Videos: Inti Raymi 2012 and my new hobby

While visiting the United States, I found a new sport that I thoroughly enjoy.  I was so into it the first week that I decided I wanted to know what it was like shooting a pumpkin.  And because there were so many deer hunters on the ranges, I decided to make a little spoof hunting one little pumpkin.

So this is from last June but because it's too hard to upload videos on the machines where I live, here's a very late film from this year's Inti Raymi celebration in Ibarra, Ecuador.  For more information on the holiday, check out: INTI RAYMI: An explosion of colors, music and indigenous traditions

We began dancing around 6 p.m. and didn't stop for one minute until around 1 a.m. when my group decided to call it quits.  The party did still go on, however, just without us.  

Contact and bugs

The assessment and placement assistant responded back yesterday acknowledging he got my update - and said I could hear about my final placement any time from now until about mid-November. He also said that if I don't hear anything from them in a couple of weeks, I could feel free to contact them again. I'm not sure what I would ask...

So I'll just be waiting anxiously for that email or phone call as usual. I'll be pretty happy when this application bit is over.

Whether or not I get placed in a Spanish-speaking country, I've decided to review the language anyway by starting with the absolute basics of verb tenses using a lesson book I've had for years called "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses." I've also got 'Better Reading Spanish' picked up at a used bookstore in Fairbanks. And 'Marley y yo' rented from the library to see if I can get through it - it was the only contemporary book I recognized on the shelf. I hated that depressing movie, though.

The past few days, these buggers have been slowly invading northeastern Illinois:

Nothing wrong with that, though...at least, not for us. It's the annual invasion of the boxelder bugs who are looking for a warm place to spend winter. They're pests to some people but we've never had a problem with them. Their presence tends to herald fall...