We've only been back from Madrid about a week and we're full-swing into the semester. Technically it started between Las Fallas and Semana Santa, but last week was the first time todo el mundo (everyone in the world) was back from their trips. 

This quarter, for my electives I'm taking Literature (again), Spanish Culture, and Linguistics. Spanish Culture is more or less a continuation of the Folklore class that I took first quarter, a class with Ana about what life is like in Spain. Linguistics is a very interesting class aimed at those who want to teach Spanish in secondary education, and even though I'm not planning on doing that, I enjoy the class a lot. The last few classes we've been talking about "spanglish" which is, as you may already know, the mixture of English and Spanish. What I didn't know is that how we talk here would qualify as Spanglish a lot of the time. For example, "Rachel, puedes ayudarme con my tarea porque I forgot what pages Lidia assigned." 

In other news, ESDES has started their "Yo hablo Español también" program with us. Last week they handed out wristbands with this phrase printed on it and everyone was supposed to sign a contract saying that we'd speak Spanish. I haven't gotten mine yet because I don't want to promise to speak Spanish and then continue talking in English as has already become customary. I also don't want to beat myself up trying to speak Spanish and have no fun with my friends in the last few weeks we're together. So we'll just see how it goes, I'll probably cave and get one pretty soon since groups E and F have been told that our grades can go up if we do it. And that's pretty tempting.

The weather here has been absolutely wonderful, at least 70º every day the past week, perfect for tanning on the roof, going to the beach, and slacklining. When we were in Madrid I had gone with the boys to the park while they practiced their skills. Last Monday was a festival day so Jon set up the slackline so he and Seth could teach me how it's done! We started between pretty close trees but this weekend I moved up to the "big" line. I tried one time at the very beginning of the year but until now I haven't ever really tried to learn. I'd always see kids at Union with straps set up between trees and thought "I bet they wish they went to Walla Walla!" and now here I am with all my WW amigos, learning to slackline! 

Jon and I practiced for a long time on Friday and both resulted in nice shoulder tans as a bonus! On Sabbath after church we headed straight to the beach to tomar el sol even though the water is still too cold to swim. When we got back that evening we slacklined some more before making the usual pasta and pesto dinner with Ryan and Hannah. I got to talk to my mom late Saturday night to finish out a relaxing Sabbath. Sunday was completely filled with homework and an impromptu meeting for one last travel adventure before the year is over! I'll keep the destination a secret for now, but stay tuned for more information! Now it's time to settle in with my book, La Caverna, before I go back to class. 
Sheri Seibold
4/21/2013 12:16:51 am

This is one of my favorite post titles of the whole year. I love it, but of course I would. And I'm so intrigued by this 'sport' (oh, look, you're doing a sport, wow!) that I can't wait for you to get home to teach us, so get your slacker certification before you leave Spain, from coaches Seth and Jon.

As we say back in the states, better to slackline than flatline, ha ha. Okay, no one says that but me, but I think it's a pretty good motto.

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