“You mean you don’t get to have your own Birthday Party, that’s not fair!”
“We all have the same party together, it is much more fun that way,” This would be my response every year during the Christmas holidays.
My sister, my brothers and I all had our birthdays around the Christmas holidays, well, my sister’s was a little off, hers is November 6th. I’m next on December 16, then my brother Sam on December 18th and last my brother Joe on December 22nd. Continue reading
As the doors of the subte (subway) opened, I looked around and spotted 2 women having a conversation. Perfect! I walked over and stood right beside them. I did this every morning on my way to my Spanish classes. I listened to people’s conversations to see if I could understand what they were saying. It was not my intention to eves drop on their conversation, I just wanted to test my level of improvement for learning Spanish.
After 1 week of studying Spanish in Buenos Aires, I had become so frustrated! I was not able to understand any of the conversations going on among people in the subway! It was like they were speaking a completely different language than the one I was learning in school. How could this be? By now, I was supposed to be practically fluent. I had an advantage, I spoke both Italian and French. Everyone kept telling me, “ It will be so easy for you, you will pick it up in no time.” It felt like I was trying to re invent the wheel!!! I thought about just quitting going to school, what was the point, my Spanish was not improving. Continue reading
Sylvain Beauregard was faced with having to exceed one of his limits, one that put him on top of the world!
Here is his story:
“To know your limits, you need to exceed them now and then.” I’ve encountered this quote a few years ago. Since then, it keeps ringing in my mind.
One of my hardest limit is my love/hate relationship with heights. I love to be on top of buildings and other observation vantage points, it yields a special angle for photography. At the same time, I am also afraid of heights when I’m more than 6 inches from the ground on something that is not bolted to the ground.
A few years ago while visiting Australia, I took a tour to visit an animal reserve and tropical forest in the mountains. To get back to the ocean shore, we could either ride the bus back or take an aerial cable car. I left the bus with the intention to just take a peak at the cabins and the view, then get back aboard the bus for a safe trip down. I got entangled in the crowd entering the building and before I knew it, I was past the turnovers. I waited a moment to look at the people board the 6-seating little cabins and watch them take flight. I waited for the crowd to grow thinner to get in a cabin with less people. I boarded with a young couple. I was sitting pretty tight, watching closely above the attachment to the cable, etc. The trip went well this far. Continue reading