Getting Back On Track...

I did some further estimation's on the budget today. If I stay to the plan... putting $250 per week into savings, I'll have the $3500 deposit by June 12th & the full tuition & airfare of $6750 by August 28th. So I should have the deposit several weeks before the 2010 schedule is posted. I should prep myself on the application beforehand. I want to fill out a few practice copies before the actual hard copy. I also would like to draft a letter to include.

I got the Spanish books today. The dictionary is HUGE! A small footprint & page size but that thing is around 3 inches thick. It has both Spanish to English as well as English to Spanish word translations. The other book looks like it will be a very good training aid... but I'm curious about a few things. For one, the author has written that "the letter "O" ALWAYS sounds like "O"... what about words like desocupado? I thought the first "O" was pronounced as "AH"? Perhaps I'm not listening carefully enough. In fact... now that I think about it... I suspect that I'm wrong. It looks like it would be pronounced as "AH"... because of the word "ocupado" (. Anyway, the premise of that tome is that we already speak plenty of Spanish words... & these assist us in understanding the structure & "Spanishization" of English. (Spanishization is MY invention...)

I'm not actually certain how I'll approach the studies with the books and the audio CD's together. I've been getting into more of a habit of listening on the commute for work. I think that the books will assist me in building my own sentences, which I've been playing with regularly while listening to the CD's. One thing I think I need to do is install the voice recognition for Windows... IN SPANISH!... and see if I can start reading well enough to have the translation work on the PC. (Of course, it's Windows... so my expetations are EXTREMELY LOW!)


Wow. I just realized that my application may only be a month away. I've e-mailed the center asking if when they will make the 2010 schedule available. It just started to sink in. Seriously... in another month or so I'll be making a decision that could change my life. It's too bad that tomorrow is Friday & that I actually have to go in to work. I really want a beer right now. Screw it. I may just have one anyhow.