Monday, September 28, 2009

Blessings

So, for those of you goyim (Yiddish for non-Jews) out there reading the blog, Yom Kippur just ended at sundown today. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement for Jewish people, who refrain from eating, drinking, bathing, washing, wearing leather shoes, using money, or anointing themselves with perfumes or lotions. I am one of these Jewish people, and today I observed the holiday alone here in Panama, as I did during the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. Where Rosh Hashanah is the celebration of a New Year on the Jewish calendar, when we ask to be written into the Book of Life for another year, Yom Kippur is the action that makes it happen: by cleansing ourselves through the above actions, we are ensuring that we enter another year free of sin and ready to turn over a new leaf.

As a personal sidenote, this year is the first in my life where I have not attended services at a synagogue. It was also the first time that I haven’t celebrated without my family or friends, and it was extremely difficult for me. Panama as a country has over 10,000 Jews, but when I was researching synagogues, the only ones I found were Orthodox and demanded proof that I was born of Jewish parentage and was ordained in the Orthodox Jewish community (which I’ve never belonged to; I was raised in the Conservative Jewish sect). Thus, I could not find anywhere to worship for the first time in the twenty years that I’ve been alive.

However, this forces me to find beauty in the people around me, and I’ve been blessed to be living with eleven other people who were extremely respectful of me and my culture during this rough time. They definitely helped me to find God in places where I hadn’t looked before, and for that, I am truly grateful.

terapia

we all kick it in the crib
doin hw,
or not
were movin soon
and we jus got settled in,
to these ac'd rooms
we got BP3 goin:
got folks on phone
and skype
facebook
meeting with new friends to study
bein stoodup by groups
is not something we want to bring back to the US
but everything else,
like the panaderia
and fruteria where adam buys me gummie candy cuz im cute,
and on muletas.
well bring the estacion of policia jus so we can say where our street is
and the Super 99 or El Rey or Zaras
maybe el Chino and a single slice of cheese
the On The Run and half the JJ's
a calle sin salida
Coco Red:
stickers to put outside our cribs over the adresses

Calypso

the toilet flooded ayer
DO NOT blow your nose and boo boo at the same time
not a good look for the plumbing

Tomorrow we have an assignment for Afro-Pan class to make a song with ascending and descending harmony (or as Dom says an ASCENDING AND DESCENDING BOOTAY). Lowkey last week when we had to come up with rhythms only, D-Nast made a complete song called Supernova. It was reeeeal nice! lol. Forreal tho, ask him bout it. In the Afro-Pan class we are learning about Calypso right now. Leslie is our profe. He's the bomb. Every class he be bringin his keyboard and Kelsey sneaks a couple songs on it during breaks. Shes the bomb too. lol.

Mon. - 11am People and Nature course
Tues. - 2:30pm Estadistica & 5pm Afro-Pan course
Wed. - 11am People and Nature
Thurs. - 2:30pm Estadistica & 5pm Afro-Pan course

Those the classes offered by FW with the hired profes. We take em at the USMA campus.
We not all in every course though. Everyone is in the science course but Allen. And the statistics course is Sofia, Dom, Kim, Allen, Ben, Adam, Blaire, and Me. And the Afro-Pan course is everyone but Allen. This is by choice. The reason they got profes to teach is to have courses that are taught by the UW syllabus that will directly fill the basic requirements some of us need. This is real caterin but its good lookin for us who needed these basic requirements. Next sem. th going to be a similar thing offering QRa and another science course, i think. Aside from these courses there are the ones we take at our respective Unis (universidades).

K off to make this song tho.
DAle.

Aura's 22

We (Sofia, Dom, n I) went to this water park for our friend Aura bday. It was tight. I mean, I couldn't water park it up but, it was cool. I got to feel normal in the water lol. 2 more weeks on 2 muletas. Then down to 1.
Anyways... MIRA las fotos.
Sofia, Dom, ME, Aura, Vicente, Jota, Walter, Kathie
Aura left Jota right
Sofaloaf, Jota, n Aura
Sofia: She soooo lazy.
This thang with all the water dumping.
And waterslides. Not that I could go on em.

