2012-03-28
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Repeat. You keep your mind focused on your breathing just to keep it off of what the day holds for you. You are heading back home, but only to pack up your things and leave. It feels like no one knows what will happen so there is nothing left to do...
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2012-03-28
As I said my last goodbyes to my family, all the way back in August, my mother gave some last minute advice through the din: “And take that string off your wrist! Please, you want to look nice, don’t you?” Two weeks after receiving this message (and still wearing the string), I boarded a plane...
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2012-02-16
Balance. Yin and yang, black and white, male and female, day and night, good and bad, sweet and salty, silence and cacophony; they compliment each other and make each other stronger. Because of the existence of one, the other is contrasted and highlighted. If we lived in perpetual winter, we would quickly grow tired of...
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2012-02-16
(January 23, 2012) On our seven hour drive from Quito to the beach, there were plenty of interesting scenes to capture. We passed cascades, and churches, and landscapes, and drying laundry, and African Palm groves. What? African Palm? I’m in the Andes. What is an African palm doing here? And why...
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2012-02-07
It is pronounced sam-eh, and is a small coastal town towards the north of Ecuador. We were told the coast would be our host for the mid-term retreat. Since I am from PA, I was expecting a beach like New Jersey. Instead, as we drove through the mountains, all of a sudden the mountains tumbled...
Read More2012-01-02
It’s an old cliché , but it holds true no matter what you are expecting. One of the first things we were told about this year was to not have expectations, to start our experience with a mind clear of preconceptions. I didn’t listen to well to those instructions, and thought about how different and...
Read More2011-12-26
Christmas in Zuleta? Didn’t she change towns? Why is she in Zuleta for Christmas? Yes I did move, but my sisters and cousins were invited up to Zuleta on Christmas Day. As we drove through, and out of, Ibarra I was snapping pictures already. Half-way up to Zuleta. This is a wide part of the...
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2011-11-08
Incidental music has never been so abused. The telenovelas here use all this intense music for a simple scene; things are way over-dramatized. My mom is watching a show and someone broke someone else’s heart, or killed someone, or saw something, whatever happens in soap-operas. All of a sudden this heartrending sad orchestral music pops out...
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2011-08-29
It’s midnight and the big day waits for me once I wake up, when I find out what my apprenticeship will be. It’s like the Ceremony of Twelves in The Giver. Jonas waits in apprehension while others decide what his career will be. His interests have been noted and his skills were tested and studied....
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2011-08-22
The usual questions I’m asked are “do you know any Spanish,” “have you ever been out if the country before,” “do you know anyone else in the organization.” My answer has so far been a huge grin and a laughing “no.” For a while I couldn’t understand why it might matter if I know people...
Read More2011-07-05
“Words, words, words. All I hear is words!” sings Liza in My Fair Lady. She has a valid point; words make up a huge part of our daily activities. As I walk through the halls on the last few days of school, I’m exposed to many different languages: Korean, Spanish, German, Burmese, Japanese, Bengali, American...
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