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i like very i like many things.
from food, i like apple sauce, grapes, i love oranges.
um, i used to love bananas but then i stopped, because i got sick.
um, apples, i'm allergic to.
but i love them, because of apple sauce and apple juice.
anyway that's foods.
i love music.
i love dancing because you move, your whole body to like one song.
and it's just wonderful.
um, i love talking.
i can talk for hours and hours and hours.
and listening, you know, i like it but sometimes i don't don't do it too often.
um... i love being a leader.
i love walking and walking fast, actually.
um, if i wa if i had a team of fast walkers in my town i would join it.
but, i didn't have a team so um, there's so many things in the world to like...
and i like a lot of things, so aha and that, that was a few of them
i'm Ebony Tucker, Ebony Laticia Tucker.
i'm eighteen years old. i'm a Scorpio.
i was born November nineteenth, nineteen seventy-nine.
and i think i should've been born earlier.
i i was i came out of my mother's womb and, she told me i was green.
and... um... she said, uh, because i was green, that she thought i would be like an old, old girl like a- old lady.
that's what she called me an old lady.
so, um, i was, i was quite old. i was beyond my years.
and when my younger, my younger sister was born, i sort of took over the mommy like role, with her.
and i took care of her for a while.
um, i have like two sisters, and two brothers. one's deceased, my oldest my older brother.
my oldest brother is twenty-five, my oldest sister is twenty-one, and my younger sister is fifteen.
the girls are three years apart.
um... i get along with my younger sister great. i love her to death. my oldest sister, unfortunately, does not like me.
and i don't know why.
my mom is, wonderful. she is crazy just like i am. and i love it.
but, um, she was crazy in bad way too.
so we had some hard times when i was growing up.
um. i lo- i go to school. i go to College of New Jersey.
and i'm majoring in elementary education, and psychology.
it's wonderful. i love it so far.
i love being in school.
i love being on my own. i love, working and being busy.
um, i have plenty of goals that i want to accomplish.
and i have a plan that, you know, i could follow, but might not go the right way, yaknow.
um, i'm in love haha.
but we won't talk about that now.
um, in school, i'm also in the army reserves, i'm in R-O-T-C which is reserved officer training corps.
and, i use them for money, basically.
um, i mean, the discipline also and to get my body in shape.
um. i like fitness and, i want to be in shape and, um, that is definitely helpful hah.
um, i also i am, i'm also in a group called leadership development program.
and i'm a facilitator. and we give workshops about,
how to run meetings, and how to deal with stress in school.
and, um how to... run like your staff meeting and how to have something go well for you.
how to, um, just plan things and be organized.
it's a wonderful group and... and i'm glad i'm in it huhu.
i'm also in the black students union, which is pretty good.
um yeah, we build parties, we have leadership conferences.
we, just have fun, i guess, and we do a lot for, um, the minority camp- on campus.
um, right now, i live in a new residence hall on campus.
and i'm happy because it has air conditioning.
and i'm not dying, um, of heat exhaustion like i did over the summer.
because my house unfortunately was really really hot.
and my mum's fan broke and then my mum stole my fan.
and my sister had my fan from school. so i had no fan.
and it was rough, it was very rough.
over the summer, this past summer, i, um my best friend, or my really good friend from Ireland came to visit me.
and,it was great like, um, i found out that he was really in love with me.
and, i mean i loved him before. but...
but, you know, i didn't know how much i did. but, but the time he came, i was seeing someone across the street from me.
and he was staying in my room, like, he slept in the bed that was next to mine.
well, you know, on the other side of the room.
and, it wasn't like a big deal or anything. but the guy i was seeing was very jealous.
and he wasn't even really my boyfriend. but i was just seeing him like, a little bit seriously, i guess.
and, um, i ended up just losing or wasting three weeks of my, time with a terrible jerk guy who was across the street.
and i had a wonderful, wonderful guy who loved me truly, in my home.
and but it worked out for the best anyway, cuz, i dumped the guy across the street.
and... um, Paul, the guy from Ireland, came back for a, a day, before he, uh, flew to Kentucky to see his brother.
um, well... that was about the end of that summer. and i got my first car.
yes, i got my first car. that was a highlight of the summer.
and i had a wonderful, wonderful baby-sitting job that i had two lovely kids um the Kraals, Sally and Duncan.
and, it was just wonderful.
it the kids were just funny and fun, and... um, they paid me very well .
two hundred and fifty dollars a week.
and my before i had my car, they gave they lent me their car, their old car.
uh, left me money for the kids.
and it was wonderful. and i went to go buy my car, and i found the perfect car.
my favorite color's blue, and i got a blue car.
it 's four doors.
it's not too small, it's not too big.
and it runs pretty well.
and i only paid... one thousand four hundred and ninety-five dollars for it.
and... it had eighty-five thousand miles. so
when i was a senior in college i got involved with, our, school literary magazine,
which happened to be an art and literary magazine for student and faculty members.
and, it was also open to alumni.
uh, uh, it was little different than the, literary magazine that had originally existed at our school,
which was pretty low in quality.
and, um, there were a lot of people who actually wouldn't submit their work to it because they didn't want it to be seen along side of the things that, were pretty juvenile.
so, in my senior year, a couple of us got together with some professors and we decided to put together this, new literary magazine that would, uh, target a,
you know, a broader audience and, you know, hold up a higher standard with, the work that we accepted, and were willing to publish.