Friday, September 25, 2009

fotoos


yea she pushed me...down sum stairs

one of them was the pres...he waved

pedro finished my chips. :(
lol nhe trip me out.
he costa rican, thats not y tho
pan de oro. iglesia.

q la pases

Sat. yes LAST saturday I (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: KIM ANH TRUONG HAS THE BEST HIGH FIVE) had a fieldtrip to the Canal museum with my historia de panama class. It was real intense. (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: KIM ANH TRUONG IS THE BEST) Turns out our profe is like the knower of all knowledge having to do wit historia de panama. We walked all thru the museum (btw Kim invaded my computer right quick) and profe was telling us all the history from memory. He knew his stuff. I couldnt pay attention tho it was like overload of info regardless of language barrier. So now next week Friday I have a big assignment due about the fieldtrip. We gotta use the pics and "notes (lol)" that we took.

What I NEED to do is go back to that museum and RElook at everything to take in another breath. Real talk it covered a large period of time tho and I was pretty impressed. From before the building of the canal to technological advances within the last decade or so.

BUT i think bout the assignment imma be good cuz u kno...I MADE A FRIEND! Aura is her name. She from Venezuela. Came here wit her fam and boyfriend. They left th country cuz her dad was basically blacklisted in Venezuela and so he couldnt get a job. Then they were living off they savings but those dnt last forever so they came to Panama. They started a restautante but then it didnt do too hott and the money se fue. SO they moved again, but Aura and her boyfriedn stayed here to finish school. Her fam of ma n pa n sister are now in the US, Florida. Its her bday manana and its her 1st without being wit her fam. They been gon bout 2 months now and shes only lived here en Panama for bout 2 yrs. Keep noted that folk here live with they padres til they marry or decide to move out. Not like home when we bounce when we go to college or just MOVE OUT cuz we think we grown.

SO Jota; whose name is JoseLuis; whose called Jota by Aura; whose name is the letter J but still spelled JOTA; who I called Jota Z; who is Aura's boyfriend and moved here to Panama with her when her family vinieron; who works for this cable compani that has there service lines from the US come here; who chats with Amuricans about there tech troubles; who was told to go back to Mexico; whose name is JoseLuis; who is NOT from Mexico; who requested his name be changed on the chat to Troy; who was complimented on his name; Troy.

HE planned a surprise bday for Aura manana. I think shes going to love it especially since she has been real down about being away from her fam. We goin to thia parque acuatico. and its only like $8.50. Yea Yea. Im used to oc prices for parks of amusement and such.
Shes pretty dope though. Dom n me n Sofia gon go. Estoy emocionada.

DALE pues.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

pegajoso

theres new things every(to)day was perfect
the air smelled like asking me to stick around
sun felt healing
while the breeze caught my curls
but i could only catch it in a $2 taxi ride to school

Sunday, September 20, 2009

yuca yuca

These chips be gettin it.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Gringolandia

So...these weeks are passing by quicker than I would like. Monday comes easy then Tuesday a little longer of a day. Wednesday marks half way done and when its Thursday the weeks basically over. Crazy. I feel like this semester is going to pass us by; I hope it don´t forget us.

Its weird. I found myself dreading my Friday classes @ Latina; my two courses that are actually in Spanish. And its even more strange because at the end of every Friday, I´ve had the best day. I think I be nervous about critch crutchin around en español.

Anyways, in me and Kelsey sociologia class there are dates that the teacher can´t come. SO she has made some classes double in length to make up for the hours. THIS MEANS some Fridays we have class from 8am until 12:45. OC right. Today was one of those days. I however, have a class after sociologia and cannot make these EXTRA hours so I am going to have to do something else with the other students who also have a 10:30 class.

