LOOKING BACK OVER MY BLOG ON SPANISH AMERICA

A STATEMENT!

I blog, because… 

So many reasons to blog!

I have been writing all my life. I started with fiction, childish stories that have long since disappeared. Then as a teacher I continued to write many texts with information for my students.

As a University professor I wrote papers, translated other writer’s works, and wrote hundreds of pages that (I hope!) contributed information.

I also tend to fall into the role of a “teller of stories”, and my various students have always enjoyed this.

Above all, I need to teach!

After I retired, I started writing again as a Hubpages newbie. There I have learnt a great deal about improving structure and presentation and I also discovered I could actually write in English and keep it up with very little effort, something I hadn’t done before, as I wrote mainly in Spanish. 

I still love Hubpages, but the recent drops in traffic have made it too slow and ponderous, so I started blogging, which I have found to be a much more dynamic medium.

I also have a dream. I want to make Spanish America more visible! I very often feel that we inhabitants of the more southern regions of the Americas are sort of invisible to the rest of the world.

There is so much to see and to enjoy in these areas, the history is so rich and varied, I will probably find writing material for a long time into the future!

I’m also providing bilingual reading texts for those of my fellow Latinos who are struggling to learn more English.

So many reasons for blogging! And such a lot of fun!

As a second part to this blog, I’m including a sort of wrap-up with some highlights from my various blog posts.

OVERVIEW OF SOME TOPICS FROM MY BLOG “SEMBLANCE OF SPANISH AMERICA”

GREAT PRE-COLUMBIAN STRUCTURES IN SPANISH AMERICA

•  The Maya in Mesoamerica

• Ciudad perdida in Colombia, South America

• Cuzco in Peru, South America

EL CASTILLO AT CHICHEN ITZA, A MAYA PYRAMID 

Click to enlarge

 Source: User Fcb981, CC BY SA3.0. Wikimedia Commons

LOVELY FLOWERS FROM SPANISH AMERICA

 

 A GROUP OF DAHLIAS

Click to enlarge

  

Source: Santosh1948, CC BY SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons 

• The Dahlia, Mexico’s national flower

• The Zinnia

• The Amancay that became the elegant Alstroemeria

• The Copihue, Chile’s national flower

 
 

 A LOVELY COPIHUE

 Click to enlarge

 Source: Inao Vasquez, CC BY SA 2.0. Wikimedia Commons

FABULOUS TEXTILE ART FROM SPANISH AMERICA

 

 TEXTILE ART FROM CUZCO, PERU. A MARKET SALE

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Source: McKay Savage, CC BY 2.0. Wikimedia Commons 

• Andean textiles (Peru, Bolivia)

• The Molas of the Guna women in Panama

LOVELY MUSIC AND INSTRUMENTS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES IN SPANISH AMERICA

 A BEAUTIFUL BANDONEON

Click to enter

 
 Source: Pavel Krok, CC BY SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons

 

• The Argentine Tango and the Bandoneon

• Andean music and instruments

• The Zamba from the Argentine Pampa

• The Marimba from Guatemala

INTERNATIONAL ASTROPHYSICS

 

DRAMATIC MOONSET OVER PARANAL, CHILE

Click to enlarge

Source: European Southern Observatory, CC BY 2.0. Flickr 

• Stargazing over the desert sands of northern Chile

CERRO TOLOLO OBSERVATORY, CHILE

 Click to enlarge

Source: David Walker, CC BY SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons

 

FANTASTIC CUISINE FROM ALL OVER SPANISH AMERICA

 

A DISH OF HUMITAS

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Source: Marcos Katz, CC BY 3.0. Wikimedia Commons

• Uses of the potato

• Uses of corn

• The humita

• Soups of all sorts

FINAL WORDS

This Blog post was the result of a prompt from the Blog Hop called FTSF (Finish the Sentence Friday). I think it was a great prompt which allowed me to write this overview, a good “looking back process” for my blog that is exactly five months old.

As for the future, there is certainly more to write about.

So I blog because…. It’s fascinating!

SPANISH VERSION

(This Blog is bilingual)

En este post he escrito una breve reseña de mis razones para iniciarme como bloguera.

Fundamentalmente, soy una profesora de toda la vida y me gusta enseñar. Si alguien aprende algo nuevo leyendo mi Blog, yo soy feliz!

Además, tengo un sueño, hacer más visible la América Hispana. Muchas veces he sentido que nosotros, los que habitamos estas extensas zonas, no somos visibles para el resto del mundo.

Y estos países son tan fascinantes, con tanta historia y tantas riquezas naturales!

Para concluir, he aprovechado este post para hacer una especie de reseña de algunos de los grandes tópicos que ya he incluido en mis diversos posts, agregando algunas fotos selectas.

More about similar topics in a future post.     Más sobre temas similares en un próximo post.

LANGUAGE TIPS FOR ENGLISH

Words that go together!  * Pay a person a compliment   - * Save your strength  - * Keep a place   - * Come early   – * Get a shock

LANGUAGE TIPS FOR SPANISH.

Expresiones de uso frecuente: * En las malas se conocen los amigos - * Hay ropa tendida  - * Hierba mala nunca muere 

How is your level of comprehension?     ¿Cómo está su nivel de comprensión?

© 2013  joanveronica  (Joan Robertson)

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