Class trip photos

Thanks to Taka, Edna, and Benja for taking such great pictures!

Snowshoeing

On Sunday, most of Charlie's English class, plus Pedro, got together for an afternoon of snowshoeing in La Plata Canyon, just outside of Durango. We were inspired by the skiing and snowshoeing trip that Libby organized the week before. Please post some photos, Libby.

It was really a perfect adventure. Once we had rounded up enough snowshoes, we had to find a pair of boots that Raul would fit into. Fortunately, Nicolas brought a few pairs of boots along and one of them worked. With all the right gear (I'm glad it was 50 degrees and sunny, not 10 degrees and windy) we sqeezed into 2 vehicles and headed for the mountains.

It was amazing to walk up the canyon because we were actually walking in the riverbed but there was so much snow we couldn't see or hear the water below the snow. After going a couple of miles, we finally got to a spot where we could see the river, which looked like a big turquois slush puddle. We decided to stop there and hang out for a while.

Except for Benja and myself, it was everybody's first time snowshoeing. Everyone snowshoed well and seemed to have a lot of fun. There was great conversation, wonderful views, a little bit of tackling and wrestling in the snow, long jump contests and even a bonfire. Oh, and dirty jokes compliments of Benja. I think my favorite part was sitting around the fire and sharing all of the different snacks and drinks that people brought.

Thanks to everyone who was there for making it such an enjoyable trip; you're a wonderful group of people. It was great to spend time with you outside of the classroom and to be a part of your first trip to the La Platas.

I look forward to reading comments from others who were on the trip.

Charlie's English Class

Here is a class photo from a couple of months ago.

Free write

Choose from the list of topics that I have provided or write about anything that you want. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Day

This Thursday is Thanksgiving Day.  In this country, the Thanksgiving tradition is to get together with family and friends for a special feast of certain foods.  You probably already know what some of those foods are.  The idea is to give thanks for the good things in our lives.

Go to a dictionary website, like dictionary.com, or wikipedia.com to learn more about Thanksgiving Day traditions and history.

After learning more about Thanksgiving, please write a comment to this post explaining what you are thankful for right now.

By the way,  in observance of Thanksgiving Day, we do not have classes on Wednesday.

Happy Thanksgiving and see you next week!

What are your goals?

I loved all of your postings about your favorite English word. You all had such different and interesting reasons for choosing your favorite word.

For your next posting, please explain an important goal or goals that you have. Your goals might be related to education, family, work, community, life skills, etc.

Try to use specific examples and details and the organizational strategies that we have discussed and practiced in class.

I look forward to reading about your goals and seeing you achieve those goals!

What's your favorite English word?

I think that when most people learn a language, certain words have special significance.  You might like a word because of the way it sounds, its meaning, a memory related to the word, or some other reason.

The Spanish word "rompope" has special meaning to me.  Several years ago, I spent a few months living in Costa Rica.  While I was there I helped to build a house for Habit for Humanity.  The construction foreman was a wonderful man from Nicaragua named Eduardo.  He was one of the craziest, happiest people I have ever known and was a lot of fun to work with.  He love rompope (egg nog).  

In the United States, I only drink egg nog at Christmas parties when it is cold and dark and everyone is in the holiday spirit.  It was really strange for me to drink egg nog in the tropics in the middle of the day while mixing concrete.  When Eduardo saw me in the morning he would yell, "Charlie . . . tienes r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rompope hoy?"  I will always remember this word and I will always have wonderful memories of Eduardo.

Please leave a comment explaining what your favorite English word is and why you like it so much.