Im still loving my history class. Today we had a diagnostic test on what we knew about Panama. It was intesnse lol luckily diagnostic test don´t count for real grades! When I get the test I laughed when I was lookin at it because I realized how little I know. Then I was thinking about if it were about the US would I know all the answers. Luckily our teacher is the ish and he was laughin with me when I was tryna cheat. Everyone was having trouble; lol and half the class from other countries so they was feelin me.

After we all what should have been failed, we used the sheet to learn from. We moved our desks in a circle.

Look what I learned:
- The isthmus of Panama was formed approx. 3 million years ago.
- Isthmus means a narrow strip of land connecting 2 larger areas. Panama connects North and South America.
- The Republic of Panama is divided into:
9 Provincias which are like states
75 Distritos which I am told are like big cities
623 Corregimientos which I am told are like counties but I get confused by this because there are more counties than Distritos?
and 5 comarcas which are like indigenous reservations.
- The Provincias are:
Bocas del Toro
Colón
Chiriquí
Coclé
Herrera
Los Santos
Darién
Panamá
& Veraguas

- The Comarcas are:
Kuna Yala founded legally (even though they were all here first) in 1938
Emberá-Wounán 1985
Kuna de Madungandí 1996
Ngöbe-Buglé 1997
Kuna Wargandí 2000

And Profe told me where the term "Gringo" comes from.
When the Mexican-American War began, hundreds of Irish-Americans fought on the side of Mexico. Sent by the U.S. government initially to fight against Mexico, they came to doubt why they were fighting a Catholic country. Resentful over mistreatment from their generally Anglo-Protestant officers, these Irish (and other immigrants) deserted the U.S. Army and joined forces with Mexico. Led by Captain John Riley of County Galway, they called themselves St. Patrick´s Battalion (in Spanish, San Patricios). Green was the color of the Irish, and the soldiers sang "Green Grow the Rushes 0!" (based on a Robert Burns poem) or their version of an earlier Scottish tune "Green Grows the Laurel", which they called "Green Grow the Lilacs". This latter tells the story of an Irish soldier who'd fallen in love with a Mexican lass. When the songs became popular with American cowboys, those listening across the border in Mexico couldn't hear the words clearly, only the repeated "Green Grow". Over time this changed into the term "Gringo" (green go), later used to refer to people from the United States.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Danez and the Calypso Class

Soooooo, we studied Calypso in Afro-Panamanian Studies today as part of a new unit today… and we was getting it. Adam was on his two-step, Jair was doin the Jair, Dom was swagged out, Alida was getting the shoulders, and our guest professor Mr. Leslie was singing his butt off, which leads to this part of the story.

Rewind to this morning. I woke up thinking about starfish, weird, and then I got homesick for the first time since we’ve been here. And I was still homesick when I got on facebook and saw a pic of my mom my cousin posted… sad. Then I saw a picture of my Grandfather, who was a father to me, who pasted away Sep. 23 2008, so it’s about to be a year since he passed. I held back tears today. So I wrote a poem and posted it on my tumblr blog, danezsmif.tumblr.com, and then it was class time.

So we in class, learning, dancing, all up in that Afro-Caribbean culture, singing Calypso and Lamento, when we start singing “Daylight com and me wan go home” which in our English is “Daylight come and I wanna go home”… it was cool at first, but the longer we sang, the more I really wanted to go home, just to hug my mom and grandma and aunties and to visit my Grandfather’s grave and talk to him. I love Panama too much for words, but home is home. I started thinking about how I haven’t spent more than 2 weeks at home at one time since I’ve graduated from high school. I started crying and had to walk out of the room. Needless to say I had a interesting day, and I think that I’ll be getting it in the Calypso unit. In other news, my one man is in the editing stage and will show some time in the near-year future. And I shall continue to be gettingith it in Panama 24/siete. Peace and Blessings!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

tiny little pieces


"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
- Douglas Adams

Likewise, there are things that are so real
they explode when shared and are never seen again.
This is what happened when Cecilia wrote something for the blog about her first weeks of school.
That is all.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Grandchildrens

