The Day of the Dead

This week is Halloween. In Latin America, they have something similar to Halloween. It is entitled, El Dia de los Muertos. They are similar but really have vast differences. El Dia de los Muertos es muy interesante. 

Pan's Labyrinth

This week I watched the fantastic, beautiful Spanish movie, Pan's Labyrinth. It is dramatic, unnerving at times and gorgeously shot. I know that many of you watched it for our movie assignment. La pelicula es muy fantastica.

Spanish Horror Movies

Alright so, I am a BIG horror movie buff. The scarier, more controversial, creepier, the better. And although  America does have some great horror movie classics, we are far behind when it comes to other countries, like that of Spain and Mexico. Two movies that are in Spanish and are filmed by Spanish directors are The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth. I recommend watching these movies for our weekend assignment. They are both terribly good and pretty creepy.  No estoy panico a peliculas.

Hasta luego!

This week in Spanish class...

Hola clase! This week we learned how to combine subjects with adjectives in Spanish in a sentence. Es muy importante en la lengua de espanol. We also learned how to identify certain objects like churches, mountains and beaches. We learned how to explain that a certain thing was in a country or was of that country.

For instance, "Los coches japoneses," is the same as saying "The Japanese cars."

Hasta Luego!

Mi Familia

My family is a little eccentric. But aren't all families that way? Pretty normal but we all have our quirks. I'm probably the weirdest out of my immediate family. I listen to music that no one else likes, I'm a "die-hard liberal" in a house full of "conservatives." That really doesn't matter though. Mi familia es de Amarillo, TX. It's interesting to witness my parents and my younger brother growing older. I know that I am growing older also, but it's as if I am stuck in slow motion, watching them change. It's strange yet refreshing. Mi familia es loco, pero divertido.

very very scary

Today, I made a trip to the grocery store and I happened to stumble on the highly credible British magazine, The Sun. It is basically nothing but a huge pot of ridiculousness piled together with crappy photoshopped pictures of cows being eaten by mutant space bugs or something of that insane nature. Regardless, I still look at them because lines are long, I don't care about Dancing With The Stars drama, and they're funny to make fun of. In the latest issue of The Sun, there is a feature on the dreaded Latin monster, La Chupacabra. Apparently, many goat-herders in South America are frustrated because there herds are being sliced in numbers by this little demon.

Quite terrifying, isn't it? Estoy asustado de la chupacabra. 

Seis

Counting in spanish is difficult for me. After about thirty, I am totally lost. But this is good. It gives me something challenging and I appreciate that. Estoy divertido en la clase de español.

Tienes una divertida día.

Cinco

Hey hey hey! So these weeks have been flying by. I have been enjoying the class and talking to my other classmates. Tengo muy interesante amigos en la clase de español. This week we have been learning how to conjugate ser and estar and regular -ar verbs. I enjoy this and look forward to learning more.

Hasta luego.

Cuatro

This week in class we watched a movie that talked about the University in Mexico City. La Univerisdad es muy grande y bonita. I am only a sophomore at WT, but it got me to thinking about where I want to go after I have achieved my Bachelor's degree. I am an English major with an emphasis in writing. I do not want to teach just because, I figure by the time I am done with school, I don't want to continue to do it for the rest of my life. The University in Mexico City is beautiful and seems very exciting. I do not think that I will go to school in another country unless I am studying abroad. I will attend graduate school somewhere though and hopefully it is in a bigger city with more opportunities for myself. I want to be a freelance writer. I want to be able to write novels or essays and still write for national magazines like Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Spin, Paper, Paste, etc. Estudio ingles y literitura. 

Tres

Hola clase! So this is the end of my third week in class. And I am getting a little political, here we go...

"Mexicans are being hunted down and killed under Arizona's new immigration law, Mexican director Felipe Cazals said Friday as his latest work opened the San Sebastian film festival." - Full Story

Now, Mr. Cazals is a little wrong. Mexicans in Arizona are not being hunted down and killed per-say, but they are being hunted. Hunted by police and immigration officers. These Mexicans, whether they are citizens of the United States or in fact illegal immigrants are required to prove that they are citizens of the U.S. and can be pulled over by police at any time without probable cause. This, to me, seems like profiling. But after all this is not Political Science, it is just Spanish class. Until next time...

Hasta luego! Vivo en lunes.

Dos

This is one of my favorite songs by Patty Griffin. She is an American folk artist who writes and performs her own songs and writes songs for others. Me gusta Patty Griffin. I know that this song is called "My Kisses" or something of that nature. It is sung completely in Spanish and frankly, I only understand bits and pieces of it. She did not write this song. She covered it for her 2002 album, 1000 Kisses. I adore the way she sings and I think that her voice is even more beautiful while she sings in espanol. 

Uno

Soy llamo Caleb Baker. This is my first blog for my Elementary Spanish class at WTAMU. I am a sophomore at WT. I took Spanish for two years in middle school and for three years in high school so I remember quite a bit of it. I am an English major with an emphasis in writing. This week in class we learned how to introduce ourselves and others, how to tell time, and how to say numbers in Spanish among other things. I knew how to do most of these things, but I definitely needed a refresher. Eventually, I want to learn to speak Spanish fluently because I think that it is a beautiful language and I know that it could get me farther in life with different opportunities. I especially like the way we learn in this course. It seems to be more focused on how the language is spoken and how to use appropriate words without focusing on details like accents and articles for now.