FIRST WAVE PANAMA

Monday, February 8, 2010

Lady in orange hair

You’re the colors on the wing of a butterfly,
the way they blend into their surroundings,
perfectly create new,
yet unique enough to catch the timid eye

You are not shy in your capacity to love
It pauses me
how open your heart is
If they just give you a chance,
I know you’ll love them,
Like you did me

This is nothing like goodbye,
or even see you later
because you cannot say these things
to someone who is always with you

I don’t need to tell you
how brilliant your spirit is,
or how much of a sister
you have become
in time it takes to build trust
between strangers
because I hope you know,
like I know,
that every time I think of you
I’ll be smiling

Alida Cardos Whaley

So, Aura is leaving us tomorrow morning. She will be in Florida this time manana evening. Crazy. I wrote this for her. But, don't tell her just yet. It's a surprise for the trip to the airport.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Oh, and if you can't tell from the pic arriba.

We miss the rest of our cohort.

All love fam.

Build on that retreat.

BUUUEEEEENNNAAA!

Espero q todo este bn con ustds. Aqui estamos en Panama. Hace como un mes (four weeks) que llegamos. Some of us have already been taking classes in Florida State and Ganexa while others of us are waiting for some professors to be hired to teach us required courses for our majors. We've already gotten to do a lot since we landed including the beach, feria (fair), break battles, art and hip hop workshops, jazz festival, and networking. I think some of us have been more busy than others but sooner or later we should find ourselves being swamped with everything that reminds us of home. HOWEVER, to be honest being stressed here is a different type. It's a more relaxing stress lol, if that exists. Its more like you could allow yourself to become stressed, OR, you could go outside in the sun, take a trip to the beach and relax, sit on the top of the hill outside our house and look at the skyline, or simply call home and hear about how there they got stress and snow at the same time.

In the days to come I will be updating the blog with more photos of our recent adventures and more stories. I have been the MOST busiest bee with my classes at FSU. But, I'm too grateful and I'm loving that all my classes focus on my major LACIS - Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies.

THIS SEMESTER we're going to have more than just I, ALIDA, writing on this blog. We're going to give everyone the password to sign in and they can write ANYTHING they want WHENEVER they want. The idea is that they will tag themselves in their post and we will put a link on the right side of the page with their name to all their posts. You will be able to easily navigate to all their posts and this way this blog will be more of a collective voice.

Well, right now we are celebrating with one of our new family members AURA. Shes moving to the US on Tuesday to be with her family. Shes from Venezuela. I told the whole long mini intro to her life when we first met her. Shes the person who has had the most impact on our cohort. She has individual relationships with nearly everyone. I met her in my history class. Interesting how certain people have paths that cross ours when we least expect it.

We love her.
But, many of us are already planning trips to visit her in Florida and have her visit Mad-town.

i kno i kno...i ruined the picture...

Thursday, January 7, 2010

**Another birthday...But not just another birthday**

GAYLE SMALLER JR.
I, WE, THE WHOLE WORLD
LOVE YOU
Happy Birthday Familia

Don't forget to COME THRU!!!!!!

FW UNO OGS EY EY FO LIFE