¡Hola, amigos! Me llamo Ela, soy filipina, soy estudiante.

A lot of things have been making me happy: classes every other day instead of consecutive days, good friends who I can talk to about everything, New Order's Bizarre Love Triangle, my mom's newfound willingness to keep buying me books...
One more thing that's been making me happy is Spanish class. Admittedly, at the start of the class, I've been apathetic—I'd rather learn French. After spending a morning at the Instituto Cervantes last Saturday, however, I changed my attitude completely.

Instituto Cervantes is a center for promoting Spain's culture and language, offering classes and certifications in the Spanish language. Every year, all their branches worldwide hold El Dia E (The Spanish Language Day), a cultural open house.This was the event our Spanish professor told us we should attend if we wanted extra points.

At first, I didn't want to get up early to attend it, but thank god my mom forced me to go, because I had a great time there!

Aya, Ava, and I were also asked to be in a video clip, lolz. Watch out for us at 0:49.



It was so much fun to say hola and gracias and made me wish I knew more words. We ran into our prof, who asked us if we wanted to play Spanish-word Scramble (Scrabble?).

White tiles are mine. Dis game is my bitch.

Proudly holding up my scorecard.

Me, my blockmates, and our professor, Vanessa Afonso.

I played against Paula and won. Yay, me! Or, estoy orgullosa de mi misma (I am proud of myself)!
Every time I got a word right, I would yell, "Muy bien, Ela!" much to the embarrassment of my friends, who began calling me presumida (conceited) and el diablo (no translation needed, I guess).

I asked my prof to translate a lot of words. I could only hope that I didn't annoy her with my admittedly obnoxious enthusiasm.
A few phrases:

• Divertidos: so fun
• Estoy orgullosa de ti: I'm proud of you
• Tengo hambre: I am hungry
• Quiero comer: I want to eat

Digression: I did the Super Junior pose. That's how much I love you, YC, okay!! This will be proof of my everlasting love for you guys.

The open house certainly captured my fancy; after that, I couldn't wait for Spanish class on Wednesday. When it finally came, I paid more attention in those three hours than I could remember doing so in any class for my past two years of college.

I hope to be able to speak Spanish fluently. I even want to enroll for advanced Spanish classes in Instituto Cervantes after taking the required ones in UST. Until next time, ¡adios, amigos!