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Present Day
I currently have two kids, and divorced. I just started taking college courses to earn my degree in early childhood education. My children are older, my daughter is about to start high school and my son, middle school. It is a year of many changes. My daughter has so much love and excels in language as well, especially the subject of Humanities. She's also's like a Walking Dictionary as I was, and I'm eager to work hard and see my children achieve their goals, as I am. -
Sra. Mireya and the Game of Words
I had a next door neighbor growing up, Sra. Mireya. One summer, as I was visiting her, we started talking about the meaning of certain words, trying to guess what they were and what they meant. We went back and forth challenging each other on the definitions of words, so much that we decided to grab our dictionaries and point to words to challenge each other. To this day, I will never forget the word "Soez", meaning "Rude" or "Profane". -
Middle School - The Study of Language
I learned at an early age, in middle school, that I loved learning Spanish, even though I was born in a Spanish - speaking country. However, I was also fascinated by the English language, in fact, language was one of my favorite subjects. I was drawn into the art of language by writing and comprehension, even more than speaking. The fact that a comma or any form of punctuation could change the whole idea of a sentence was gripping. -
High School - "Maestra de Castellano"
Mrs. Lupe was my Spanish teacher, or "maestra de Castellano". She introduced us to a lot of authors, and she had the ability to accentuate the meaning of what she was saying, to make it engaging and worthwhile. She used to play with words and language in a way that really made you think of the many ways you could express the meaning of words and body language. She was amazing. -
"Walking Dictionary"
I had a group of friends, each of us good in a certain subject. I was particularly good with Language. I used to support them in Spanish, as they would support me with other subjects, such as Mathematics and Science. It not only made me feel good about helping others, it helped me realize that we all have our own things that fascinate us. Mine was Language. -
College
In my first semester of college, I began to start studying English on a grander scale. It was a difficult and tedious course - chock full of tons of vocabulary and expressions that I didn't know how to deal with. It made me realize that I needed to step up my game and try my absolute hardest. -
English School
After that shocking revelation of the first semester and taking two more years of college, it occurred to me that English was a tool that would help aid in my future, and my heart told me that I needed to take English at a school specifically dedicated to the subject -
Managing Jobs with Schoolwork
During taking these English courses, I was juggling working in a transnational company, where I had to interact with people from many different places, and English was the viable tool that allowed me to communicate with them. I wasn't that fluent at the time but I could see how important it was to take these courses at the time and helped me deal with the people there. -
Coming to America
I came to America, spirits lifted, thinking that I was so fluent in the English language, that there was nothing more to learn. But I was surprised to realize that I was only barely scratching the surface of the English language. There was so much more I needed to learn. -
My Little Helper
I was a nanny for two kids, Fox and Lisa. Back then, my confidence in speaking English was growing, but I wasn't fully confident. I was a little afraid with communicating with adults. However, it was easier communicating with children. Fox, the oldest of the two, was a 3 1/2 year-old, impressed me since day 1. He could read and enjoy books, giving him a great vocabulary, to some extent greater than mine. He became my helper every time I struggled with a word. He really helped me. -
The Clash of two Worlds
I married in August, 1999, and I just had a not-so-sweet honeymoon. From August to December, the three months were hell. He was American, I was Hispanic, my English, of course, was not that good. The customs and cultures were conflicting, and on top of that, more than the speaking and understanding was the cultural mismatches. Eventually we were able to communicate with each other and accept each other for our differences.