and it, it turned out to be something that was quite successful and, i was really proud to be a part of it.
um... we decided to go with a female theme originally, um, because we felt that it was something that was really lacking in our college community as well.
so... our, our theme was women in their life span.
but, uh, we didn't exclude men.
in fact, we had many, male students on staff.
and, uh, one of our sponsoring professors was a man.
so... it certainly wasn't limiting in that sense.
um... and it was also very interesting because we got to, to target a lot of social issues that were,
very much swept under the carpe,t um, at our school which tended to be very conservative.
and um... we did a lot with, uh, *** harassment and... we, um, we tried to... to target different...
different issues that, we felt the other literary magazines weren't even coming close to approaching.
our previous magazine, really just... had a lot of... what i think people... think of as overly dramatic.
um... the kind of things you may see more in a high school setting.
and, i think that we, we kind of... stepped things up a bit with... with the magazine that we put out.
and, we wound up winning an award for it, which... gave us a bigger budget and was really nice.
uh, after our first year of... putting it out and, we were able to, to put together a pretty quality publication.
um... it was a lot of work.
i mean i was, i was going to school full time... while i was working on this and because i was editor-in-chief, i was responsible for... pretty much everything.
um... i had the final say on all the submissions and, i also had to just make sure that we made all the deadlines.
i had get the thing to print... when it was, time to send it to print.
and... you know i had to, had to deal with the budget.
i had to figure out... how much everything's gonna cost.
how much we could afford.
i had to work with the art directors, which wasn't always an easy task, because the art directors and,
the uh, the editors who were, in charge of the literary end of it didn't always see eye to eye on everything.
and because a lot of the, art, was going to be illustrating some of the writing, we had some political differences huhu.
which i had to, you know, try to smooth over.
and, in the end we put out something we were really happy with.
um... and, i actually think that it was working on this magazine that helped me to, to get the job that i have now, that i'm out of college.
because it is really hard when you, you know when you come from a college setting where you are just doing a lot of academic writing...
to... you know, the working world where they want to see, that you can actually make something transfer into... y-you know, a publishing type setting.
so i think the fact that i, was able to get the whole project off the ground in college... really helped me, um,
it gave me something a little different to put in my portfolio because, other than that it was really just going to be a lot of,
uh, the kind of work that, every college student has to show for themselves by the time they finished,
you know, four years in a any institution.
so i'm, i'm, i'm pretty happy that i, i was able to do that.
recently i read, uh, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.
and... it i would have to say that it, it was the best book i've ever read.
uh, it was the type that you pick up and you read straight through.
you can't put it down.
and, by the time you're finished with it you just never wanna even bother with any literary pursuits again because you are convinced that...
nothing ever needs to be written after, after that man put pen to paper.
but, uh, it's a book that i have been trying to get, a lot of my friends to read, and a lot of people get really discouraged with it after the first, section, because, the way the book is broken up.
it's four different people telling the story.
and the first person, who narrates is... retarded and... because of his because of the way he's perceiving the world the language is, is very confusing.
and, you know a lot of the people that i suggested, read this book, would read that whole first section and come back to me and say, 'you know i just i can't understand it.
i don't know what he's talking about.
i feel like i just can't follow it.' but the thing that makes it so interesting to me is that... it's not just...
it's not just that Faulkner is telling a story about a family, he's actually like putting you inside of, the characters in the story.
i mean, you're inside the experience when it 's the retarded... son doing his narration.
you really feel like you're seeing the world through his eyes, i mean... it's his, it's thought process that you're, actually experiencing and it's, i- it's really interesting.
i mean i was pretty much hooked... just after the first page.
um... and it gets even better once, you get past the, the beginning narration, uh... by Benjy you get onto...
the portion that's narrated by Quentin, who, i, i think he is probably one of my favorite characters in all of literature.
and... that was incredible.
i, i loved that whole portion of it.
and, the other two, siblings that... that did narrations were, Caddy and, uh... then there was another, another guy,
i can't remember his name but, uh... but it was really interesting.
i, i loved the whole thing that, that Faulkner did with time.
and the whole book, is sort of nonlinear in the way that it's put together, uh, because it's all talking about...
all the different characters that narrate are talking about the same experiences.
but it's just filtered through different viewpoints.
and as result all the time's kind of mixed up.
but there's, constantly this referring back to, the idea of watches and, clocks.
and, i- it's just really insane.
it's, it's really hard, it's hard to articulat- hard to articulate almost, because the way that it happens is more like...
the way that you dream or the way that you... you think more than the way that you talk.
so it's, i- it's really good.
it's, um... it's a lot of stream of consciousness.
i remember the first time i read Faulkner, i read uh... Intruder in the Dust, which was back in my sophomore or, freshman year of college.
and, i remember just being really daunted by the fact that he doesn't use periods, and he just has these... run-on sentences.
and, i was just reading it and i was like 'man this is so disorientating i can't, you know i can't even figure out where he's going with this
i i i forget where he started by the time i get to the end of it.' so i was really thrown by it at first and i, i actually didn't like Faulkner that much.
i, i remember just being horrified at the prospect of having to read more of him.
and i, i more or less attribute this now to the fact that i was pretty young when i first picked him up.
because uh, when i read The Sound and the Fury, i, i, was blown away.
i mean i was... i was really i was just really incredibly incredibly impressed.
