Dos Pasiones/ Two passions

La gente de la ciudad de Barcelona es conocida por destacarse en dos cosas: la arquitectura y el futbol. El video abajo combina esos dos artes en una escena tan casual, tranquila y natural que me comunica el placer de trabajar en algo que te fascina.

De Vuelta a Cataluña/ Return to Catalonia

Un año después del primer viaje, llego al mismo puerto de entrada - Barcelona. Camino por los mismos pasillos del aeropuerto y cambio el dinero en la misma ventana. En camino del aeropuerto a la ciudad, hablo con el taxista. Discutimos los triunfos más recientes del equipo de fútbol, y la importancia de "la Masia", la cantera ilustre de Barcelona. Después de un vuelo de 20 horas sin dormir, llegamos al piso que será nuestro hogar durante los próximos días. Después de una ducha refrescante, salgo con mi familia a un mercado y recogemos algunos nísperos y pedazos de tortilla, que llevamos de regreso al apartamento para devorar, y luego echo una siesta de dos horas. La ciudad es tan impresionante como siempre, con colores vibrantes, gente elegante, y calles movidas.

A year after the first experience, I arrive at the same port of entry--Barcelona. I walk along the same hallways through the airport and change money at the same window. On the ride into the city, I talk to the taxi driver. We discuss the football team’s most recent triumphs, and the importance of “la Masia”, Barcelona’s illustrious youth academy. After a 20 hour sleepless flight, we arrive at the apartment that will be our home for the next few days. After a refreshing shower, I go with my family to a nearby market and pick out some loquats and slices of tortilla, which we take back to the apartment, devour, and then take a two-hour siesta. The city is as impressive as always, with bright colors, elegant locals, and bustling streets.

Receta de Vocabulario/ A Vocabulary Recipe

Receta de Vocabulario/ A Vocabulary Recipe

Instrucciones para un repaso de vocabulario en una clase que dura menos de 30 minutos.
(Instructions for vocabulary review in a 30-minute class)

1. Necesitarás un profesor (You will need a teacher)

2. Un horario (a schedule)

3. Un fuente de vocabulario (a vocabulary source)

4. Una fotocopiadora (a copier)

5. Tijeras, dientes o otro aparato para cortar las palabras de vocabulario (something to cut with)

6. Una bolsita para meter los papelitos (a bag for the cut paper)

7. Una clase con pupitres divididas en dos secciones (a class with desks divided into two sections)

8. Una pizarra bien borrada (a well-erased board)

9. Unos estudiantes entusiastas (some enthusiastic students)

10. Mezcla y disfruta. (Mix and enjoy)

Grabación de voz para la clase ELE/ Voice recording in SSL class

In my upper school Spanish classes, we are making voice recordings in response to a prompt which the students should describe. Below are the instructions for Windows Voice Recorder and the prompt that I used (we are currently studying the theme of friendship in third year Spanish).

Use Windows Sound Recorder para grabar su voz

El primer paso es abrir el programa.

Start > all programs > accessories > entertainment > sound recorder

Aparece una caja  así:

Para grabar, haz clic en el círculo rojo. Para cortar la grabación, haz clic en el cuadrado.



También puedes Retroceder , Adelantar ,  y Tocar .

Despues de grabar su voz, ve a "file" y haz clic en “save as” y da el archivo un nombre. Ahora es un archivo .wav. Los archivos están grabados y puedes mandarlos como adjuntos (attachments) por correo electrónico a su profesor para calificacion.

Dos ejemplares estudiantiles:
Masculino:
ejemplar

Femenina:
ejemplar2


Asignación:

Explica el dibujo abajo por un minimo de un minuto (60 segundos). Explica como es la amistad, y como manifiesta en la tira cómica. Explica si los libros son "buenos amigos" para tí. Usa vocabulario del capítulo.

Folding Paper for Japan

Many young people are aware of news events that they have observed in the media, but these remain distant until students themselves are asked to take part in making solutions to the issues that they see. At Baylor school, the mission statement of the school is to “Make a positive difference in the world.” My group of advisees recently took these words to heart when we learned about the disastrous earthquake and tsunami that occurred in Japan last month.

For my ninth-grade Advisory group at Baylor, I had each advisee read one of a series of newspaper articles about the way people have responded to the disaster in Japan silently. Each student was to then present and summarize the content to their peers. In response to each article, we discussed the concepts that the articles invoked, and what effects these actions could have on the victims, the actors themselves, and the society at large. I allowed the students to explore the ideas themselves and take leadership of the majority of the discussion, which they did quite well.

