6/29/2018 0 Comments Aventurera / adventurerIt's been an interesting two days since my last post! Betty, the other girl who lives with my host family, is super nice and we are getting along great. She lives in Kentucky but originally from Texas and grew up speaking Spanish at home. So I've been able to learn about Mexican culture, Puerto Rican culture (her husband is Puerto Rican), and Costa Rican culture since arriving here. We started classes and they seem great so far - the culture and civilization class is super interesting, and my Central American lit class is going to be good because I know literally nothing about Central American lit. We have a bit of homework but I'm going to push that off until Sunday :) After classes were done yesterday, Betty and I checked out a "soda" (a cheap little restaurant) at the university and then came back towards our host family's house... but on the way we got stuck in a downpour walking to the bus (I was soaked despite having an umbrella). On the way we stopped at a Másxmenos, a grocery store that we found out was owned by Walmart... the chips were the "Great Value" brand - small world! Later at night, I was going to go to a language exchange night at the university but it was still pouring outside. So my host mom Sonia invited me to go to Zumba with her. That was quite the adventure - it was a very intense class but a TON of fun. I was sweating so much by the end of it. What most impressed me was that the class had a ton of people show up despite the rain, and it only cost $1000 colones ($2). I love that fitness is affordable here! This video has a snippet of the beginning of one of the songs. Today we had class 8-12:50 and then again had lunch at a soda. I had chicken, rice, beans, salad, watermelon and juice for $2500 colones which is like $5. We came back to our host family's house and our host mom asked if we wanted to go to a "feria" with her which was like a farmer's market. We went with her and her husband, José. They had fruits and veggies (lots of things we do not have as well - chayote, grenadilla, the list goes on) along with other things like baked goods, natural bath products, tortillas, bread, and coffee. I was waiting for our tortilla and cheese thing to be prepared (kind of like a quesadilla but not) and saw that Betty was chatting with a man on the other side of the market. José (host dad) went over and started talking with them as well and then I joined them once I could. It turns out the man owns a huge coffee plantation just down the street. He offered to take us in his car to show us his plantation. The paranoid anxious American in me was like "uhhh" but I decided why not? He laughed and said "I will not rob you" in English. My host dad and mom followed us there in their car. In the car he told us about his family and the community - he's 79 and still works producing coffee! We pulled into his coffee factory / plantation, got out and met his 3 super intense guard dogs (like they actually bite you if you run on his property... I didn't try it) and got to see the coffee process from start to finish. He ended up giving me two bags of coffee for free - I tried to pay but he said no! It was so cool for a random Costa Rican man to take time out of his day and take us and show us around. What was even cooler was that my host mom and dad were asking him a ton of questions about coffee and learning things themselves! We came back home and made dinner and now we are planning to head out and check out Costa Rican nightlife. Uber is SUPER cheap here ($10 for a 40 minute ride, for example) so that makes things really easy to get around San José. I am LOVING it here so far - I feel like I finally am in a place linguistically where I can legitimately follow every conversation, laugh at jokes, and soak up the culture.
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Llevo casi 26 horas ya en Costa Rica y quería compartir mis primeras impresiones de Costa Rica. Para empezar, mi familia anfitriona es increíble. Sonia, la mamá de la familia, es una de las personas más amables del mundo y de verdad quiere que yo tenga una experiencia excelente aquí en Costa Rica. Ella me dijo que está muy feliz que yo hable español porque le encanta hablar y puedo comprender que me dice, jaja. Aquí también vive su marido y su hija Daniela que tiene 24 años y es nutricionista. Tengo mi propio cuarto y comparto un baño con la otra estudiante extranjera, Betty. Ella literalmente acaba de llegar entonces no sé mucho de ella ahora :) Pues hoy tuvimos nuestra orientación en la Facultad de Letras en la Universidad de Costa Rica. Para ser honesto, estaba super frustrada esta mañana porque había como 60 estudiantes de 19-21 años y tal vez unos 8 estudiantes con más de 25 años. No sabía que iban a estar tantos estudiantes de licenciatura. Aprendí que Auburn University en Alabama tiene su programa de Study Abroad aquí y casi no hay un requisito de español (solo tienen que haber terminado un año de español). Había muchos que se quejaban y decían que no podían comprender nada. Por eso, toda la orientación estuvo en inglés. Sin embargo, tuve que recordarme que hace 8 años ya (¡uf!) estaba en España con un grupo de 35 estudiantes que también estaban nerviosos con una falta de confianza y conocimiento cultural. Lo bueno es que están aquí para aprender y mejorar su español. Después de la orientación, almorzamos allí en la Facultad. Por suerte, pronto aprendí que había un grupo de profesores de español cursando parte de su maestría aquí. Nos sentamos juntos durante el almuerzo y empecé a sentir menos "sola." De ahí subimos a un autobús grande y nos fuimos para el centro. Hicimos un tour de San José y conocimos la Catedral, varias plazas, el Mercado Central, el Teatro Nacional y otros sitios importantes. La mejor parte de este tour era hablar con las chicas que están haciendo la maestría porque aprendí que teníamos mucho en común. Todos son del sur de los EE.UU. (Georgia, Carolina del Sur y Alabama) entonces les pregunté si sabían como se llamaban los drinking fountains en Wisconsin. No tenían ni idea y era cómico hablar de las diferencias de vocabulario y pronunciación de todo. Pues después del tour volví a mi "casa" en Barrio Sabanilla a descansar. Pasé más de una hora charlando con Sonia y su esposo y después cené y pasé el resto de la noche descansando en mi habitación hasta que llegó Betty a las 10:30. Mañana empezamos las clases, ya vamos a ver. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ *These translations are not exact, as ideas are best expressed differently in each language* I've been in Costa Rica for about 26 hours now and wanted to share my first impressions. My host family is THE BEST. Sonia, my host mom, is one of the nicest people in the world and and genuinely wants me to have a great time here. She mentioned that she is very happy that I speak Spanish because she LOVES to talk and I can understand what she says. Her husband lives here too and her daughter Daniela who is 24 and a nutritionist. I have my own bedroom and share a bathroom with another student from the US, Betty. She literally just got here so I don't know much about her yet. Today we had our orientation in the College of Letters / Languages at the University of Costa Rica. Honestly I was super frustrated this AM because like 60 students were 19-21 years old and only about 8 were 25 or older. I learned that Auburn Univ in Alabama has their study abroad program here and there basically is not a requirement for Spanish level (they only have to have finished one year). So there were a number of kids who were complaining about things and said they were having a hard time understanding Spanish. So the whole orientation was in English. I had to stop myself, though, and remember that 8 years ago I was in Spain with 35 Marquette students and we too were nervous and self-conscious about our lack of cultural knowledge and confidence with the language. So I regrouped and remembered that they are here to learn and improve their Spanish and that is awesome. After the orientation we had a catered lunch on the first floor of the college and I learned that there is a group of Spanish teachers doing their master's program here in part. So we sat together at lunch and I started to feel less "alone." After that we got onto some coach busses and went to the center of San José where we got to visit the cathedral, some plazas, the central market, the national theatre, and other important sites. The best part of the tour was just talking with the other girls who are doing the master's because I learned we have a lot in common. The funny thing is that literally everyone else here in this entire program is from the South except for one woman who is from Boston. So I've had fun asking people if they know what we call drinking fountains in WI. We've been comparing random vocab and accents and whatnot. After the tour I went back to my host family's house in the Sabanilla neighborhood to rest. I spent more than an hour talking with my host parents and then had dinner and I spent the rest of the night hanging out in my room until Betty got here at 10:30. Tomorrow we start classes... we shall see. I am getting nervous for my time in Costa Rica to begin! I leave tomorrow morning and am almost completely packed. I know my a bit about my host family, we emailed a little back and forth and they’re in the Sabanilla neighborhood which I’ve heard good things about. I hope my flights go smoothly tomorrow because I’m already getting in a bit late (8 pm). Spending the rest of today running some last-minute errands and hanging out with my cat and boyfriend :)
Me estoy poniendo nerviosa - mi estancia en Costa Rica empezará muy pronto. Me voy mañana por la mañana y casi he terminado con mis preparaciones. Ya conozco a mi familia anfitriona un poquito - hemos hablado por email y están en El Barrio Sabanilla que me había recomendado mi amiga Jenny. Espero que los vuelos sean fáciles y que todo vaya bien mañana porque ya voy a llegar tarde (a las 8 de la noche). El resto del día de hoy voy a hacer algunos mandados y pasar tiempo con mi novio y mi gato :) 3/13/2018 0 Comments ¡Buenas noticias!Acabo de recibir las noticias que soy una de las ganadoras de la beca a Costa Rica! Estoy tan agradecida y feliz de haber recibido esta beca. ¡No puedo esperar! De verdad, este es un sueño hecho realidad.
2/22/2018 0 Comments ¡Finalista!Estoy tan agradecida ser finalista de la beca. Muchas gracias al Examen Nacional de Español por considerarme. Aquí verán unas fotos de algunas de mis clases de español. Mis estudiantes se alegraron mucho cuando supieron que había solicitado esta beca. Ellos esperan poder aprender de mis experiencias en Costa Rica. During the 2017-2018 academic year, I am a teacher at New Berlin West Middle and High School where I teach 3 sections of Spanish IV and 2 sections of Spanish V. I also have a number of students doing AP Spanish (6) as independent study, and I teach and coach Academic Decathlon. This year I have a total of 113 students. Of those students, 55 are taking that National Spanish Exam. In our school, a total of 81 students are taking the National Spanish Exam. 2/14/2018 0 Comments AgradecidaQuiero agradecer al Examen Nacional de Español por esta oportunidad. Estoy muy emocionada y quedo a la espera de noticias suyas.
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AuthorMy name is Nicole Thompson, and I am a semi-finalist for the 2018 National Spanish Exam Teacher Study Abroad Scholarship in Costa Rica. Archives
June 2018
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Photo used under Creative Commons from xia.aike