i'm back, baby!

hey everyone!
I AM FINALLY WRITING ON MY BLOG AGAIN! Man, its been awhile. But I tell ya, I have a renewed interest in blogging NOW THAT I HAVE A CAMERA AGAIN! As some of you might remember, my camera was stolen in December. Well, my parents sent me a birthday package (my birthday is this saturday, the 16th) and among the contents was a brand new digital camera! Thank you thank you THANK YOU, Mom and Dad! I love you! Also, thank you for the shoes, candy, trashy gossip magazines, and easy mac! Seriously, you guys, you have NO idea how wonderful it is to get something from back home. it makes my week to get something from the US. THanks again! :)
Also thank you to all those who have been sending me cards for my birthday....shout outs to Aunt Thelma, Aunt Dottie, Edith (aka "Edna") Deb Miller, Madison and Will, Em and Frank, Mom and Dad, of course.....

Anyway, things have been going good. Last week I was very sick. I thought i had meningytis because i had a very high fever for almost 3 days and my neck hurt so bad, i could hardly move it. but what do ya know? i'm better now and back to loving life again.

Things are going good with my roommates. My Brazilian roommate Marco is working hard on his Law thesis for his doctorate. Kaya, my german roommate, left today for Thailand and Japan. For 2 months. By himself. Just because. Funny, my french roommate, just finished her exams and went home to France for a little R&R....she came back yesterday.

I myself haven't done any traveling since Christmas. I plan on staying here for awhile, although i may go to Portugal in March.

I am very excited because my lovely parents are jumping the pond in late May to come and see me! I am so happy that i will have the opportunity to show them my life here. I think they will love it.

For those of you who do not know yet, I have decided to return to Seville and work in Brenes next year as well. I will be back in Iowa in June, and will stay until the end of September. Then I will come back to Seville.

I am so in love with my job I cannot even express it in words. The professors are awesome. The kids are amazing. It is such a great feeling to wake up in the morning and be excited for your job. I'm really enjoying it here! :) I am going to take my new camera to school next week and i will take lots of pictures to show you all where i work and whom i work with!

Its valentine's day, a day i don't like at all. i don't know what i'm doing tonight so don't ask. such a commerical holiday. I read in a magazine that last year Americans spent 17 billion dollars on valentine's day gifts. Incredible.

What else is going on? I am having fun keeping up with the US elections. Every morning i discuss the updates with Jorge, the guy who works at the bar at my school. For those of you who don't know, I am all about Barack Obama, so it is very exciting to see he is kicking some ass. :)

Elections in Spain are in March, but they aren't as exciting as the US elections unfortunately. There are 2 main parties in Spain- PSOE (liberal) and PP (conservative). PSOE is very popular in Andalucia because Andalucia is the poorest region in Spain, and PSOE provides social welfare relief for many families in the south. All signs point PSOE winning again.....

So what's the weather been like here? Sunny sunny sunny warm and nice and beautiful and about 68 degrees everyday. sorry to tell you that, you iowans out there who are suffering in the snow.......hehe

i have pictures for you all, but i haven't figured out how to load them yet. you see, i have a Kodak easy share camera, but in order to share the photos with you all, i have to install the software, and i don't have enough space on my hard drive to install it. i will see what i can do and get back to you.

until soon,
aubree