First Musings

Why this blog, you ask? My primary reason is to have a place to share my life, but my current impetus to actually get it set up is to prepare for my trip to Costa Rica this Sunday. I hope to document some of my experiences so that my friends and family can share them with me. Will I actually post while I'm in CR? I don't really know. I know I will be swamped with school and homework. But I'm hoping I'll have some time left over to blog at least a little. If not, I'll be doing the good old-fashioned pencil and paper journaling and be able to post once I get back.

About the title of my blog... I thought about it for a while (OK - I admit, it was only a couple hours). I recently read through my brother-in-law's blog called Ken's Footnotes. It was a great read. I loved the title and the thought that went behind it, as well as the thoughts presented. And I love my son's blog "Nocturnal Serenity". It's a great way to see what he has been doing and has inspired me on many occasions. One other inspiration has been my friend Georg Turner's writings. When I started thinking about this blog I had to think about my purpose. While I have enjoyed other people's "deep thoughts", I have to admit that usually I don't do a lot of deep thinking or philosophizing. It's just not my nature. I'm more of an "off-the-top-of-my-head" thinker. :-) And I expect to use this blog to tell about fun or interesting things that happen to me: my CR trip, trips to see my granddaughter, possibly things going on at work (which is a school for me - do I call it school or work??). So, when I looked up the definition of musings (thoughts, especially when aimless and unsystematic) I knew that word was perfect. My first choice was Melody's Musings, but since that name was taken, Musings by Melody seemed like a good second choice. Most postings to my blog will be random musings, although occasionally there might be some deep thoughts, totally by mistake!

So... about my trip. I'm going to a language school in a suburb (San Pedro) of the capital city of San Jose. The school name is ILISA and I will be learning Spanish for 4 hours every weekday morning with no more than 4 students in the class and then have another 2 hours of tutoring in the afternoons. I was bemoaning this 6 hours of classes plus homework with George, who promptly said that I should go tell my students and see if they felt sorry for me! Yeah, but I'm 40-something! Can I still cram that much information into my brain??? I guess I'll find out. I have been interested in learning Spanish ever since I took it in high school many long years ago. I helped teach my children while I was home-schooling them and now I work in a school that has a very high Hispanic demographic. I was going to go during the summer of 2006, but looking and preparing for a new job took priority for the last two summers. Now, knowing I will be going back to the same school next year, plus the additional motivation of knowing I will actually use my Spanish a lot with the students and parents of this school, it's time. I will be staying with a host family. The parents are just a couple years younger than me and they have 3 children. The oldest, a girl, is a physical therapist, the son is in computers (perhaps computer programming), and the youngest daughter is in high school. Already I feel some ties to them and I hope it will be a wonderful experience. As for my weekends, ILISA has a travel desk and can help me arrange some trips for the weekends. I definitely want to see the volcano Mt. Arenal and the rain-forest. Other than that, I am just going to be open to what comes up. I have a birding guide and hope to see many of the incredible birds found in Costa Rica, maybe, if I get lucky, even see the illusive Quetzal! I'm very excited and a little nervous, but what is life without some adventure?!