About

My name is Ali, I'm a native of Galveston, Texas and a recent graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. I finished up my B.S. in Math and Spanish there in May of 2010 and took a leap of faith in deciding what to do next. Determined to become truly fluent in Spanish and to return to my beloved Málaga (where I had studied abroad one summer), I applied to a program to teach English abroad in Spain. In September of 2010, I left the great state of Texas and headed across the Atlantic to Almería, Spain where I would be teaching English in a little town called Rioja.

I spent 9 months in this incredible town, both building a brand new personal life and adventuring into the world of "teaching abroad." But most of all, I fell in love with Almería...the people, the city, the beaches, the culture...it was the full package! In April of 2011, my contract was renewed for a second year of teaching, and so, I'm back with plans to be here at least until June 2012.

For me, the primary purpose of this blog is NOT to keep record of my experiences for me to look back on later in life. Instead, it is intended to be the link between what I sometimes feel like are two almost separate and distinct lives that I lead. I write in this blog in hopes that by reading it, all of y'all back home will not only get some insight into what I'm doing and the places I'm visiting, but also into the things I'm learning, the relationships I'm building, and the person I'm becoming as I figure them out for myself.

With the beginning of my second year--and a nice new blog layout to go along with it--I have resolved to do a better job at conveying what my daily life over here is really like. I'm attempting to do a "photo of the day" kinda deal with shorter entries or maybe even something simple like a good recipe that I made that day or something funny that I saw. I think this will give a much better look into my routine, and hopefully it will keep y'all checking in more often :)

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NAVIGATION:

Sorry if the blog is a little hard to navigate right now...I've recently given it a facelift and I'm still trying to fix some of the little glitches.

**On the "Home" page, if you click on just the picture, all that happens is that it is enlarged and displayed in full size. To read the entries, hover your mouse over the picture, click on the little chain symbol in the bottom right corner, and there ya go!

**The posts that are displayed on the "Home" page are only the pages from the current month. So, to view older posts not from this month, you have to scroll down to the blog archive and click on a different month, and then they'll pop up. Happy reading :)