i mean i think the thing about it the, the difference between getting frustrated with Faulkner and just really loving him is you just have to kind of suspend,
that part of you that expects... that expects to follow it as a logical story and you just have to, get into you just have to get into the experience.
you have to, you have to realize that he's trying to explain to you the way that the experience, smelled and the way it felt.
and the way that i don't know, just the way that ti, that it affected different people in different ways.
he's not trying to bring you blow by blow through, through a story.
i mean, he wants you to realize that all these experiences are very subjective.
and... you know, just the fact that he writes so much about families i think is i- incredibly interesting.
because... i think that the way that a family interacts... is so telling as far as... how it, you know how you define with the person.
i mean, y- you grow up in an environment where... you pretty much are defined by the people around you and the way that you interact with them.
and feel like, a lot of times in literature... and, you know, events and situations get described, completely separate from the context of... you know, the family setting.
but i mean i can't think of a day that goes by when i, i, i'm not somehow affected by... someway that i was in my family or someway that my family... raised me to be.
and i think the fact that Faulkner realizes that everyone is a product of that kind of, an environment.
and in some cra- in some cases it's a really crippling environment and in some cases it's, it's not.
i- it's hardly ever simple.
i think the fact that he, he just really honors that whole idea it really impressed me.
and... i i mean it's, it's something that i also noticed in another book that i really liked, As I Lay Dying...
which, uh, which was also about another very dysfunctional family... living in the south.
but, um, i i it's something that i think that a lot of people can't really sink their teeth into.
but it's it's so worth reading.
i mean... i think that you almost have to put it off though, until you're, until you're a little bit older.
i mean if if i could go back now and, reread what i read when i was eighteen, i think i would probably get a lot more out of it than i did,
when i was that age, because, i mean when you are in high school you're you're accustomed to stories happening in a certain way
and when you're hit with something like that you just don't know what to do with it first.
and i think it takes a little bit, more emotional, emotional maturity to, you know,
accept that you're reading something that you can't necessarily do a book report on, but you might be able to get something out of emotionally.
ah recently i started working for a company that puts together books.
and it was, a very revealing thing for me because i was always under the impression that, when books were written, they were written by someone who secludes themselves in a little garret and writes the book.
and then sends it away to a publisher, when he or she has finished with it.
however, it's you know, been a bit disillusioning for me lately because, i'm finding that most books are not written by the person whose name appears on the cover at all.
and in fact, they're a collaborative effort of a lot of people who aren't getting really any credit.
uh, more or less what happens is a book idea is proposed to a publisher.
it's rarely that they get the finished product and then judge it based on its, existing worth.
um ... book producers actually come up with ideas that they think would sell, and they write proposals, and they send them away to publishers,
who buy the proposal idea, with the assumption that we're going to get a big name person to, become our vetted author.
and hehe being the vetted author really just means that, you're going to get your name on the cover, and you are going to review the manuscript before it actually sees publication.
however... chances are you are not going to have a heck of a lot to do with what the content is, and you are not going to have a heck a lot to do with wording.
you're simply going to look at that manuscript when it comes in and, you know maybe cross a few things out, maybe, add a few of your own thoughts.
but the, brunt of the research and the language is put together by, people who are not experts on the subject.
which i think, is even more frightening because, there are so many psychology books and so many, health books being written out there.
and people are picking them up at book stores with the assumption that, huh, these books have some authority and the people who are writing them... you know, have some accountability for what they are saying.
however that's really not the case you know people see P-H-D on the cover and they assume that all of this is coming straight from... that person's mouth,
but, chances are the person who is actually, putting the labor into that book is, you know, an editor, who's a generalist for the most part, and is good with working with language, but not necessarily an expert, on the subject matter.
and it's, it's actually pretty frightening, because some of the ideas that are worked with in the publishing world...
are things that are just geared towards, a population of the people who are interested in the subject,
and we're really saying things that we know people want to hear.
ah, we're asserting a, a plausible connection between things simply because, it's possible.
You know, if you want to find a connection between two things, you can find one.
it doesn't matter if it, if it can actually exist.
i mean it's no an absolute just because, you can back it up with some sort of evidence.
you can, you know, you can construct evidence for anything.
so it's, you know, it's really just all about, what's going to sell.
i mean that's, that's how the companies determine that they are going to, go about pursuing a book idea.
i mean, we've actually, had editorial meetings where we all sit down and... our president will say... 'ok it doesn't matter,
it doesn't matter if there's any truth to this.' because people will be arguing with him as it's the, the principle that's at stake.
and he's like 'it just, it just doesn't matter, you're missing the point.
people will buy this.' you know, and, you know, for me it was a real wake up call because i... i was one of those people who just pick books up on the shelf and just...
you know assume what i was reading could be backed up by something and, now i'm just starting to realize that books say what i make them say hehehe.
and, and that's pretty much all they say.
uh today i got a letter from a friend of mine, who just went away to college for his first year.
and, it was funny.
it was bringing back lots of memories for me.
he just finished going through welcome week where, he was subjected to lots of really awkward ice breakers, with people he just met,
and, you know, all sorts of forced bonding activities, with the... the people in his dorm.
and, i was thinking about how when i first went away to college, i was, more or less determined to alienate myself as an act of will, hehe from everyone that i met.
and it, it turned into a pretty, huh, pretty bizarre experience for me.
in my first year i was living on campus at Trenton State College.
