my journey contines

i went to Paz Centro again today and met some of the producers who are raising pigs. please see the following video and pictures

This is the view right near my house, I always wanted to snap a picture of the mountains/volcanoes but normally the taxis drive crazy fast…. so here’s a first.

This is a group of the producers of sesame - there was a meeting for some training on the preparation of food for the pigs that these women are raising for additional income.

Re: See Pig. (Andrew? hehe)

Little pigs, piglettes (?), are so cute when they run.

This is the view driving in La Paz Centro. Good thing I have image stabilizer because we were bouncing all around on those crazy roads…

so the 2 july “babies” went out to celebrate the birthdays last night. we went to a place called “The Continental”, kinda swanky. i felt like i was in hollywood. don’t laugh, it’s true. hehe… it was fun though! and then we went to Cuba Libre (Surprise surprise. guess who picked that?)

Thanks to those of you that came, it was fun. And to those that couldn’t, no worries. Faith sorry I changed the date on you. We missed you!

Roomies

Chantelle - Salsa Queen

Rebecca & Me

Rebecca & Me

Group Shot

Chris, Janell, Chantelle, Rebecca

Chantelle & Me

Dawn, Chantelle, Me

Melissa & Me

Tonight we were treated to a really nice dinner prepared by Faith. Grac(ias)! haha…

A lot of community and fellowship happens around food. There was a little more of that going on tonight.

Janell + frosty = ….

Chris finally got that mad thing down pat… (i.e. previous mad/glad attempt)

Happy birthday Grace LaRocque =) 29 years old, maybe?

Today was a pretty nice day. We all took the train to downtown Philly where we went to wxpn Free At Noon concert featuring Patty Griffin. (She was on Letterman last night…) I’d never heard of her myself until I came here and heard of her music through some of the people in my cohort. She’s really talented, has an amazing voice, and plays guitar and piano. I guess she’d be considered folk or folk-rock type? Anyways it was great. And we had a really good spot, right up front.

After that we headed home, stopped off for a Philly Cheese Steak. MMMmmmm mmmm…. Today was the best to date I have ever had! I had a Philly Bacon Cheese Steak… Delicious! You have to just dig right in because it’s messy. haha but yum.

Melissa & Chris

Faith & Matt - featuring the best Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches EVER. lol…

Yum.

We came back… I laid down to have a power nap. It turned into a 4 hour nap… I guess I was really tired and needed it? Anyways it was nice.

I had a productive night did some of my reading, did some laundry, relaxed a bit…. tomorrow I have the whole day to plow through my readings, work on my research proposal, and just keep at it. This will be a busy week because we have a paper due each class. Oy vey.

Oh, and btw, Patty Griffin (as per earlier conversation) is 42. Soon to be 43, on March 16th.

Thanks for reading!
Shannon

Oh btw I finally got my SSN card! (Finally!) I’m happy about that. =)

Four day weekend!! Woot woot!!!! Today kept feeling like a Saturday, but it’s only Thursday!!! Dr. Bronkema was travelling, he’s actually going to be lecturing in one of Jannalee Anderson’s 4th year business classes at Tyndale. What a SMALL WORLD!!!! But anyways because of that, our class today was cancelled. I got so much stuff done. Made myself french toast (no picture sorry), cleaned my room, organized my binders… etc.

Oh, btw, did you know that nobody here uses or knows the word “duotang”. I was going to put the definition here although I can’t find it on merriam webster. Does that mean we made it up? ahahaha and they call subs here hoagies. That just sounds strange to me. hehe

random things:
- usually no left hand turn lanes, which causes lonnnnnnng line ups and traffic at lights especially between 415-500
- wooter = water that comes from the tap (apparently a Philly thing)
- mail is still delivered on Saturdays
- if you call a sub a sub, they will look at you strangely. it’s called a hoagie, or some places a grinder. but most commonly a hoagie. which personally, to me, sounds disgusting… i’ll stick to sub.
- niche is pronounced “nitch”; strange…
- nobody knows what a duo-tang is. do we even? i mean i know it’s not common but it’s a type of folder… and yea i make up my words all the time. hahaha
- cell phone plans are ridiculous; they start from approx $40 a month for basic; but USA has it so cool where they have the networks so you can call anybody in your network basically for free - there’s no long distance on cell phons within the USA (basically. i am not stating that as a fact. don’t cite this in your essays or anything… well cite, don’t plagerize. haha but ya.)
- apparently nobody says about correctly. Canadians say it “aboot” (no we don’t really. lol) and Americans say it “abowwt”. hehehe…i love accents!

apparently i’m a little hyper tonight. it’s just been a good day. productive but relaxing at the same time. i got some more salmon. yummmm

tonight we celebrated Nash’s birthday. the actual day of his bday is tomorrow but it was nice. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NASH!!!!

Nash (bday boy) & Nisreen

Mary & Joseph

Rosa, Dawn, Matt, Melissa

Rebecca & Me

Janell & Faith

Left to Right:
Top - Me, Mary, Joseph, Faith, Janell, Rebecca, Matt
Bottom - Nash, Nisreen, Rosa, Dawn, Melissa

Take 2

Hey!

And yes… laugh if you will, but I got a picture

Some of my friends tease/joke about me blogging everything but I have the counter at the bottom that shows how many people individually have seen the site. It doesn’t increase every time the page loads, but the counter keeps track of the number of individual people who are reading it (well ISP numbers…). So some people are enjoying it. Or at least care about me a lot and enough to check how I’m doing. hehe… Thanks. I feel SO loved

As requested by my mom.

Cobb Salad

Salmon filet & Rice

guess what… i got 3 more books today. they just keep on coming. :S crazy. but they’re all so interesting! i hope some of you might be interested in reading some of them when i get home!!

today i ventured with Chris (from Toronto as well) to get a SSN (social security number). we had the form, our ID, letter confirming our status as students at Eastern and confirming our GA (graduate assistanceship - work). however, we got a details oriented lady (VERY nice, really…) but she wanted them on separate letters. we had them 2in1. soo…. Monday holds yet another adventure… SSN here we come. Take 2.

then we went to the school. i’m doing my GA with a man Stan LeQuire doing research on Ecotourism. i’m not sure of many/any details yet but more to come…i have a lot to do tomorrow - i.e. readings, critical questions, concept paper, more readings, laundry. fun fun!!

tonight, we went to the grog. an outing with people in the MBA cohort, living in Seminary doing MDiv, and then people from “my” cohort - MA. See pictures below.

For those of you in the program, if any of you are really reading this and you want the pics, just right click and save away!!!

Thanks for reading

Blessings,
Shannon

PICS BELOW (in no particular order)

Girls: Dawn, Me, Janell, Faith