spanish

Oh boy I am a slacker. My blog entries have become few and far between even though I am out of school and don?t really have much going on in my life. I do not have a decent excuse but being a good citizen I will attempt to create one.

This past week I have neglected the task of updating my blog because I recently met a wonderful woman whom goes by the name ?Perezosa?. This woman operates a local homeless shelter in town and I met her when I was checking in. It is not that I am poor or destitute but that I have become homeless. Last week the news reported that Mount Saint Helens began to show some activity. The reports showed images of steam venting from the top of the mountain but what the reports did not show was that a large boulder was flung from the top of mountain towards the Portland area.

That boulder flew through the air for approximately 30 miles and when it was over the top of Portland, Oregon a gust of wind pushed it westward. The westward wind mixed with the boulder?s inertia causing the boulder to spin out of control. The boulder eventually hit ground on Burnside Avenue on the west side of Portland. The boulder?s spin caused it to roll down the street like a bowling ball. The boulder rolled into the front end of a Corvette which acted like a ramp sending the boulder flying back into the air. Once in the air a northerly gust wind pushed the boulder straight into the second story of my apartment building.

And that is why I was at the local homeless shelter and how I met Perezosa. Anyhow Perezosa, age 52, told me that computers and all electronics emit soul stealing rays and that if I stood in front of a computer screen too long I would not have a soul left to save. I told her ?My mom has been telling me that?I won't have a soul?to save either, except?she said that I would lose my soul for other reasons, like voting for John Kerry?, Perezosa didn?t laugh. Scared that I would lose my soul I decided to stay away from a computer for a week or two.

This week I realized it was all a dream because Mount Saint Helens hasn?t been active for over 20 years and couldn?t possibly erupt again. Or could it?...............
?
Ok Ok, back to reality:

Here is what I have been up to, in order of magnificent appearance:

September 26th, Sunday
Last Bash of Summer, Wild Waves/Enchanted Village

The lineup:

• Andrew and his son Isaiah?
• Myself and Chris? son Gavin (my adopted nephew)
• Tina and her sister KC
• KC (Tina?s sister) and her three kids; Asher, Lillian and Trinity

Yes that is 5 kids and 3 adults. For those of you that do not know Wild Waves and Enchanted Village (now owned/operated by Six Flags) is a water park combined with a small amusement park. The water park is great with a wave pool, a ton of water slides and miscellaneous water rides while the amusement is decent with only two moderately decent roller coasters and several other fair-type rides. The park is quite fun nonetheless.

We decided to head to the park on Sunday because it was the last day of the season and tickets were only $5 or maybe $10, I can?t remember. The normal price is $30.

The first ride of the day was one of the tall inner-tube based water slides that winds around and curves several times. Holding a two-person inner-tube Gavin and I raced up the stairs to the top of the slide. We were both as excited as a 6 year old, except that Gavin really is a 6 year old and I am, well, I am um, older. As it was the last day of the season there were no lines so we jumped right into the small pool of water at the start of the slide and climbed into our inner-tube. At that moment Gavin realized that he was about to enter a dark chamber and slide down about 40 feet to the ground below in, all while being surrounded by water. He wasn?t too happy about that and decided that water slides were not for him and wanted to walk back down. Because I am much older and wiser I ignored his crying and screams for help and pushed our inner-tube into the dark chamber that he was so adamantly opposed to entering. I remember him saying something like ?I don?t like you Uncle Jake, You?re mean?. Heh Heh, that was fun.?

As we entered the dark chamber his screams could probably have been heard at the top and bottom of the slides. I attempted to calm him by securing my arms around him, from behind, but it unfortunately did nothing more than allow me to feel his tears drop onto my arms. This continued for 4 or 5 turns and a drop of 20 or more feet until around the next turn we saw day light. Our inner tube broke through a sheet of water and emerged into daylight. Still continuing down the slide we hit a few more turns and Gavin?s screaming and crying turned into laughter and screams of happiness. He was having the absolute greatest time in the world. When we finally shot out at the bottom of the slide he immediately stood up grabbed the inner-tube, which I was still sitting in, and started running towards the stairs. ?Come-on Uncle Jake we have to do that again, come-on? he yelled at me.

For the rest of the day I challenged him to ride every single ride there was until I made a fatal mistake. Several hours and many water slides, wave pools and kiddy fair rides later we headed for the first real roller coaster designed for both kids and adults alike. He ride was called the ?Gold Rush? but it was similar (if not identical) to the cheetah race at Busch Gardens (FL.) or the Mouse Race at Great American (Ca.). If you are not familiar with either of them, the coaster is about 25 feet tall at its highest and has a small 4 person car, 2 in the front and 2 in the back. It does not loop and its largest drop is only 8 to 10 feet at the most, yet it is fun because it jerks around and you always have this feeling that the car is going to fall off the tracks because the car is much wider than the tracks.

As our group had an odd number of people I made the decision that Isaiah and Gavin could ride together. Isaiah is 7 and Gavin is 6. No adult rode the ride with them (it is a children?s ride after all). My goal was to get the kids to stretch themselves, meet a new friend and simply bond with each other. The great news is that it worked Gavin and Isaiah did bond because Gavin thought he was going to die and wanted someone to witness his death. That was the last big ride that Gavin went on.

The rest of the day we played on the bumper cars, tea cups, paratroopers, the ?enchanted? train ride and similar low-key rides.?