and, uh, i pretty much determined after about a week there that, i really didn't like anyone in my entire dorm.
and, huh, rather than you know, behaving in a mature way about this, i decided to make that apparent to everyone and i just kept myself.
i ended up becoming, rather close friends with my roommate.
but, uh, i think we made really obvious that we didn't want to interact with anyone.
and it became almost this elaborate game between us and, the people in our dorm who just thought we were, being really mysterious.
and of course they were all incredibly intrigued by the fact that we didn't want to interact with them.
and... huh, we were constantly in these, ridiculous feuds with people on our floor over things that really didn't matter.
we were just trying to assert that we were above them by, you know, not wanting anything to do with them.
every single day, i remember, people would leave notes our message board asking us to go to lunch with them, cuz the whole floor had a habit of eating together.
a whole process that we found to be utterly appalling at the time.
but, every single day we would not show up.
but for some reason they just felt the need to extend the invitation every single day.
and i don't know after a while i think it turned into a, it turned into a very entertaining thing for us.
um, there was you know, there was certain something to that interaction that was, bit you know, added, um,
i think a good amount of, adolescent melodramatic tension to my life.
and, i think i really enjoyed myself.
but, uh, hehe, but the, the tragic part of it was that, about the three quarters of the way through to the year, i just got kind of bored with it.
and i realized that i had, completely isolated myself from every possible person who, wanted anything to do with me.
and... there was a point at which, my roommate and i both realized this.
and, we just we couldn't believe you know, what we had done with our, you know, our potential, uh, personal lives at college.
and, um, i- it was it was really, really kind of sad.
i mean, first year at college you, you don't have a car or anything and you're just stuck with the people, that you live with.
and you're living in this little microcosm of a world where, everything is incredibly out of proportion.
by that time all drama, all the, you know, admittedly self created drama that had been, perpetuated throughout the year was completely out of control.
you know, we had all these very bizarre convoluted situations with everyone that we, had ever interacted with.
and no one knew what to make of us, everybody thought we were just these aliens.
and... it was sad.
it was really a sad experience.
and finally by my sophomore year we wound up moving to a different dorm.
and... there were a few people from our freshman year who, for whatever reason be it the challenge or, haha just complete generic boredom,
decided to try to forge these friendships with, with us, regardless of the fact that we had, you know, been through a difficult for the entire first year living there.
and some of those people actually became my closest friends for the, you know, the remainder of my college experience.
but it's funny to this day when i talk to some of these people they're just like, 'what were you doing? what were you doing freshman year? you know,
why were you like that? i don't understand, you know, what you were doing with yourself?' and it's funny.
i mean i, i look back on it now and i'm just like, 'man, you know, what was that all about?' i mean, it's funny because now when i go into a new situation where i don't know anyone,
i always have that same, knee jerk reaction somehow where i'm just like 'i don't even wanna have to try, i don't wanna have to try to be friends with these people.
you know, let them come to me, let them come to me' and, it's kind of a, shoot yourself in the foot kind of, uh, kind of idea, i guess, to live your life by.
not exactly a productive philosophy but ... it's wierd i mean i just moved to a new town and, uh, you know, i have all these roommates who i don' know from, a hole in the wall really.
we all just kind of randomly got together.
and... i'm finding myself having a lot of flashbacks to freshman year because i'm i'm having some of these old like inclinations rising up.
where i'm just like, 'ah i just want to be really antisocial, i don't want to deal with these people, i don't want to have to, pretend to socialize.'
and i don't know, i'm just just kind of wondering, you know, wondering if i, can possibly handle myself little bit better this time around than i did the first time around.
this summer i went to, Italy for what turned to be a three week trip with a friend of mine from college.
it was a really a good experience.
i have never been out of the country before and, for years i wanted to go.
i had always wanted to go on a exchange when i was in college but i couldn't afford it.
and, you know, finally, you know, i graduated from school and i, i decided that i was just going to throw all my money into this trip to to Europe.
and it, it was definitely worth it.
um, i don't think i could have made a better decision as far as that was concerned.
um, we flew into Rome, and we, were going to be meeting up with the tour on our third day there, so we had a little bit of leeway where we were just going to, kind of, show ourselves around.
and, at first it was bit overwhelming.
we landed in a the airport in Rome.
and it was just another world immediately, i mean, the chaos there was just out of this world, i mean.
we had had a layover in Heathrow on the way there, and everything in England was just so organized, and so and everybody was so cordial.
and, then all of a sudden we were in Rome and it was just like everyone was pushing these metal carts to pick up their suitcases, but they were all going in opposite directions and they were just kind of getting into all these traffic jams.
and i mean... i don't know what i expected, hehehe.
i think i was expecting that everything would have English subtitles underneath it or something.
so i felt i this sort of like this barbarian coming over there like, 'where's my language?' you know, and, i didn't- i didn't understand Italian.
i 'd taken a year of it at high school, at one point, and that was the extent of my experience.
and i'd also been told that Spanish is very similar to Italian.
so i was, i was expecting that, you know, i would be able to, interpret what was going on just based on my knowledge of Spanish.
because i, you know, i felt like i had some pretty extensive knowledge of Spanish.
but uh... it didn't really work out that way.
um... the friend that i was with, really didn't know any Italian either.
and it took us, i would say, about two hours to just get ourselves out of the airport, get our luggage, and get on the proper, bus that was going to take us to our hotel.
