Oh mi goodness!!! So beyond my american idol and spanish version of the show fanatism. I'm in love with Chayanne! This weekend I had the chance to not only see him but take pictures with a press pass so I was in heaven. I don't know if any of you know who he is but he is a Puerto Rican BABE! Attached is a link to my podbean upload (a snipet of his latest single). Once again, I'm sorry I couldn't make it on Friday but being called that I was able to shoot up close and get to see the concert once more for free was just a one time opportunity I couldn't let slideby. Enjoy a couple of my pics.http://tesol565.podbean.com 
Ok.. so I find myself so frustrated with our school library database. Trying to find articles that we are actually subscribed to is a complete research marathon quest. Of course, all the time I take in looking I could have driven to SC, but I have issues working out of my home study area so I guess I have to deal with it.
I love the people at CSULA especially all TESOL but its' moments like these that frustrate me in my education journey. I have been looking for awhile now and read and read and read different articles and I may finally have it together but this research obstacle just makes things sooo much harder sometimes. Worst part is that it seems to only get worse, I notice that there are many journals the school used to subscribe to until last December.
I thank God for all I do have; however, I should also thank him for all I don't have and that is just so dificult sometimes.
uHHH! I'm sooo disappointed I've been into following boxing fairly close since my grandfather would always watch them and take me when I was a lil' girl. So of course now that I'm older I never grew out of following those few that I like, De la Hoya (DLH) being one of them, and keep hoping that although all fights are rigged some minor intent of putting on a real fight is made.
Well for those that didn't watch you didn't miss much. Let me tell you last night was not the case, that fight was so bought that with the exception of being able to see JLO and Marc Anthony in the background (I'm a fan of both) I was just horrified with the performance. As much as DLH tried to get Mayweather to fight rather than just defend it was impossible until the last round which was won by DLH, but not enought to keep his title. This was suppose to be the "fight the world awaits"and to at least give people there moneys worth in a show; that didn't happen the world is still awaiting to see a real fight.
A friend of mine sent me an email with the clip I have also included. As I watched, my first thoughts where of amazment and personally I felt as somewhat of an ingrate for taking for granted many times the things in life that I have but don't value as much as I should.
After giving it a bit more thought, it also made me recall and realize that, it is true, everything one wants to truly accomplish is attainable. As Forest Gump said, "life is like a box of chocolates you never know what you're going to get"! Yet, it's up to each individual to make the best of anything that comes with life's dificulties.
For the most part, it's easy to let obstacles come between one and one's dreams or goals. However, being persistent and persevering, falling and getting right back up, not allowing youself to give up is the only way you can accomplish most things in this journey called life. For some reason nothing in life is easy. My last thought when watching this clip was... How many times must he have hurt himself or simply fallen, and maybe even dragged her along to be able to do what he wanted?
When negativity enters one's mind and especially extreme difficulties enter one's life, remember to "never give up, never give in, you can conquer, you can win"! Trust in God's strength if you can't trust on your own. It's difficult but believe me it works!
Ok so I mention in my profile that I'm a big fan of Myriam and Samuel winners of the Spanish singing reality show "La Academia" transmitted on Channel 54 - Azteca America the american version of the Mexican channel TV Azteca. I decided I should probably fill you in a bit more on who they are Myriam is the first winner 
of the show. She has a contract with EMI latin and hasher 5th album which is a tribute to the spanish singer Ana Gabriel releasing this 8th of May. In Mexico this album released about a month again and it still is a best seller ranking in the top 3 for the last few weeks. She has greatly struggled with the politics of both the tv station and record company to finance her promotion. However, things are starting to brighten up and maybe she will be promoted as much as she should she truly has a beautiful voice and the talent.Samuel on the other hand has just commenced his singing career after winning the competition this past 18th of December. He is a composer and singer. When he sings he does it with his heart so he is able to mmediately capture your attention by his immense talent to use his voice 
and creativity to make you really enjoy his work. He's also a cutie well I have this thing for guys with long hair especially blond curlycues. He has a contract with Universal Music and has an album out that is a compilation of the songs he has interpreted on the show. He sings every genre very well, but has a special touch with salsa/tropical styles, which is one of my favorite genres. Hopefully, a new album will be recorded and released soon.
I truly enjoyed attending the CATESOL conference this year. Although it was a very tiring experience and I was feeling under the weather, which certainly didn't help, I can still say that I had a grand time being able to share and interact with others that have similar interests in the field. Likewise, having the oportunity to get to spend time with my classmates outside the classroom was exciting. For the most part I was please with the conference I was able to learn alot both from my classmate presentations as well as from the presentations from other well known professionals in the area. However, I do have a few suggestions that I would like to make to the organization committee. So sit back an relax while you read my observations.
I realize that they try to squeeze the most they can into the 3/4 days of the conference. However, quantity to me is not necessarily superior to quality. I say this because I would have definitely like to have had less sessions to pick from but not feel as though I missed something important. This comes to be said because although I enjoyed my classmates presentations I would have liked to have been present at the panel by Jim Cummins as well as other presentations that were overlapping. I find scheduling both students and well-known professional at the same time to leave the students at a disadvantage. Most attendees will for the most part attend the known name session rather than a session by someone(s) that are unknown. I found this to be the case in more than 1 or 2 sessions. Maybe if the committee could schedule the student sessions at one time and the professional sessions at a different time this would seem to have more of a balance and attendees wouldn't feel that they missed out on a grand session because the speaker they heard was thought to be equally qualified.
Likewise, the schedules of these sessions was somewhat ackward, while many needed extra time to present because they were only 45 min. There were others that dragged on to an hour and a half. Call me crazy, but what was wrong with giving all sessions an hour maybe hour and 15 minutes so that that would give everyone 15 min to get to another session. Likewise, the times, I had to actually leave a session early, which was embarasing, in order to get to another session on time. Why not have them all start and end at the same time?
Finally, everything "important" seemed to happen on Saturday. I understand that maybe the majority of people would be attending only that day, but then why bother to make an effort to attend the rest of the days if all the superb sessions will take place Saturday or at least this is what it seemed like. Friday I remember that we had a HUGE gap in between sessions because there was nothing really interesting to attend. While Saturday various key sessions overlapped.
Well, I know there probably is more that I can write that's on my mind but for now I have expressed enough. I greatly look forward to the regional conference and next years TESOL and CATESOL conferences. I know that many may not agree with my observations however, besides telling my carpool buddy I had to speak/write my mind to more people. HA!
Once again a special congrats to all my classmates that presented ...you guys were truly awesome!!
I have never been greatly interested in interacting with others through blogging, though at one time I was a major chat addict. However, this seems like a great new passtime. I don't say hobby because I hope not to end up spending countless hours behind the keyboard, writing away a storm that will bore my readers with endless nonsense. Although for now I don't plan to maintain a particular topic throughout. My initial purpose is to be able to share and express a variety of my interests and thoughts on just everything and anything that comes to mind. Along this journey, I hope to be able to discover things about myself that I had, 'til present day, not come in touch with.
