Author Archives: the almighty one (brad)

Don’t know much about history…

Woooooooow, I’ve been SERIOUSLY neglecting in my duties when it comes to this website – I really suck! I apologize, and I’ll make amends now with a big mother update.

Okay, let’s see – what’s happened over the past couple of weeks? Well, we’ve started having a weekly workshop with Simon (one of the Colombian teachers) learning about the history/sociology/anthropology of Colombia. It’s been VERY informative, he’s doing a fantastic job of it. Very interesting. And, because of this workshop, instead of professional development meetings (which apparently were a complete waste of time), we got a chance to go visit a public school our school is associated with. Apparently a law was passed a little while back forcing private schools to develop relationships with public schools (which are severely underfunded) to give them some support – whether with resources, teaching strategies, whatever. It’s obviously worked VERY well with this school, because it didn’t look all that different from Nogales. I’m pretty sure it’s not a very good representation of how the program is working though, since there was a school just across a small valley that looked like it was on perpetual recess the entire time we were there – I think it was more of a daycare than a school. It was really good to get a look at another school though, regardless of how (deceptively) rosy it made the public system look. Ben took some pictures and a short video, so I’ll put those up as soon as I get them from him.

We also got a chance to take a look at the Gold Museum downtown that day. Unfortunately, about 80% of it was closed because they’re moving into a new building, so we didn’t get to see much. We’ll just have to go back again, I guess! There were some pretty cool things there though, they were neat to see.

What else, what else…well, I’m sick as a dog right now, I haven’t been to work in the past two days (today included). I’ll make it back for tomorrow, but it’s been a really crappy few days. I wasn’t even able to make it to Crepes and Waffles (mmmm, Crepes and Waffles) for Robert’s birthday yesterday, which was very disappointing – I love that place! Oh, and it would’ve been nice to be there for his birthday, too ;) Hopefully I’ll be all right by the weekend though, we’re going to a kind of resorty place to get some sun and relaxation for a few days. I’m looking forward to getting out of the city for a while, I haven’t seen anything outside of our little area for a while.

Oh, I picked myself up a custom fitted leather jacket last weekend – $80 Canadian. MUY cheap :) And it’s very very nice too, you can ask my sister – she’s got a picture of it. I may have to go back again before Christmas and pick up a heavier one that I can wear in Canadian winter – they’re just too damn nice and cheap to pass up!

That’s it for now, I’ll update you on how the weekend goes. Chau!

I like the nightlife, I like to boogie….

Whoopsie! I’m a bit behind on my postings – sorry folks, I know how much you live for them :) Various reasons for it, let’s take a look…

First up, I finally got a chance to get out and check out the night life here in Bogota again. And, it appears, I enjoyed it a bit too much. I went out to a club with Zack and his girlfriend, met up with some teachers from another school, and we all had ourselves a good time. Turns out that hardly eating all day and the high altitude make for a deadly combination, though. Everything was fine for most of the night, and then…well, it wasn’t pretty. Like being hit by a truck. And big Nick ended up with my wallet, somehow – apparently I threw it at him to pay for something (which didn’t need paying for, by the way). The details are a bit fuzzy. Like I said, had a good time though :)

That kind of ruined my Sunday. I didn’t wake up until around 2:30, and I had work to do (sadly). In fact, I’ve been marking every night this week, it really sucks. Stupid 8 report cards a year, it’s insane. But it’s all for the kids, right?!?

That’s it for now, I’ll let you know what goes down this coming weekend…

Botero and Swackhammer

Okay, time for Weekend Update! This week was pretty quiet during the week, at least in terms of things going on here in South America. Saturday was a pretty good day. A few of us went down to the National Art (I THINK it’s supposed to be Art) Museum. We actually attempted to do it last weekend too, but never ended up getting there – Robert needed pants :) Anyway, it was interesting. The first floor was primarily archaeological stuff – bones, artifacts, some very cool mummies. Second floor wasn’t all that fantastic – it was mostly historical portraits. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think people smiled a lot back in the 18 and early 1900’s. Maybe their dental plans sucked…

Anyway, the top floor was MUCH better. There were some really neat paintings, including some from an artist named Enrique Grau Araujo – very interesting stuff, look him up of you have a chance. There was also some stuff by a very well-known Colombian artist named Botero, who…well, paints large people. They kind of look like Edward Gorey characters, but fat. Even his trees are fat. Some of it’s really good though, certainly original.

