What I want to remember to take to Antigua

Nine weeks in Guatemala this summer to study Spanish. These are the things I want to remember to take with me. Some of this is obvious, some not so much. Behind each item is one line about the item and it's relation to the trip. If anyone else thinks of something I should take, feel free to comment.

• My Spanish dictionary, verb book and Words They Don’t Teach You book - is this cheating?

• Casual reading (in English!) - I can’t work on Spanish the entire time

• Shoes

- tennis shoes - for hiking
- leather sandals - going to class and dressing up a bit
- mesh casual shoes - alternative shoes for class
- Tevas - what I wear all summer anyway

• laptop - can’t be off the Internet and away from email for nine weeks

• iPod/iPod speakers - need my tunes, baby

• Palm - keeps track of my life and my passwords

• phone - gotta Phone Home

• digital camera - gotta snap those memories

• chargers and connectors for all above - nothing’s any good for very long without juice
  

• extra power strip - it’s an old house where I’m staying, I’m betting only 1 plug, 2 max

• clips - very handy for all sorts of things

• office type accessories - stapler, tape, pens, pencils, lead, folders - it is school, after all

• water purifier tabs - no can drink the water, hope I don’t get bugged

• Nalgene bottle - need someplace to put the good water

• bottle insulator - staying cool, ya know

• med kit - if I bring it, I won’t need it, if I don’t bring it, I’ll, for sure, need it

• prescription drugs (make sure enough for 9 weeks) - better living through chemistry

• clothes (but not too many) - pack judiciously, just enough, but not too much, plus I think they frown on naked tourists
  

• towel - no good space traveler ever goes anywhere without their towel

• travel pillow - otherwise, my neck will make me want to kill myself to stop the pain

• body maintenance items (clippers, hydrogen proxide, nail file, etc.) - it’s the little things you forget that will drive you crazy

• DEET (ick) - hate the stuff, hate dengue fever worse

• international drivers license - might have need for a scooter or car while I’m there

What's this about Guatemala?

I am a non-traditional student working on her BA in sociology with a minor in American Culture. As part of the University of Kentucky Arts & Sciences degree requirements, I'm required to have four semesters of a foreign language. Since they are willing to count my two years of German taken in high school many, many moons ago, I only need 3 semesters or eleven hours of another language.

Since they are going to make me take a foreign language, I would actually like to know a foreign language when I'm done. At this point, Spanish seems the most accessible and practical for me to learn, but I think the only way this old brain is actually going to absorb it enough to retain it, is if I immerse myself in a country and learn it that way. Our other purpose (my husband and I), in studying Spanish in an immersion environment is to experience living in another country. We are starting to consider our retirement and retiring out of the country is being seriously talked about as a way to afford a comfortable retirement.

Antigua, Guatemala was not my first choice. Initially, I thought I might want to go to Quito as Ecuador is of some interest to me, but in tracking the temps in Quito last summer, it quickly became apparent that it is waaay too chilly in Quito for this little grey duck to be comfortable. I then looked at some coastal spots in different countries. I found a program online that said they had classes in both Manta, Ecuador and Granada, Nicaragua, which were both of interest to me. But after three or four attempts to contact them about their programs and getting no answer, I was forced to look elsewhere. Someone suggested maybe I got no answer because they weren't actually a Spanish language school, but a front for the CIA. Could be, wouldn't surprise me.

Time to look elsewhere. Despite working with a very nice young woman in the study abroad office at UK, also named Melinda, I wasn't really getting much help from them in finding a program. All the programs they worked with were not places I wanted to go and of their recommended ones I did look at they were all very expensive. Not practical nor affordable.

I finally settled on two and wrote off to them to get a copy of the course work. Because I'm going with a program UK doesn't have any experience with, I needed to get prior approval from someone in the Spanish dept. about the course outline. I will also need to bring everything back with me and hand it in, in order to get the proper credit when I'm finished. The choice of StudyAbroad, http://www.studyabroad.com/, over BridgeAbroad, http://www.bridgeabroad.com/, basically came down to the one that was most responsive to my request for a course outline and answers to my questions.

Now the course of study has been approved and I'm looking around at places to stay in Antigua. I am going to stay for nine weeks in order to get enough classroom time to fulfill the credit hours I need. My husband, E, will be joining me for four of my nine weeks there. I'm alternately tremendously excited and tremendously terrified.

In future posts I will be listing all that needs to be done, considered, taken with and handled before I leave and while I'm there. More to come.

So why am I doing this?

I'm certainly not one to jump on every bandwagon that cruises by, but this blogging thing seems like it's gonna be the best way to keep in touch with everyone and, at the same time, document my upcoming trip to Antigua, Guatemala.

In later posts, I will outline my plans and everything I need to do before I leave and other attendant issues.

Right now, I want to share the story of my latest adventure with the medical industrial complex.

Well, I had a bit of an adventure last night and unfortunatly missed
hanging out with some good friends of ours to watch Louisville in the
Orange Bowl.  It also caused me to have the medical industry inflicted
upon me.

Every since I was a child I have these 'spells', (pronounced sp-ells',
for you Yankees).  My heart races really fast and feels as if it's
going to pound out of my chest.  When I was young, I could just stop
moving for a minute and things would settle back down. As I've gotten
older, it's become harder to get them to resolve, but I can usually go
lay down and be quiet for 5 or 10 minutes and things are fine.

Last night, just as I got down to Lisa and Greg's house, one came on.
Try as I might, I couldn't get it to resolve.  There were also weird
descrepancies with the usual spell.  It kept acting like it was passing
but then would come back and it was starting to give me a pain under
my collarbone.

Anyway, after about an hour and 1/2 of this (around 7 or so), I
finally decided to go let the medical community inflict itself upon me.
This was no easy decision. For one, I was afraid, I get in there and
it would resolve right away and they would still keep me to run tests
and monitor, etc.

In the end, it was the right decision.  When they got me on the
monitor, I was spiking at a 185/190 heart rate and my blood pressure
was up around 145/90, which is quite high for me.  I usually run at
about 110/70 or even lower. They had me try some manual things and it
wasn't going away, so basically they gave me a 'soft reboot'.  They
injected me with adenosin (sp?), which makes your head and chest feel
really full for about 10 seconds and then, voila, within a minute,
everything was back to normal. They also gave me some super
beta-blocker to further lower my BP, but after that everything sunk
back into boredom and ennui until they let me go home about 9:30.

Two good things, (I guess?) came out of this: I finally have a name
for my spells, which is SVT, which stands for super ventricular
tachicardia, (I'm gonna stick with spells) and my cardio Dr. finally
has hard proof that something is happening.  Most docs, ya know, are
loathe to believe anything they can't see in black and white and blood.

Mostly, it's a scary thing that comes and goes, albeit, sometimes with
help, but really is no big deal. Today I'm fine, everything is fine,
nothing to see here, move along.