tatjana

My mother, who is from Ecuador, always spoke Spanish at home, and my grandparents never spoke anything else. Being the eldest and a second mother to her 8 brothers and sisters, my mom always put an emphasis on family, and we often went to Ecuador to spend time with those who didn’t come to Canada. Now I’m the only one of about 40 1st cousins (+ too many 2nds to count) on 2 continents who knows them all. Even though I live in Germany (where my dad’s from) with my German fiance. I have no doubt that it is Spanish I will speak to my children, because to me it is a big part of the bond with my family. And yes, my dad speaks Spanish too, and after meeting my family, my fiance decided he wanted to learn too :)

I was first diagnosed when I was about 4 or 5. I don’t remember this, but my parents had to take me to a shrink because I said I wanted to kill myself. I’ve just been doing my best ever since, sometimes with meds, sometimes without. Growing up my parents reacted very badly to my being sad, so I learned to hide it. Very few people know about my condition, or how bad it sometimes gets. Recently I’ve been learning to talk about it, and accept that it doesn’t make me weak or ungrateful to admit that I feel like shit sometimes. I think this will help.

Abby and Lily are a daily source of joy, and sometimes a bit of stress. if i could just get them to stop tearing up the wallpaper, we’d be the happiest thing going :)

i was lucky enough to be raised speaking english and spanish (my mom is from Ecuador) and in Canada we start learning French in grade 1. although i took up until the end of high school, it’s now pretty rusty. i can get buy with basic conversations, but i would only count it as a half. i took a minor in German in university, and have been in Germany almost 2 years now. i still get frustrated that it’s not as good as my english (also, there seem to be many more fun things to say in english, grr!) but it takes most people a little while to realize i’m not from here :)

i do not actually want a corvette. this was my cheeky boy fiddling with my account. not that i have anything against corvettes, or sports cars, but they’re much more his thing than mine.

i want an old beetle convertible :)