Erika Venturi-Whaley had a birthday AUGUST 30th
and we never got to show her our love.
Erika is my grandbaby and I have had the pleasure to see her from the day she was but an egg to her first time meeting her father. I love her with toda mi corazon and I hope you know that sweet pumpkin cheescake gumball salad pookie!
Please join me in celebrating her life with this life celebratoring foto album I have been putting together since she was conceived.
This is her mama, my daughter (self Luara self) Luara Venturi and Erika's father.
This is the princess herself when she was but an egg.
Beautiful isn't she; stunning.
E on her first day of school.
She didn't have any arms yet, or legs for that matter.
When she was but a cartoon.
Black, Mexican and Brasilian.
Don't nobody got ish on my grandbabies.
Her first kiss.
She was muchs lighter back then.
Luara always insisted E enter Lil Miss Latina and when she did...
SHE WON!!!
She always was a princess.
This is a drawing I did of her when she was in fifth grade.
Honor roll boo boo!!
Her first day of middleschool looking at her schedule.
AND when she did her first poem (About me, her abuela!!!) she wore this scarf I got her.
Her first job in highschool was a ladder-er.
This is my baby when her papa came back into her life.
As you can see she is a daddys girl.
And as you can see he missed her to death.
E gradeatin from highschool.
These her two hermanas from different mommas.
And this my baby when she got into this poertry programing at the Universerty.
I am so proud of her.

Write me sometime sweetie lemon kool-aid snickers.
Hope your bday was beautiful jus like you baby, jus like you!
- ur gma and her FW Panama crew

Monday, September 14, 2009

She got like 20 years (45 with that leap yr. tho)

So today was Dom's birthday! Yep. MMM HMMM. And it was good. Like vegetarian food. haHA! Get it! Naw me either. ANYWAYS, we had a good day. Dom said she done had better lol but I THINK she lookededed pretty happy today. People went to this scary movie called something about draggin and hell and I didn't go cause I had a physical therapy appointment BUT Sofia and I me up wit everyone else and we ate at CREPES & WAFFLES (Dom choice) which is where me & Sofia was going to get Dom a gift card but naw she ruined it. Anyways have a look.
Dom eatin some crepe with mushroom and spinach.
I think it looked good.
And then I made her eat some of mines.
This maracuya crepe with some BOMB ice cream that was better than the freakin crepe itself.
Coca-Cola OC!
Erbody.
p.s. thats my finger on the left! wat WAT!
AND THEN she went in for dessert!
Like she really WENT IN!!!
AIR-E-UHL view for yuh.
See that look on Dom face. Thats how she feel bout me everyday.
HAHA!
So Dom went to the bathroom and when she got back the checks was there for each of us and lol she was like thats a nice lil present (or something like this).
Oh, how nice it is to have friends as broke as you.
and on ur bday huh.
LOL
SMOOCH SMOOCH!!!
just for the bday girl
XOXOXOXO

Sunday, September 13, 2009

PACKERS pack Bears for lunch

So right now I am looking at Dom and Adam screaming at the t.v. pantalla. Ceci giggling and Ben parading around with his chest out. The Packers just scored. Adam's yelling at my singing telling me to shut the hell up. Now Raighne is on skype with Ceci and he's talkin shit too! lol Ben said skype highfive.

AND NOOOOOOOOOOW theres another TOOOOOOOOUCHHHHDOWWWNN!!!
Yea #31 okay we see you Harris. Adam don't though, he screaming obscenities at the screen. Ceci called Aaron Rodgers hott! Adam cut off the television. Dom said a cuss word and said she changing her facebook status. LOL.



Wow. @ least the commercials was in Spanish. lol.
Sofia just came out her room. Lil Patriot her.

