Dear Blog, I heart Spanish.

I am a teacher by profession and more specifically a Spanish teacher at heart. I love learning languages and I love my first language (English), but there is something about Spanish that makes me want to teach it, sing it, and devour it.

English and Spanish have just always been a part of my life. My mom is Mexican and my dad is Canadian.I am a Mexican-Canadian...born in Acapulco, Mexico and raised in Vancouver, Canada. Sometimes I feel more Mexican in Canada and more Canadian in Mexico...but I love both of my countries. 

Growing up we spoke English, but Spanish was always there somewhere. When I was 11 years old, my parents overhauled life as we knew it and my siblings and I were along for the journey. We moved to Mexico and stayed for just over a year.I tend to overwrite, so without going into specifics I lived in Acapulcowith my grandparents and my parents lived in CancunThat year changed my life: I had to go to school in Spanish; I had to make new friends in Spanish; I had to play house with my cousins in Spanish; Telenovelas? Yup, all Spanish. The language I had only come to know through summer vacation, music, and phone calls to mis abuelitos was now my only form of day to day communication. It was a tough year for all of us, but I would never take it back!

After that year, Spanish followed me in high school, university, and during my teaching certification year. More recently, after TOCing (aka subbing, supplying) and getting small contracts teaching Spanish I finally got my very contract at Byrne Creek Secondary in Burnaby, BC. I taught Spanish full-time in a semester system and I loved it! I hated it some days too...a first year contract can be very overwhelming and since I am a perfectionist and like to make everything my own I overworked myself, but I did it because I wanted my students to get the most out of their Spanish class - the one they had CHOSEN to do (sometimes because they had failed French, but they still chose it!). I never actually had a full blown melt down, but I felt close to it. And in all those hours spent with my kids and all those hours spent perfecting new resources, I still wanted to be able to do more, teach them more, converse more, read more, play more....more, more, more....but there wasn't any more time for that. 

So now, here I am in Quebec City...not teaching Spanish, but elementary kiddies. My husband was offered a job over here that was too good to pass up...so because I am a travel addict, I 100% agreed to the adventure. I have grown a lot as a teacher and have enjoyed teaching elementary (something I NEVER thought would happen), but I miss teaching Spanish everyday. Luckily, we met a Mexican couple over here, so at least I still get to use Spanish more regularly than I thought I would!

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