¡Español!

I was recently invited to translate some documents into Spanish.  I haven't worked on anything in Spanish since 2006 when I completed my thesis under the direction of a professor who walked me through it all.

Although I absolutely love everything about the Spanish language, and I was excited to work on this, it was an exercise in every single virtue (aside from chastity of course...).  I know that somewhere, there exists a mother working from home with children around her.  And today, I salute you.

In Spanish of course!

Credit

I am FINALLY finished with the last part of the project and feel like I can breathe again!  Now I had better send off the invoice before they actually look over the documents and find out I'm a total gringa.

All that to say, while I was translating, I came across the word ingrato (ungrateful) and it brought me back almost 10 years to the month I spent in Mexico.  Let me 'splain.

I have strong associations with music.  Certain songs will definitely bring me back to exact moments and I think we all experience that to some degree.  When I spent the month in Mexico, I noticed that they didn't play any American music at all.  So, I asked Mi Familia Mexicana to take me to the CD store to buy the top selling album in Mexico at that time.

Care for a snippet?  Oh yes you do.

Feast on this:

And that was not the #1 bestseller of grocery stores, or nursing homes, or .  We're talking #1 bestseller of an entire country here.  

Well - needless to say, I wasn't so excited about that one* and opted for this instead:

Mexican Punk!!!  So fun.  Anyway, welcome to my world for the past month.  This project has rekindled my passion for languages and now I want to go read and speak every language out there.  Even the kids try to speak Spanish with me.

And your reward for even thinking about clicking on either song is a bunch of photos from my time in Guanajuato, Mexico:

My Mexican parents :)  Man I miss them!!!

Our whole crew from the Franciscan Exchange.

*Now - at the ripe old age of 32, I have a respect and admiration for this music.  It is calming, soothing and relaxing.  Quite the opposite of my life.  Not that I am sad that I don't own the CD or anything.  I wouldn't even know what device to put the CD to play it now??!