Danez's Panamanian Kindergarten

Sooooo… I be havin classes at Universidad Latina, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday… Saturday! But it’s cool cause I really like my classes. One of them is a Historia de Panama e Identidad Nacional and it’s all in Spanish, I understand about 3/4s of it, but the professor is really tight and passionate about his work. Score 1 for me. My other class is a Linguistica II class, and it’s in English. Score 1 for not me. But I like it, I think it might be the hardest English class I’ve taken, so I shall like it and beast it.
I also wanna take this time to say that I LOVE Panama, and that I shall love it even more when I get my internship working with the freakin US Embassy. No, I’m not politicin, but I will be teaching English, which seems to be really important here. Funny how we don’t encourage our children to learn another language. But it shall be tight and I will BOOP all the lives of all the haters ever become Mr. Mega-Teacher. That is all.

(i asked adam to name his 1st 2 wks. - he was watchin the Packers vs. Bears) Hold On...Shit

The first two weeks of school have been interesting. I’ve discovered that I’m ACTUALLY interested in the subjects of statistics and biology (go figure) while learning about the vibrant Kuna culture that exists here in Panama. I’m also taking an oral expression class at La Universidad Santa Maria la Antigua, and in the words of my mother, I’m sure my Irish Catholic grandparents are somewhere chuckling at the idea of their Jewish grandson going to a parochial school. It’s been a good two weeks, and I’m certainly looking forward to what the rest of the semester has to offer me.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

LA Sol

They say the planets revolve around the sun.
People gravitate towards good energy.

And some say Happy Birthday to THANK YOU (and ur mama).
We miss you.
and Love you.
FW PANAMÁ (means Philly too!)

Friday, September 11, 2009

Historia

So I wanted to show you all something. This is Dom when she was on crutches. The very crutches I use are those captured here. She be making fun of me (like I did her calling her muleta-chuleta and such) so this is me PROVING that she was in my position!!! haHA.

Now that I got that out my system lol I've some business to attend. These past two weeks we have been in school. However, some peoples FIRST days were this week. I am going to ask folks to write about their first complete week of classes this weekend. But I wanted to share my own experience.

So as I told you earlier i am @ Latina taking 2 courses; Sociología and Historia de Panamá. I have the first class with Kelsey every Friday @ 8AM and thats a class that meets once a week for 2hrs. 15min. It is veeery long. Our professor Elis Vergara is soooooo tight. I love her filosofía on teaching, learning, traveling and basically LIFE! She has her degree in sociología and has studied all over. The class is of course en español so sometimes I daydream about writing a poem or something and its harder to tune back into spanish than english. The majority of the course last week and this week was spent talking as a class. Everything was about life though, which is sociología so I’m definitely glad I have this class because who knows how much more lost I might be if it were perhaps a science class or math! My goodness.

In this class of ours there is about 25 students or so; a lot according to the students at our schools. They should see UW; crazy. We’ve some classmates from Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras. I initially liked this class more because of the feel of it but after this second week I think I’m feeling my second class more. This is probably because I participate more.

My 2nd class is not with any other FWers. This is the Historia de Panamá class. This class follows my first one every Friday @ 10:30 – 12:45. This class today felt like it was real short. My professor for this class is Iván Domínguez. He’s is also MAD cool. He calls me Whaley and constantly asks, me entendiste, o me está entendiendo. He speaks some English but has a English accent. It’s the tightest lol. We got homework last Friday;

1. Bring in a noticia about cultura, arte, etc and a paragraph reaction to it.
2. Bring in 5 different definitions of historia by different autores.
3. Write an autobiografía
.

I had the entire week to do this hw and I waited until the night before. No worries, I learned my lesson when I wish was enjoying doing the hw but ran outta time. I did the definitions last night:

i. Según la definición más temprana de Aristotle, la “historia es una cuenta del pasado constante.”
ii. El E.H. Carr da una definición muy hermosa de la historia. Él dice - la historia es un diálogo interminable entre el pasado y el presente.
iii. Carlyle dice, historia no es nada pero la bibliografía de grandes hombres.
iv. Miller dice, “el curso de la vida es como un mar; los hombres vienen y van, las mareas se levantan y bajan, y ése es toda la historia.”
v. La mejor definición que es científica en gran parte, fue dada por Rapson. Según él, la “historia es una cuenta conectada del curso de acontecimientos del progreso de ideas.”