Then, we discussed ways that we can “make a difference”.

We found a charitable organization in Seattle that had pledged to donate $2 for each paper crane they received for disaster relief in Japan. That same day, we started folding cranes, and continued to fold them in advisory class and in our free time. This is a great way for students to feel involved in making a difference without having to have a lot of money or special skills.

We were able to get traction for the project and two of my advisees, Jake Shuptrine and River Cole, made a presentation to the general student body in an announcement at chapel. They explained that we would collect the cranes and send them in a package together in the name of our school to the “Students Rebuild” project in Seattle, Washington. Thereafter, several more students got involved, including a student from Japan, Hiroko Omura, who gave assistance and advice for folding the cranes and stringing them together, as well as folding over two hundred cranes herself. Several other international students got involved as well, including Korean students Sofia Lee and Angela Lim, who gave a workshop to their peers on how to fold the cranes at a table in the dining hall where students could learn to fold the cranes themselves. Hundreds of students took part in this group effort to bring this effort to fruition. This weekend we will send the cranes, which, in a flock of 1,000, are said to bring good luck. We are proud to have achieved this, and the exercise has brought a true sense of accomplishment to the students as well as a feeling of connection and compassion toward the wider world. .

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/papercranesforjapan


Students can seek details about the program at: http://studentsrebuild.org/japan/

Address to send cranes:

Students Rebuild
1700 7th Avenue
STE 116 # 145
Seattle, WA 98101

Animo Abi--thoughts for Eric Abidal

El jueves pasado, le sometieron a cirugía de emergencia el defensor francés incansable de Barcelona Eric Abidal para extirpar un tumor de su hígado. Esta noticia fue un shock, como Abidal siempre se ha destacado como quizás el jugador más atlético de lo que muchos consideran el mejor equipo de fútbol de la historia.
Sus compañeros de equipo y los aficionados del club han sido un gran apoyo durante estos momentos difíciles, y la noticia de la sala de recuperación es que Abi esta: "bien, contento y muy animado."
Para mí, esta noticia fue un golpe fuerte. Aunque alguien pueda parecer completamente sano, nunca se sabe lo que yace bajo la superficie. Abidal, a 31 años de edad, y en la mejor forma de su vida, fue diagnosticada con un tumor peligroso como resultado de un examen cotidiano. De mi parte, envío pensamientos positivos a este jugador magnífico, y esperamos verlo de nuevo donde le toca: en el corazón de la defensa blaugrana.

This past Thursday, Barcelona’s tireless French defender Eric Abidal underwent emergency surgery to remove a tumor on his liver. This news came as a shock, as Abidal has always stood out as perhaps the most athletic player on what many consider to be the best football team in history.

His teammates and the supporters of the club have been very supportive through this difficult time, and news has come from the recovery room that Abi is "bien, contento y muy animado."

To me, this news served as a wake-up call. Though someone might seem healthy, we never know what lies under the surface. Abidal, at 31 years old, and in the prime shape of his life, was diagnosed with a threatening tumor as the result of a routine checkup. I send out healing thoughts for this magnificent player, and look forward to seeing him once again where he belongs: in the heart of the Barcelona defense.

Animo Abi!--Thoughts for Eric Abidal

International Day Banquet Address, March 1, 2011

Welcome to Baylor School’s International Day banquet. I’m Elijah Anderson Barrera, and I teach both Spanish and English as Second languages.



As a lifelong student myself, I have always enjoyed traveling and meeting travelers, because I think that there is something extremely valuable in the act of faith that travel demands: in intentionally scrambling our own assumptions about the world, and by extending ourselves to deeply appreciate people who have a different point of view from our own.



When I was younger, I had the good fortune to travel a bit, to see different parts of the world, learn new languages, and meet people who experienced a very different world than I had known growing up in California. I can say without a doubt that the experience of living and traveling abroad has made my life a richer one, and the reason has much to do with the people that I met along the way. As James Baldwin once said after a trip abroad, “I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.”



Tonight, as we celebrate the international at Baylor, we will get to know some of the international students who have traveled so far to study here. We may also learn something new about the local students and faculty who, after having studied foreign languages and cultures, have taken the further step of interacting in the world outside of the gates of this school, to breathe life into Baylor’s most sacred mission: to make a positive difference in the world. I am grateful to these students for traveling beyond their comfort zones tonight to share their experiences with us.



