What's been going on with my life

Hey everyone,

Haven't been around for a while. Now that I am settled again in a place I have gone back to my so loved hectic lifestyle. Which means: few moments of inspiration while at the computer. More like: while walking to work, celebrating or even while dreaming, but never in front of the computer where I usually spend my time working, studying, chillaxing and catching up with other places in the world.
My life in a couple of months have become something like this:

I have become a wife. What does that mean? Nothing, actually. I simply have the pleasure of sharing my life with my dear "novio" Luis, now with a paper that states that we are legally husband and wife. I didn't even change my last name, neither did him.
BUT HEY! Let me change the part that says "nothing, actually" for, many things, but for good. Is not about doing the dishes and moping the bathroom floor ;) Is that and more...but that's not today's subject (ask me in ten years ;)

My professional life has also changed. I have not changed my career path again, but being a language teacher means that everything is always changing. I am working as a Spanish teacher in a language school called In-down-town which is in down town :) There are many new things about my life because of this new job: the first one is that I came to Estonia, a country of Estonians, where the only official language is Estonian. At this point I explain that, even though it sounds like everything is Estonian, well, is not. I did mention before in one of my post what was the history behind this place (in a very quick way, but you can google it anyway). And because of that history you find the answer to a 30% of the population being Russian. Well, it happens that the language school that I work for is Russian. This means I am actually living in two cultures at the same time which is all exciting, exhausting, confusing, amazing, fascinating and disturbing at the same time. I am in the middle of two cultures that basically do not like each other (not every Estonian or Russian feels that way, of course). And there I am in the middle of these two worlds listening to this and that, learning this and that, living this and that.

Being in this situation there's one new thing I have re-add to my life: I have always loved languages and have always dreamed of being a polyglot (at least with the minimum languages included in the definition that I have in my head -5- because dictionaries only use the word 'several')). I tried to learn German and French and had good progress but did not continue because of this or that reason. I tried on my own with Polish but it wasn't easy and was much more motivated to learn more English and Spanish as I didn't know I had to and had started teaching those. And finally, I have felt a huge frustration because of not learning some Polish while living in Poland even though I tried (I guess I didn't try hard enough). Anyway, this time, I have gone to the other extreme. I have decided to learn both Russian and Estonian and the race has just begun. It's being a great experience (just two weeks :D). Though I would like to see what are my feelings and the results from studying such different languages at the same time in a few months;)

Because of this and because of my teaching I have become a books addicted and in the last two months I have purchased: Profesor en acción 1, ¿Cómo ser profesor/a y querer seguir siéndolo?, The Practice of English Language Teaching, Collins Russian Dictionary, Alice in Wonderland, En acción 1 and have got as presents: an estonian text book, an Estonian-English Dictionary, have been borrowed two more Estonian books and have order another book that will arrive in two months. I have a long list of books I would love to get. But I can't get them all at the same time (I wish I could!) .

Appart from that, there's another thing that has changed, and that's my attitude towards this side of the world full of seasons and the most shocking thing from that fact: the weather! I am very proud of that so I ought to mention it. I keep remembering myself asking Asia's mom around October last year "How come you're wearing a skirt and stockings with this cold weather" to what she replied "Oh my dear, is just 4 degrees...it will get much colder". I am not such an expert yet, but I am not hurrying that much anymore when is 2 degrees and raining :) I guess is because I have a REAL coat now. The funny thing is that I was asked by a girl the other day "is it already winter for you....as you're wearing those gloves and stuff"...hehehehe. But I swear! I have learn :)

Anyway. As there is one more thing going on in my life that doesn't leave me too much free time (and that's my Master) I will finish this post to go to study with two new words that can be add to the list I made in the previous post:

чуть-чуть: as you may have notice, is a Russian word. My translitaration of it is something like "chut-chut" which means "a little bit" in English and "un poco" in Spanish. I was taught this word by my students when I was teaching them "un poco" :) and for me the sound of the word is like when you imitate the sound of a train in Spanish "ahí viene el tren chuuu chuuu" (here comes the train chuuu chuuu).

öö: if you are thinking the same thing I thought when I saw that, the answer is "yes, that's a word". Is in Estonian and it means "night" in English and "noche" in Spanish. I like it and hate at the same time because of its pronunciation...you can imagine now how hard it is for me trying to say it...I still cannot :P

Well, my dear friends, that's all for now. Now it's time to study and probably sometime during the night will be the time to go to bed ;)

Mary