As well as finding my noticia. But this morning falto mi autobiografía y mi paragraph sobre la noticia. In my first class towards the end I began writing my autobiography. When I began it I found it difficult to find the words to express what I wanted to say but by the time I got halfway down the page I realized I had soooo much more to say than I did time to write it all out. If it was in English it may have been quicker, maybe. I have 15 min. in between classes. I was waiting for the elevator with my muletas and every elevator was full. There were more than 4 that passed without stopping. I was waiting there for more than 10. When I finally got to class Profe me dijo, llega tarde. I took my seat wondering why this was the ONLY class that cared about tardiness lol. SO here we have realized that Panama time is worse than CP time. If class suppose to start @ 7am it can mean 730 or 8am! Lol Sofia told me she woke up later than she wanted to today and got to school a little late. She told me as soon as she walked in the room the teacher was saying her first word to initiate the beginning of class. So was she on time? Lol. Anyways my history class has 10% of my grade based on attendance and tardiness, which I am used to back home, but not here.

We went over our hw today in class but only got through the autobiographies. Profe told us to make a circle (I was like eeeyyyyyyyyy!) and he asked for volunteers. He then chose me! I began with my unfinished un-edited Spanish summary version of my life.

Me llamo Alida Isabelle Cardos Whaley. Soy de Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Los Estados Unidos. Nací en la casa de mi abuela Isabel. Mi nombre es de una pelicula vieja que se llama . Mi apellido es del apellido de mi padre Cardos Sanguino y el apellido de mi madre Whaley. Mis padres nunca se casaron. Antes de la prepa pensé que Cardos fue mi según, según nombre. Pero en la prepa empecé usar mis dos apellidos. En los Estados Unidos no vivo con mi padre. El vive en México; Mérida. Pero me encanta la estructura de mi familia. Tengo mi mama y mi hermana. Creo que no es necesario tener papa si tu mama tiene el amor de dos padres. Cuando era niña visitaba mi papa en México. Pero con los anos perdimos contacto. Por como 18 años no he tenido ni idea donde es mi papa y mi familia mexicana. Muchos veces mi mama me dijo que debo buscar por el pero es muy difícil cuando no tenga ni idea donde empezar.

This is where I ran out of writing on my paper. But I continued freestylin, u know. I furthered to explain how the internet is amazing and how through facebook my family began looking for me and how my cousin found me, then mi uncle, and then my brother. I found out I had three siblings from my father; 2 brothers and a sister. This was a very emotional moment in my life but I have a filosofia of rolling with the punches and that when something comes it is supposed to. The right moment will come. When my family began to contact me I knew it was the right time for me to be getting to learn about them. That was just this year. They asked if I had talked to my father and I told them my tio sent me a video of him saying hi Alida and how they pray for me everyday amongst other things. I also told them how my uncle offered to help me to talk with mi papa by exchanging numbers. I shared that le dije…no...porque no estoy preparada; emotionally, mentally, anything. After 18 yrs. It’s just not that easy.

There were only 8 of us in class plus Profe. I couldn’t believe the realness that everyone shared in that circle. I learned about how one person’s fam came from Costa Rica looking for a better life and how he been working since 14 in order to support. He grew up real young and didn’t get to still be playing outside like the other kids. Another person parents came from these real poor islands where the resources are minimal and she has always felt like her two younger sisters are her two hijas; children. She described them with the detail of a mother; one is so timid you will ask her how she is and she won’t respond, while the other is horrrrrrible and full of attitude. I looked at her as if she had the wisdom beyond her 21 years. Another classmate shared that she was 30 and prefaced her autobiography by saying her life is not interesting because she is 30 and in school. Early on she was labeled as the bad child in class and from there this affected her negatively and she didn’t complete school in sequence. She returned different times and in 2001 finally graduated with a degree from a university in Colombia and was 2nd in her class. She lives en Panamá now with her hijo and is going to Latina to further her education.