So that’s about it for stuff down here. There have been some developments from home though. I’m going to keep stuff about home home (ie family) off of here, but friends are still fair game :)

Ryan Swackhammer got married on Friday. Holy crap, he didn’t get gunshy after dating someone for two years for once :) Just kidding buddy, I’m proud of you – you did what we all hope we can do someday, you married your best friend. Congratulations. It’s interesting – when I hit university, I’m pretty sure most people thought I’d be the last person to ever get married. Then, for a little while at least, it almost looked like I would go first. Now, I’m back to going last again :) Funny how cyclical life is. Guess I’m going to have to find a Colombian chiquita to bring home…better be careful though, don’t want to get used for a green card ;)

That’s it for this week, next round will probably be next weekend.

Captain’s Log, Supplemental: Always wanted to say that legitimately. Anyway, just wanted to add something. As you all know, I have cable down here. As a result, I’ve been able to watch SOME North American programming – mostly drama stuff. Anyway, I watched ‘Without A Trace’ this week, and they showed an episode from this past February. Really, really touching episode – probably something a lot of high school kids should see. Interesting to see what can make a 12 year old kid want to kill himself, and it was stuff that happens everyday. Well, almost everyday. Regardless, there was a song at the end of the episode that I’ve fallen in love with. Kind of in the vein of Ryan Adams, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, etc. It’s called Fire Sign by David Berkeley – it’s been added as a bonus track to his new album ‘After the Wrecking Ships’. I’ve heard some of it, and it’s pretty good – and even if it wasn’t, it’s worth it just for this song. I’ve had it on repeat for the last 2 days now that I’ve finally been able to download it (Can I still be charged for doing this in Colombia even if I’m a Canadian and it’s legal for us? Probably, huh. Oh well, let’s see Sony or whoever come down and get me). Beautiful song, well worth the effort to find. You can get his album online at CDBaby.com, if you’re interested. That’s it, bye bye.

I need a Babelfish

Oooooooooooh, my first posting since I got down here that’s actually recent as opposed to going backwards in time a month. My messages are going to be about once a week from now on, now that I’ve settled into a fairly regular routine.

We’re now into our third week of school. Things have been going pretty well so far, no major issues. Had a bit of a hassle with one of my classes on Friday, but all is fixed and forgiven. Have I mentioned that the kids here are actually really nice kids? A bit pampered, but I’ll fix that :)

This past weekend was an interesting one. Saturday night Barbie had a little dinner party, then she, Simon and I went out to a club. Apparently the place is really trendy and often has celebrities in it – none on this night though, it was pretty quiet. In fact, there were only about 10 people in the place when we got there at 11:30. A few more showed up, but not too many. Didn’t matter though, the music was great. I had a fantastic time, it was a lot of fun.

Sunday afternoon Alan, Megan and I decided to go to a movie. We checked out CineColombia to find times and locations for movies, and we went with Goodbye Lenin. It’s a foreign film, but it’s listed as an English film with Spanish subtitles. No problem, right? WRONG. It’s actually a GERMAN film with Spanish subtitles. Now, Alan has been living in Bogota for a year, so he’s fairly good with his Spanish. Megan and I, not so much so. Our lessons don’t even start until this week (first one today!), so it was a bit of an effort. We were both able to follow along well enough to understand the story, but holy crap it was exhausting. I was ready for bed afterwards.

Done for now, more updates soon…

Oh, almost forgot. I got myself a gym membership last night – maybe if I’m in decent enough shape they’ll let me go on the trip to the Amazon in November :)

My own little time machine

Well holy crap, I finally got down to doing this. I’ve now been in Bogota for almost 3 weeks, so I figure it’s about time I actually got everyone updated. So, here’s how I’m going to do it – since there’s going to be quite a bit to write (I have a lot of catching up to do), I’m going to magically go back in time and create the individual postings! Hallelujah, praise the power of the Blogger! And since I now am hooked up at home, I can take my time doing this – or, at least, I can actually DEVOTE some time to doing it. So, assuming you’re interested (since you’re here, I would guess you are), you’ll have to go to one of the pages where past postings are saved. Click on the July and August links at the bottom, that’ll get you there. Enjoy!