i mean it was it was definitely a crazy crazy arrival time.
and... i don't know as as we, you know, spent more time there, we got more and more used to the way that things worked.
um, we, had a big hassle with public transportation on our first day, where we decided to take a bus into town.
and, uh, we didn't know where to get off the bus.
again i don't know what we were expecting.
i guess we were expecting somebody to like hold up an English sign and say, 'Debbie and Christine, you can get off the bus now.' but, uh, of course, you know, that didn't happen.
and, you know, we ended up just riding around on this bus endlessly.
and we kept trying to ask people questions and you know, in broken Spanish slash English Italian and it, you know, it wasn't turning out too well for us.
finally we ran into an exchange student and he helped us.
he got us off the bus at the right stop and, pointed us in the proper direction.
but it was, it was really you know, really quite chaotic.
and of course ra- Rome is a really, really manic city, i mean, just the traffic is completely insane.
i mean there's traffic rules but, people just kind of consider them to be, you know, optional i guess.
so here we are stumbling around the city, all jet-lagged.
and, you know, there's ten thousand mopeds, everywhere.
i mean... uh, i think you can get a license when you're like fourteen to drive a moped.
they have all these half crazed kids driving around on mopeds.
and, you know, they don't care.
you can be in the middle of the street, they'll just mow you on down.
so... you know, it's definitely a far cry from, Princeton where the pedestrians all have the right of the way.
i'm just stumbling out in the middle of the street thinking that people are gonna, you know, let me let me pass.
bu, you know, people were just narrowly missing me with their, vehicles.
so that, that was an interesting little introduction into the, the ways of Italy.
but uh... actually while we were there, we wound up covering a lot of territory.
we spend about... three days in Rome at first and then we, we moved onto, uh, Florence which i actually liked a lot more than Rome.
um, it's a beautiful city.
we were there for, about three days.
um... the tour that we were on was very fast-paced which was one thing that i think i would change if i went back.
i would like to do things, you know, according to when i want to do them and, not according to, you know, when this group of people tells me to... you know, move on to the next place.
because, in a lot of cases i felt we didn't really get to absorb everything there was to get absorb in a certain city.
we were always just piled back on the tour bus and taken to the next place.
we covered a lot of territory, but... sometimes we just felt like we were running past things, which was a kind of crazy.
and i think i also found a lot of people on our tour group to be rather embarrassing.
like, i felt just they should just just gotten shipped straight to Fort Lauderdale.
huh, and you know, they seemed to have a primary interest in just getting drunk in a hotel bar and like, hooking up with each other.
and, nobody really, nobody really had any cultural interest in being in Europe.
you know, i felt like Europe was waste,d on them in a way.
so i guess i was being sort of, you know, elitist about that.
but um, it was it was kind of weird being thrown together with a random group of people.
um... and it was, it was a... a tour that was designed primarily for young people.
it was very cheap.
and they had us staying in hostels and in really, you know, inexpensive hotels.
so the people on the tour were all, under the age of thirty and, you know, some of them were acting like they were under the age of fifteen.
so, hehe, it was definitely, it was definitely an interesting experience, as far as they were all concerned.
but but it, it was definitely wonderful to be over in Europe.
i... unfortunately i felt that, i wasn't there that long enough to really, to see everything that i wanted to see.
i mean... i think that, it was just long enough for me to feel like, 'okay now i'm ready to stay' now i was really settled in then it was like,
okay time to load your stuff back on the plane and go back home.' so that was a little bit a little frustrating for me.
and, the other frustrating thing was, uhm, we stopped in England on the way back.
and, i've always wanted to go to England.
i wanted to go on exchange there when i was in, in college and i didn't get to.
so of course like passing through England for me was like, you know, dangling a carrot in front of my face and then saying 'you can't have it.'
so it was, it was really rough, you know, we we had our big hour layover in England and i, like, couldn't even see outside the airport
and i just really wanted to i really wanted to just, you know, go around and see something.
and i was actually hoping we would miss our flight.
because we almost did.
we missed our flight from Rome, to Heathrow on the way home.
and they had to book us on a later flight.
and... as a result they were thinking we might miss our connecting flight.
so i was all psyched up for this, and i was like, 'yeah we're going to be stuck in England for, you know, a couple of days.
this'll be great, you know, we'll just have to, just have to bear it, you know.' but the girl i was with was all frantic, you know,
she really wanted to get back and, they wound up like, providing a special little tram service to whip us off to our next flight, and, we didn't miss it after all.
but, it was a really nice trip.
i, definitely hope i can go back, if i can, you know, save enough money this year.
that's another thing that i hope i can do.
huh, there are so many things i want to do and i can't afford them.
that's the problem.
but... it was a good trip.
i would like to tell you, a little bit about some things i like, and then a little bit about some things i don't like.
first of all, i really enjoy exercising.
some of my favorite types of exercises are swimming, especially in rivers in the country and in big oceans, because i like to jump over the waves.
i also really enjoy dancing.
i like dancing to American music, because that's what i know best and i also, like Salsa and Merengue, which are more Latin types of music.
because that's what i know best and i also, like Salsa and Merengue, which are more Latin types of music.
i also like to walk in the woods and to explore.
i like to walk through forests, and i like to hear rivers.
i enjoy meeting new people too.
i like to, find out about different ways of life, what different people think, where they're from, and how they live.
probably one of my favorite things are animals.
