on 10 separate discs, I didn't get to my class until the middle of 6th period. Let me tell you, today was a totally hectic day!

In the next few weeks I have to make sure that I cover what ever else is left. I need to try to leave at least two days for reviewing before finals. Speaking of finals, I still need to make my finals. That is always a fun task. This year I'm going to stay on top of things and finish mine early.

I am so looking forward for the end of school. I'll miss the students (believe it or not), but I will be so happy to take a break!

How I Spent My Weekend

This weekend was pretty much uneventful. I was going to go riding on Saturday, but my hair appointment took a little longer than I had hoped. My hair looks nice though! :)

I did mangage to get on the trainer for about 10 minutes. That's about all that I can do at the moment. My goal for next time is to stay on for 15 minutes. Little by little I'm going to increase the time.

Saturday night I went to La Cabana with my parents and my sister Karen to eat Mexican food. My other sister Erika works there, so in a way the whole family was there. I enjoyed spending time with them.

I got to spend some more time with my parents on Sunday. After church we went to Middle Georgia College in Cochran to see Erika's last recital there. She thinks that she did not do so well, but I think that she was fabulous. Afterwards, the parents and I drove back to Warner Robins and ate dinner. We had some Captain D's. I only had one piece of fish, one hush puppie, two pieces of shrimp and some cole slaw. I tried to be careful since the food was fried, but then I ate a little more of the french fried than I should have. I finally asked my parents if I could move the box AWAY from me. Luckily when I weighed myself the next day I was not gained anything (thank goodness).

I pretty much had a great weekend. I got to spend it with my family.

Loosing it

The title of this blog makes it seem like I am losing my mind. On the contrary-my mind is in great shape. What I am losing is weight. At the beginning of the year I was doing great and had lost about 10 pounds. I was so happy because I even went down a dress size. Something happened on Easter Weekend-I gained a few pounds. That weekend was horrible. I didn't really have much to do that weekend since my sister and my mom where in Spain and Nathan was visiting family, so I stayed home and vegged out on the couch and watched some movies. Then I started craving junk food. I did the evil thing and went to the store and bought some junk food-mostly ice cream. Shame on me! The sad thing was that this continued into the rest of the week. Only instead of ice cream I made daily visits to the snack machine in the teacher's lounge. I drank lots of soda also. I even was horrible enough to stop by Burger King on the way to school and buy breakfast.

About a week later my mom and my sister came back from Spain. A few days later my sister and I where hanging out and she asked me if I had gained weight. That is when what I was doing hit me. I decided to stop the insanity. I stay away from the junk food or any other food that is not good for me. I reserve Sunday for eating the bad food-but in moderation. I also exercise at least three times a week.

So my goal for the next month is to go down another dress size (or two). I also want to increase days of exercise to four. So far I believe that I am on the right path. I just have to keep it up.