Blogs from Chiriquí, Panama, Central America Caribbean - page 8

It rained and rained and rained some more yesterday. I got soaked just walking up from my house, but I was excited to get up to the office because Jolanis and I were going to go to Volcan for groceries and lunch. Unfortunately, Jolanis decided she didn't want to because of the rain, so instead, I worked on Spanish for most of the day. Around 3, I decided to walk down to the little corner store. That walked left my pant legs throroughly soaked, but the walk was COMPLETELY worth it. I found another salamander on my way up the driveway! It was huge. It had and SVL (snout-vent lenth, which is like the length minus the tail since they can lose and regrow tails) of 8.88cm and it was missing it's tail. It also wasn't ... read more

All I did yesterday was practice Spanish. I used duolingo for hours, I looked up different tips for learning languages online, and I bought a spanish learning/grammar ebook. When I finally went back to my house, instead of going to sleep or playing a game on my computer, I went through the first 8 lessons of said Spanish book. Since I have so much trouble sleeping anyway, I figured I might as well do something productive with my night. I worked on the book till 3am, and still couldn't fall asleep afterwards! Everything that I've read says that focus and actually trying to speak the language are the two most important things about learning a new language. I've definitely got the focus part down, but I could probably use a little bit more actual speaking time. ... read more

Back Home in Panama... read more

Around 1pm the electricity went out at my house. I was hoping it would be on up in the main office, but it wasn't there either. I helped the girls repot some orchids until the electriciy came back on and then spent most of my day today practicing Spanish. At 5:30, Jolanis and I walked down for fresas con crema and I went to the "Mini Super Guadalupe", which was like a small grocery store, though not as small as the little corner store. I needed more Jelly. I wonder how bad it is for me to eat Pb&J every day? I eat other things too, but I always have at least one Pb&J sandwich each day. I thought it was interesting that the woman who checked me out at this store was Asian too... what's ... read more

It’s amazing to see how my outlooks on things change. I’m sorry to keep going on about spiders, but spiders keep coming after me! At this moment, I know where at least five different spiders are in my house. If I was back in the US, and I knew where even one spider was located, it would be dead. Granted, the spiders that I know of are all nickel sized or smaller, but I still would have killed them in the States. I just had to kill another big one. I was hoping I was done with giant spiders, but alas, they were not done with me. I was in my room minding my own business, when I decided to go downstairs for a glass of pineapple juice. I didn’t even get down the stairs before ... read more