Thanks also to the staff of the dining hall who go out of their way, not just today, but every day, to sustain our bodies, and to every member of the Baylor community who came out tonight to show our appreciation for and value of Baylor’s place in this ever shrinking world. Thanks for being here.

International Day

¿Para qué correr? / Why I Run.

¿Para qué correr?

Hasta hace dos años, nunca me entrenaba a correr. Yo corria en un 5K local cada año, contando con la forma residual que había construido durante años como futbolista. Lo hice bien, cruzando el final entre los 22 y 23 minutos. Bastante bien, pensaba.



Cuando empecé a entrar en carreras más largas, me dolía. Me di cuenta que me tendría que entrenar. Así que he entrenado. Poco a poco, he empezado a correr más rápido, y mas importante, he podido correr distancias mas largas.



Desde que empecé a correr al edad de 36, me encontré liberado de los fantasmas del pasado. Para mí, no había, días de gloria en el pasado. Conozco algunos amigos que recuerdan correr 5.000 metros en 16 minutos cuando eran más jóvenes, y ahora están decepcionados cuando terminan en 20. Para mí, si me raspe la línea alrededor de 20 o 21minutos, es record personal, y me alegro.

A medida que mi cuerpo se ha vuelto más capaz de sostener el abuso, he pasado a los 10 km, las 10 millas y el Medio Maratón, y he comenzado a viajar más lejos y más lejos para competir en las carreras.



He ganado mi grupo de edad en una carrera local de vez en cuando, pero realmente soy corredor ordinario, con un gran chorro de corredores delante de mí y otro atrás. A pesar de mi formación, nunca voy a ser el corredor más rápido en ninguna carrera, y nunca lograre vencer a los corredores jóvenes y bien formados. Afortunadamente, la carrera es sólo conmigo mismo.

Correr me da una la meta de perseguir. Correr me promesa mejoras incrementales: correr un poco más rápido, o un poco más largo. Mientras el cuerpo y la mente aprende a empujar a través del dolor y la duda, las barreras ya no me limitan como antes. En el entrenamiento, y sobre todo en las carreras, cuando me puedo cavar más profundo de mí mismo, me parece que hay más allí de lo que había pensado a la primera vista.



El dolor de correr es la medicina misma que me fortalece y me cura. Sin la lucha y el dolor, correr no pudiera traer esa sensación distinta de logro y alegría. Como Kahlil Gibran dijo de dolor en su librito El Profeta, su dolor es la ruptura de la cáscara que encierra su comprensión. La resistencia que he adquirida en el correr se ha traducido en muchas áreas de mi vida, y me ha permitido reforzar mi determinación y sobrepasar las barreras que en el pasado parecían imposibles.



Estoy agradecido con el acto de correr para seguir dándome patadas, ya que cada día me reta a hacerme hombre mejor.

Why I Run.

Until about two years ago, I never trained to run. I would run one local 5K a year, which I finished on the residual fitness that I had built for years as a soccer player. I did ok, coming in between 22 and 23 minutes. Pretty good, or so I thought.

When I began to enter longer races, I hurt. I realized I would need to train. So I trained. I got faster, and I began to run longer.

Since I started running seriously at 36, I was freed from the ghosts of the past. For me, there were no “glory days.” I know some guys who remember running 5,000 meters in 16 minutes when they were younger, and are now disappointed when they run it in 20. For me, if I scrape across the line around 20 or 21 minutes, that’s a personal record, and I’m overjoyed.

As my body has become more able to sustain it, I have moved on to the 10K, the 10 mile, and the Half Marathon, and have begun to travel farther and farther to compete in races.

I’ve won my age group in a local race here or there, but I’m really a middle of the pack runner, with a long stream of finishers before me and a long stream behind. In spite of my training, I’m still not the fastest runner out there, and I’ll never beat the young, well-trained runners. Fortunately, however, the race is only with myself.

Running gives me something to work toward—a goal for myself. Running provides me with the promise of incremental improvements, to run just a little faster, or a little longer, as my body and mind learn to push through the pain and self-doubt, the barriers that limit me. In training, and especially in races, when I dig deep within myself, I find that there is more there than I had at first thought.

Though running hurts, the pain is the very medicine that strengthens and cures me. Without the struggle and the pain, running could not bring such a feeling of accomplishment and joy. As Kahlil Gibran said of pain in The Prophet, your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. The endurance that I have gained from running has translated into many areas of my life, and allowed me to strengthen my resolve and push through barriers that had once seemed impossibly daunting.

I am grateful to the act of running for continuing to kick my ass as it challenges me to be a better man.