i really love dogs, and cats, and horses.
when i was little i always tried to talk my mom in letting me have more animals.
but usually she wouldn't.
so i think now that i'm going to have my own house, i'll try to get lots of animals.
some things that i don't really like are rude people.
sometimes people are not very nice to strangers, and that makes me feel bad.
i also don't really like driving.
i tend to get pretty bored in the car.
and it seems like it just takes a long time to get there.
one final thing i don't really like is waiting.
sometimes i'm not a very patient person.
and i just like to hurry things up.
all my life, i've really liked music.
and fifth grade i started playing the saxophone.
i didn't at first know what instrument to play.
then my dad asked me, why didn't i play the saxophone.
and he showed me a picture of a saxophone, when we went to a music store.
and right from that moment i decided i wanted to play the saxophone.
at first i didn't practice very much.
probably about, a half hour everyday.
but then my mom got me music lessons.
and i started having good professors and i started getting more and more interested, in music.
so then i started practicing more.
when i was in high school, i actually got up about, an hour and half or two hours before i usually did, before the rest of my family, to practice.
because i couldn't practice after school.
and this was really good for me, because it gave me time to practice but my family didn't like it, because they always had to get up early.
there are six people in my family, my mom, my dad, me, my two sisters and my brother.
my dad's name is Greg.
he is a social worker.
he just turned fifty.
my mother's name is Colleen.
she's a teacher's aid, which means she helps teachers at the school.
she's also fifty years old.
my, sister's name is Laurel.
she studies at Notre Dame.
she is in her third year of college.
um... my other sister's name is Katie.
she is eighteen years old.
she really likes to run.
my brother, his name is Matthew.
he just turned seventeen.
he also runs, but i don't think he likes it as much.
my mom and i do our grocery shopping at a supermarket called Carter's.
it's about fifteen minutes away from my house.
and it usually has the best prices.
i guess that's why we usually go there.
my mom's always looking for a good bargain.
she carries around a big coupon box.
it's probably the size of a big dictionary, and weighs about as much.
and we also always have to walk around looking for the cheapest prices.
it makes us feel good to save money when we go grocery shopping.
i would like to tell you a little bit about some of my favorite foods.
right now, my favorite dish is rice, with tuna fish, with little chopped up onions, cucumbers and ketchup.
all mixed together.
if you've never tried it, it's very good.
um, i also really like ketchup, tomato ketchup on hehe many different dishes.
i eat eat ketchup with eggs, sometimes i eat ketchup always with hamburgers.
and with many other different foods.
for breakfast i usually eat cereal.
i like to eat cereal and milk.
sometimes i have toast with butter and sugar on it.
for lunch, we usually eat sandwiches.
we take, a couple pieces of bread and sometimes we use peanut butter and jelly
sometimes we use tuna fish, sometimes we use turkey, or different kinds of meat.
then for lunch, i also usually eat a piece of fruit, or some vegetables.
um, in my family, dinner is the biggest meal.
we usually try to eat together as a family.
we usually have some kind of meat for my brothers and sisters.
but my parents don't eat meat, neither do i usually.
so we don't have meat.
then we usually eat, a lot of vegetables.
and then we try to eat fruit as a snack.
let me tell you a little bit about my schedule while i studied in college.
i would usually get up pretty late, probably about eight o'clock.
the first thing i would do is, quickly pray, then i would go to the bathroom, wash my face and, try to finish waking up.
after that i would go to the kitchen and eat breakfast.
i'd usually eat something small, like a bagel, maybe, a little sandwich or toast, sometimes cereal.
after that i would go back to the bedroom and get dressed.
i usually wore jeans and a T-shirt, and tennis shoes.
after that, i would go back to the bathroom, brush my teeth, comb my hair, sometimes i would put on make-up, but usually not.
then i would, put all my books in my backpack and head out the door and go to class.
i usually had class from, about, nine until twelve.
then after that i would eat lunch.
usually i would come back to my room and eat or sometimes i would go to the cafeteria.
after that i usually had a lab.
i studied chemistry.
so i would go to chemistry lab for three hours every afternoon.
when my chemistry lab finished at about four-thirty, then i went to the gym to exercise.
i exercised for about, two hours.
after that i would go back to my room, take a shower, get cleaned up and head to the cafeteria to eat dinner.
after dinner, i would return to my room, study for a couple of hours,
probably from three to whatever, depending on how much work i had.
then i would brush my teeth, get into my pajamas and get ready for bed again.
last June i traveled to Ecuador, to visit my fiance.
i went right after i graduated from college.
so that i would have a couple of weeks to help plan the wedding.
we got married about three weeks after i got to Ecuador.
the planning, as you can imagine, was pretty crazy.
because we only had three weeks.
so things, started, kind o,f falling together at the last minute.
but the last day was pretty crazy.
because we had so much planning to do for the wedding, we didn't have much time to, visit the tourist attractions.
but since my mom and my sister also went to Ecuador, to be part of the wedding, we went to the beach, which is a beautiful beach on the ocean.
and we almost went to a beautiful indigenous market, called Otavalo, but we didn't.
we uh, one thing we did do, we visited, an indigenous tribe in the city where my fiance is from.
that was quite interesting.
we also spent a couple of days walking through the city and going to little stores where they sold different,
um... where they sold different hand crafts that people from Ecuador had made.
