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.