?Overall the day was quite fun. Next year is Gavin?s year to ride the big rides, one year older and much more mature. He?ll do it, I promise.?

September 30th, Thursday
Spanish Course, Beginner Level III/IV

Yes, Yes I know that I am out of school and I do not have to take classes anymore BUT this is not a for-credit course. I am taking a community education course through Portland Community College. The course is every Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 for 10 weeks and covers present and past tenses, focusing on conversation. There intensity is about 1/10 of the classes in Spain and it will take a bit to get used to but they will help me to achieve my goal of obtaining the ability to listen, speak, write and read in Spanish. Fluency is the goal, of course, but that is many years away for now my goals are simply to be able to hold a simple conversation in Spanish.

I will keep you all updated.

October 1st, Friday
Salsa Dancing

I can see the comments now.
?Hey Jacob did you forget that you are white?
?White guys can?t dance?

Ha ha, funny funny. This past Friday a few friends and myself signed up to take Salsa Dancing lessons every Friday night from 8:30 to 9:30pm. The classes are at the Viscount Studios, which is located next to the Bossa Nova room. I don?t have much to report as we have only had one lesson I write again in a few weeks to let you know my progress. You never know it is possible that a white guy can dance.

October 2nd, Saturday
Fright Fest

6 days after the ?Last Bash of Summer? (see above) I rounded up a different group of friends (Jenson, Laura, David and Jennifer) and headed back to Wild Waves/Enchanted Village for ?Fright Fest?. During the month of October Six Flags from around the country transform their amusement/water parks into giant haunted houses. Very fun.

The park opens at 5pm and stays open until 11pm. We left Portland at 5pm and didn?t arrive at the park until 8:15pm but we thought we would be just fine because half the park is closed and besides it was the first weekend, who goes to haunted houses the first week of October? We found out that everyone goes during the first weekend in October. In the 2 ? hours that we had in the park we were able to go though one haunted house, ride one roller coaster and the infamous ?Ring of fire?. Although we didn?t get to do much it was fun and we are planning to do it again. The next time we will leave in the afternoon and get there the moment the gates open.

Well I have to get back to cleaning up the volcanic ash, until another day.

ayer, fue a la piscina durante seis horas. I am so freakin?burnt. My shoulders are one solid burned mess as well as my back, stomach, face, arms everything except what was covered by my bathing suit. Salamanca has four or five pools and I went to the largest one. They have two waterslides, two water ramps thingies and a shallow pool with two fountains in the middle of it. I had a really good time at the pool yesterday but I am paying for it today, man I?m burnt.

That?s all I wanted to say for today. Talk to ya all later.

Hamlet was very interesting. I understand about 20% or less of it. Periodically I would be able to understand a full sentence or bits and part of?a conversation. It was performed in modern spanish so it wasn?t that difficult to understand (someone had told me that they may use old spanish, I have no idea what old spanish is so...). Classes are still going ok, it is pretty slow going for me. For whatever reason I?m having a difficult time forming sentences but I am learning a ton of vocabulary. In fact?I usually know the name for something in Spanish when nobody else does but I can?t form sentences to save my life.

Today I am going to go for another 5-7k run to a store pretty far out. I need to run plus I was told that this store has some cheap books that I should be. It was recommended that I purchase some short story books designed from teenagers n?such, I guess I just need to read as much as I can.

I still love Spain, it is 400x better than France and England. I would return to Spain in a heartbeat, the people are wonderful, food is awesome, prices are good and the scenery is amazing. Oh and I really need to take some pictures of the meat markets, Spain still hangs pigs in the window. Germany (reported by the Germans students) doesn?t anymore nor does France, Holland or Taiwan. In Spain, however, if you want a small pig, medium or large pig you can find it hanging in the window as well as the brains, tongues, tails and any other body part you want minus a few of the internal organs (a very few).

Well one week of classes is done, three more weeks to go. Class is very interesting. There are five students in the class, 3 from Holland, 1 from Germany and myself. That pretty much sums up the non-spanish people in this town too, the Dutch are an overwhelming majority of the non-spanish people in this town. The remainder are French, Swedish and a few Americans. You can unfortunately always pick out the Americans... They are the only ones talking about America as if it it is a wonderous place of modern technology and mystery. We ran into one guy who was sitting around talking to a few people from Holland (one of which was my roommate) and he honestly said (and I quote) "In America we have these things called freeways that are 4 or more lanes for cars, they?re huge".... The Dutch guys just kinda of looked at him and said "ya.. umm we have those too". Just a reminder for the Americans that may be reading this blog "Many of the countries in Europe are modern, developed countries...honest" Ok so back to my classes, they are going well. There are five of us in the class and our instructor, Maria, who speaks very little english (everyone else speaks english). It is quite interesting.. We are learning a lot though. Ok I?m done with the internet. I?ll try to upload pictures sometime in the next week...

I just wanted to let everyone (all 2 or 3 of you) that I haven't forgotten to update this page, I have just been incredibly busy lately. Currently on my plate

BA 506: business project. Very large paper coming due very shortly

MGMT 562: Another very large paper and various strategic business decisions to be made.

ACTG 5something or other: Just a lot of work

In addition to those items I have my GA position to deal with and a spanish course... oy I'm busy. I do, however, have many updates to post. Within the next week I'll be posting pictures and a short blog on my birthday, a recent whitewater rafting trip and other events. After this friday I may also have photos from my cousin's wedding!! (crazy ain't it)