other than that... we spent a lot of time planning the wedding and it was very nice for me to see my mom and sister, and t- for them to meet my fiance.
that was pretty much how i spent my, Ecuador vacation this summer.
hello, my name is Stephanie.
i teach English as a second language.
in the United States we call that E-S-L.
i've been teaching E-S-L for four years.
i started when i started college.
i used to teach on Thursdays and Fridays for, an hour and half every night.
most of my students are from Guatemala, and Mexico.
although i've also had students from Czechoslovakia and Poland.
i really enjoy teaching English because it lets me meet people from other countries, and it's very nice to see, how the students progress.
i really like it when, i spend a lot of time trying to teach someone something, and they finally learn it.
it's very exciting.
my husband and i have had many problems with the I-N-S, that stands for immigration and naturalization services.
we just got married this June.
and my husband has actually never been able to come to the United States because, they have not given him his visa.
he went to the embassy three times before we were married to try to come and visit me.
but, he was denied every single time.
the first time he went, he, basically, i think he probably should have denied because he went and he didn't really know exactly where he would be staying,
and he didn't have my address or anything and of course that was only after we'd known each other a little while.
the second time we went, i actually went with him to the embassy in Ecuador.
and, they wouldn't even let me help him talk, because the way the embassy sees it, is that the applicant himself has to prove that he has enough ties to the country so that he will return.
and they won't even let friends or, family in many cases help them, during their interview in the embassy.
so he was denied a second time.
the third time i really thought he was going to get his visa.
i had done a lot of work here. i had got him accepted into an English as a second language program.
my dad had filed an, an invitation letter.
one of my friends, um, who lived near the university had filed an invitation letter saying that she he could stay at her house.
and we had everything very well organized he had his bank accounts, he had everything ready.
and so he went to the embassy.
he was very well dressed, and the person told him he didn't have enough money, even though he had a lot of money in the bank account.
so we were very very frustrated with this embassy because, they won't let anyone come even as a tourist.
it's, very hard to come from any country in Latin America, with the possible exception of Argentina and Chile.
so, um, we've been together for three years.
he was my boyfriend for three years and then, we've been married... a little over two months.
and i, i'm in the United States and my husband's in Ecuador because, the United States government won't let him come here.
but hopefully, his paper work will go through, because i believe that once someone gets married, they should automatically get, a conditional permanent residence.
three years ago i participated in the program Amigos de las Americas which means friends of the Americas.
it's a volunteer organization, based in Houston Texas.
it's similar to the Peace Corps except that it's for shorter time periods, and it's basically targeted, at people in high school or, the early college years.
what it is, is they send out those students who know Spanish or Portuguese depending on what country you go to.
they send them, to different countries in Latin America to do community service work.
they have different they have many different projects.
there are many different projects.
they have community sanitation project,s in which the volunteers build latrines and do community service talks.
they also have projects in which volunteers, actually give vaccines to humans.
i think that project is based in Paraguay.
then, the project i participated in was rabies vaccination, which is in Ecuador.
it's actually, kind of interesting how i decided to participate in this.
at the point in my life at which i went to in which i participated in Amigos, i was very interested in human medicine.
so i really wanted to do human vaccinations, which would have meant i would have gone to Paraguay.
but as it turns out that the program was filled and so i had to decide what program i wanted to participate in.
i wa- i, um i've also been very interested in animals and loved them my whole life, so going to Ecuador looked good.
but i wasn't still quite sure about that.
but then, since when i was in sixth grade, i did a report on Ecuador and i absolutely fell in love with it, that was what, basically tied the... knot and made me want to go to Ecuador.
so, i went to Ecuador and i did rabies vaccinations for eight weeks.
we also taught English for a little bit.
and we did many, um, charales [a Spanish word] which would be kind of like informational talks, about dental hygiene, sanitation, nutrition.
um. we also planted some gardens and did talks about that.
we talked about rabies, the dangers of smoking, and we made a big huge mural with, a lot paintings at the elementary school, and we got to meet a lot of nice people.
that was actually how i met my who is now the man who is now my husband.
so, i, highly recommend the program but hahaha not really for that reason, but it's a very good program.
anyone who's interested in going to Latin America, and has a... strong interest in community service i would definitely recommend that they participate.
i have a really interesting story that i would like to tell you.
my boyfriend and i were supposed to get together for spring break.
he was supposed to go to the university where i was studying to visit me.
but he couldn't get a visa, so he couldn't, um, leave his country.
he's from Ecuador, and i was studying in the United States.
so he called me on Thursday night, to tell me that he couldn't come.
and i was very upset. we were both very upset because we had been planning, all along he would come.
i had been studying really hard and trying to get a lot of work done so that i would have a lot of time to spend with him, when he got here.
well as it turns out he couldn't come.
but, the following week starting Monday after the Thursday he had called, was our spring break, so, in my head i started planning right away after we stopped, calling that i could maybe surprise him.
so i since i'd already got a lot of work done, this wasn't going to be too bad, but i still had a paper to write.
so i spent all Friday night writing the paper.
i got it done about Saturday and i had to be in New York to leave, to fly to Ecuador at about eight o'clock.
so i really hurried up, ran and printed out the paper that i had to turn in, and packed up my bags and, got to Newark to New York.
and then so all the way in the plane i'm thinking how am i gonna surprise him.
what's the best way to do it? how would it be nicest.
and i met some really nice people on the plane, and so we were talking about this.