David and Marcos ate lunch with Sofia, Kim, and I after class. David is very shy. He plays soccer though and told me he will tell me when he has a game. Marcos and Kim both watch Gossip Girl. Lol she told me she needs to call Gayle and tell him we found his replacement! Lol.

I had a good day.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Check IT

HIP HOP WHO?
This is what's going on over en Madison!
URB article:
UW article:
Jumping off September 14th w/
JEFF CHANG himself !!!

So if you in town (Madison town) Monday nights @ 7PM roll thru to 1100 Grainger to learn some life knowledge on the stuff we love.
[AND LET US OVER HERE, IN ANOTHER COUNTRY who are extremely jealous, KNOW HOW IT GOES!!!]

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

FELICIDADES

~Daniel Anand Dharam~
On Saturday the 5th of September our Daniel completed another year of his life.
Daniel we miss you a lot.
Do not think for a sweet second that we are over here without thinking about you, Lana, Krystal, and Gayle. Yall complete us. With this said I hope you know you remain "in ouuuuur hearts (we were a free people - lol member that line?!)" and we hope you enjoyed your day celebrating your birth.


Please don't hesitate to hit us up.
You know we have a phone right?
;)

Mucho AMOR,

FW 1 (via Panama)

OGs


Monday, September 7, 2009

mas sobre el canal

lil more historia

Sunday, September 6, 2009

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHCOOL (SCHOOL)

So this past week we got all our crap figured out for school. We got classes and everythang like that. Its been a journey let me tell you that. We will be attending three different universities to ensure that we can each take classes that apply to our majors or requirements we need. The three universities are..........................(drumroll please).......... lol
USMA - Universidad Catolica Santa Maria la Antigua
Latina - Universidad Latina de Panama
and this tight one Ceci at that i don't know the name of but its an ART INSTITUTE and she only had the bestest things to say about her first class which consisted of the weirdest art lovers that meowed with her in the lunch room for who knows what reasons...point being she loved it! lol

Some of us already started our classes but other folks gon be havin they first days this week. Dom, Danez, Kim, Kelsey, Sofia and myself going to Latina and Ben, Jair, Allen, Adam going to USMA.

Im takin a Sociology course wit Kelsey and then a History of Panama course. My classes are Friday one after another. They meet once a week but they reeeal long over 2 hrs. each one. Its interesting. I promise that. I think I actually realized the depth of the privilege present at UW. We have over 4,000 courses taught per semester and offer who knows how many majors. Here at the Universities we're attending there are limited majors that made it a little difficult for those of us who are majoring in for example theatre, social work, education, spanish (lol, i know right, thought it was sweet cuz we in a spanish speaking country BUT thats like us having some english courses just chillin @ UW not as ESL), even my major LACIS (and my major is this country).
LACIS = Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies btw.

The other courses we all taking while being here are classes with only us FWers in them. FW hired professors for us for these courses which include Plants and Man (a biology credit), Statistics (QRb credit) and an Afro-Panamanian course (idk what credit...for me it'll be for my major hopefully). These are courses offered to us but are not mandatory. It's tight to have these because they are being taught from UW syllabi and will not be study abroad credit but straight like we was takin the course @ UW. In addition to these course there is the opportunity for us to take for credit, an internship of our choice. Some folks will be taking theirs for 6 credits...others for 3. I will unfortunately not be doing an internship...But man are there going to be some great things for internships. Philly is a G and knows everyone and they momma up in Panama. He interned with a previous president of Panama; Mireya Moscoso, the first female president of Panama. SO he has all the connects. Good thing for us he loves and told us we're like his children; when we upset he be tryna beat up what made us cry. lol.
So thats FW Academics in a small type of nutshell. Any questions?

The beginning of Week 7 now huh? Crazy. It doesn't seem like we've been gon that long. 7 weeks is almost like 8 which is almost like 2 months. And that is like half a semester. DANG!