Espanol no mas?

I had my first final today and then I get done with academic "stuff" on Monday. And then, I will be a senior next year. Oh.my.god. A senior. This next time next May I'll be done with school! Holy crap. What am I going to do with myself? This is all I've known for the past fifteen years.

I think the bigger accomplishment for today is that, according to the state of Texas, I have fulfilled my foreign language requirement; a requirement that has been with me since I was a sophomore in high school.

I'm actually going to miss having a Spanish class. Spanish classes were where you got some of the most interesting people. All my Spanish classes were required and I guarantee you that 100% of the students in that class were there because they had to be.

There's nothing wrong with that, and except for the Spanish IV which I took in high school (which was a DISASTER! La maestra had the nerve to tell us that "there's nothing I can teach y'all." Well, who the f@#$ tells high school students that? What kind of motivation is that? Basically, it was like she said You had tres semestres de Español. I expect you to be fluent now, so I'm going to sit at my desk, attempt to look teacherly, and wait for you come up to me with questions, instead of- ya know- REVIEWING with y'all what you should know.) Uh oh...I went on a tangent. Back to the point.

Essentially, I enjoyed every single one those classes, especially the ones in college. I was fortunate to have some wonderful profesoras who knew the language like the back of their hand and genuinely cared about their students. And the people in the classes were some of the most interesting people I have met. Even though we all had to be in that classroom, we all made it a good time.

What use of Spanish do I have now that I'm no longer in the class. Wait...don't answer that. I live in Texas and spanish will always be in my life, via Sparmenglish.

Adios la clase de Español.

Sparmenglish on repeat

Sparmenglish is something I have been working on for more or less five years now. By working on I mean writing the same damn thing over. I seriously have pieces of paper with the same words written on them. Words like:

• "How I used Sparmenglish to communicate with my gparents..."
• "It started as a way for me to communicate with my gparents..."
• "We mixed words from each language because we didn't know them in the one language..."

I'm tired of this. I want to take it to a new degree. But I'm at point where I don't know how to do it. Ever since my grandfather died, I haven't really explored or used Sparmenglish. I turned in a paper about how Sparmenglish was more than a language solution it was also how I identified myself. This is relatively new idea for me, and this is where the story is, if there is one. How do I bring the languages and the cultures that they imply together. I unify and then confuse them of course!

The Meaning of Dreams?

Wowza. Crazy dream last night. I was traveling to see my paternal grandparents who live in Deleware. My parents were already there, everyone was just waiting for me to arrive (in my dreams, and in real-life I tend to take my sweet ol' time). I finally arrived and when I went over to hug my grandma I saw Ago. I stopped hugging my grandmother and went over to my deceased maternal grandfather where I couldn't stop hugging him. I couldn't believe that he was alive. I think I made my grandma upset because she gave me a disappointing look (however this may be because of some weight I've put on recently which I'm trying desperately to take off). My family wanted to go out and do somethings, however I wanted to spend all of my time with my Ago.

The next part of my dream that I remember was really bizarre. I managed to lose my gpops! I guess Ago wanted to go shopping (what else is new:) ) at some of the stores on the main street and I didn't know which ones. I remember running up and down the street looking for him, thinking that he was going to be in the next one! I even managed to get a calf workout with all the running because I managed to climb some steel/metal steps. My legs were burning and they had never felt that way before. I guess this is a sign that I need to work out more?? Yeah, and I don't know what the siginificance of the steel material is but I never found him because I woke up.

I laid in bed for a couple of minutes after that. Just thinking of my dream. It seemed so real. I was actually hugging him! In my dream I felt myself trying position my self so that I could fit comfortably and hug him because of his hunch. I guess I'm just missing him more these days. Last spring was actually the last time I saw him as the Ago I knew.

My friend and ex-roommate knows that I tend to have these crazy-ass dreams. There have been several times when I have bombarded her with their summaries. And something similar in my dream has actually happened in real life! Scary right?? We'll...because of this I got a dream dictionary with the psychological significance and the astrological meaning of dreams. So I guess I have to go consult with them. Speaking of astrology...I need to get back to studying for that astronomy test! grrrrrrrrrrrr

April

It seems that everyone I've been talking with lately all have the same question: "Is it April already?" I can't believe it either. April. So much to do in April. It's the last full month of classes before my schedule gets topsy-turvy for finals; Easter, which is surprisingly early this year (or at least I think it is); Armenian Genocide Remembrance day (April 24th); and of course, probably the most important date in April, my mother's birthday.

But now, April has a more significant meaning for me. It was the calm before the storm, it was the last month that Ago lived normally. He did his normal routine: woke up at 4 am, ate, exercised, read, ate, read, napped, went to the grocery store/Vitamin Shoppe, ate lunch, read, napped, ate a light dinner, read, got ready for bed, went to bed at 8 pm. As you can see he lead an exciting life. But he did this normal routine and it was his life before his life got disrupted.

This was also the month that my mother found the English translation of "The Armenian Golgotha" the book that documented the most dramatic and comprehensive eyewitnesses of The Genocide. This book is meaningful to us because it has a passage about Ago's father, where it basically chronicles his death. This was the first text in English to put in words what happened to my family history. This was the first text that allowed the rest of the world to know and understand not only what happened to my family and other families like mine, but also why The Armenian Genocide is such an issue more than 90 years after it occurred: because it was wrong and because it is denied today. But most importantly this put my great-grandfather in existence, he lived, this happened to him, and who can deny that?

Video Games :/

I can't believe how fast the semester is coming to a close. Right now I have three essays due in the next week and a half, and two of them are extremely similar in topic. Both are going to be a bout Video Games, specifically Second Life. One will be how Second Life is used as an educational tool and the other will be about how Video Games affect children with mental disorders, such as Autism and Aspergers.

So video games are a teaching tool now?

Isn't that funny how are education system is changing? Because of these new technologies and new mediums that arise, I am studying how an online universe, that has a penchant for getting people obsessed on it and is used as entertainment now suddenly has real world implications. Where are the real world implications for Mario Kart and Donkey Kong Kountry? Beside violence, what can I take away from Halo and Modern Warfare? If I had no previous knowledge about the military, would my assumptions be based on that game? And when a little boy walks off the "field" in Madden does he take the same lesson he would have got if he was on an actual football field?

I don't know these answers...but in the next two papers I'm going to find out!

The Book

Last week I walked past my roommate's desk and happened to see that she had the book. Not just any book but the book. For the past 40-50 years of his life, my grandfather followed a strict health regiment. All those times I blogged about buying cucumbers, avocados, alfalfa sprouts, and Evian water...well factor in some pears, cherries, the whole leafy greens section of Krogerine, add soy milk and cheese, and multiply it by two times a week. This was all because of the diet that he followed in Recetas Nutrivas Que Curan, or Nutritional Healing. He even had two copies of it, one that he specifically brought when he made the two minute trek to our house.

He eventually bought my mother a copy for her birthday, so we now have it in English also.

My grandfather lived his life according to this book. He took the vitamins it recommended, he ate the food that it said to, and gave up the food it said not to eat. This book is probably the most comprehensive and useful resource to use if you are looking to live healthily, Ago read it religiously for almost the last ten years of his life and he lived his life almost exactly like it recommended. When I saw my roomy reading it, it made me smile because I knew that this book, the book was going to influence her life as much as it did Ago's. (Well...actually IDK about that. It will influence her life, she will know what to eat and what kind of water to drink like gpops, etc., but I doubt she'd give up red C potatoes like Ago did.) And when I told her about him and the book, she said, If your grandpa lived to 94 and read this book, he must have been doing something right!