and i just kept getting more and more excited.
so by the time i got to Ecuador i was really really excited.
i got there probably at about six or seven in the morning, which was the good time.
so i got on a little trolley, I got on the bus and i made it to the city where my, boyfriend lived.
and, then i was still trying to decide how i was going to do it.
and so, i got in a taxi and i had to try to find my way to this place.
well, first i had told him, that the, um, the place at first i told him that i needed to go to a little store that was on Guaquille Street.
so we drove up and down Guaquille Street and we didn't see the little store.
so then i was thinking that maybe i had the name wrong, because it had been a while since i was there.
and so i was like 'well, i don't think it's this name, but' and i was trying to tell him more less where it was at.
because i had remembered, remembered going by it before.
and so then finally it turns out that it was on Galapagos Street.
and so we made it to the store.
and he dropped me off, and i got out.
and since i got there on Sunday, the store was closed.
so i went to a little grocery store, that was right beside the package place.
and, i had one of the people from the grocery store call, my boyfriend to tell him that he had a package to pick up,
and, to ask him if he could get here as soon as possible because she had to go away to go on a trip.
so i was inside the little grocery store, which is right by the package agency.
and i was all nervous and getting excited that he was going to be coming.
and everyone the other people who were in the grocery store were also getting kind of,
excited because they saw that i was so excited.
and so finally my, boyfriend drove up.
and they told me the little store had the grocery store in front and the little house in the back.
so they told me to go into the little house so that my boyfriend wouldn't see me.
and so my boyfriend got out of the car and he saw that the package agency was closed.
and so one of the, um, ladies from the store went over to the package agency and told him that, since the lady had to leave early, she had left the package inside their house.
and so, sh- she kept trying to get him to go inside the store and then to go inside their house.
but he was getting kind of nervous because everyone was laughing at him.
so he didn't really want to go out, or go inside the store.
so then, i finally saw him and i walked out and i'm like 'hi.' and, i was so happy and,
excited to see him and i think he was also happy and excited.
but he was just kind of speechless.
he didn't really say anything, but it was just really really nice to see him and, it made for a very very nice week.
a lot better than, the week would have been had i had just stayed at school all by myself.
my uncle Howard is a big practical joker.
but one time my sister and i got him back.
um, it was last summer and a friend of mine from New York came to visit me at my house in northern Michigan.
and, he had actually arrived in an airport in Detroit which is farther south.
so on his way back from the airport, my sister and i asked him to drop us off at my grandma and grandpa's house.
which is probably two hours from my house and two hours from Detroit, right in the middle.
so, we were on our way to my grandparents' house, and as just about, as we were about to pull in the drive way,
my sister had this great idea for how to surprise my uncle.
so she told me to duck under the seat so that they wouldn't see us.
so my sister and i were hiding in the seat.
and in pulls Steve in his little Steve's my friend's name, in pulls Steve in his little car.
and so Steve got out, of the car and he went to ask my uncle Howard for directions for how to get to Detroit.
and my uncle Howard looked at him kind of weird, because Detroit was a, was probably about two hours away from my grandparents' house.
but he thought that was, okay, and he told him directions.
so Steve walks back to the car.
and then my sister, pops up and she tells him, 'go ask him for a drink of water.'
so Steve walks out again and he asks my uncle Howard for a drink of water.
well, my uncle says 'all right' and he takes, him inside and my grandma gives him a glass of water and, they talk for a little bit about whatever,
that Steve's on his way to Detroit and what he did on his vacation and, he's kind of making things up.
and so far my uncle isn't too mad.
so Steve comes back out to the car one more time.
and my sister asks him, to ask my uncle Howard to please let him use the bathroom.
so Steve gets out.
he is been very good-natured throughout this all.
he gets out, and he asks my uncle Howard if he could please use the bathroom.
well by this time, my uncle's gotten very very upset and he told him, 'just go out back!'
and so St- then my uncle was quite mad and Steve, obviously didn't want to go to the bathroom behind my grandparents' house.
so, he came back to the car and he's like, 'i don't think that this is a good joke to keep doing.
he's getting really mad at me.' so, Laurel, my sister, and i, finally got out of the car and we went over and we were like,
Uncle Howard, surprise.' and then so we all had to laugh about this and,
to this day this is one of the funniest jokes cuz it's the day, everyone finally got back at uncle Howard.
our family cat, Snickers, is not very friendly at all.
she is actually probably one of the least friendly cats.
um... actually the other day my sister had to take her to the vet, because she had i don't know if she got cut or she was bleeding.
so my sister took her to the vet.
and she also needed to get some shots.
so while they were at the vet place, Snickers was okay because it was just my sister and Snickers in the room.
now when the vet entered and wanted to put Snickers on the little examination table and,
take her blood because she thought she might have feline leukemia.
well Snickers didn't like that and she started like, kind of, 'meow,' and she started hissing and trying to move all over and she started trying to scratch.
the veterinarian, which she couldn't even do because she was declawed on her first, front paws.
but, she just kept trying to... gnarl and, hiss and trying to get away from the vet.
so the vet had to leave, and she got back, and first she just put on this little muzzle so that Snickers couldn't bite her.
and that worked a little bit. but Snickers was still moving around and she kept, making loud noises and trying to get away.
so the vet had to go and get two helpers.
so now there were two helpers, with a little muzzled cat just to take out blood for her.
that pretty much describes for how Snickers is.