Looking for a Spanish Teacher or Tutor? Well, look no further. . .

I am offering Spanish Tutoring and Lessons in Calgary at a very reasonable price for anyone who is looking to learn Spanish or improve their Spanish!
English Tutoring and lessons are also being offered!

I have degrees in English and Spanish from the University of Calgary and am a native Spanish speaker who is eager to help those who want to learn another language.

If you are interested in learning English or Spanish, please feel free to email me at pamela_hernandez_569@hotmail.com or if you are referred to this page through Facebook, feel free to contact me through there as well!!

-Pamela Hernandez

Ingrid

My Best Friend is on her mission right now. When she told me that she was going on a mission, it was over a year ago, and I was so excited for her, but at the same time, I found it so hard to believe that it was actually going to happen because it seemed so far away. Alas, a few weeks ago, I said goodbye to my dear friend, at least for 18 months. It was the hardest goodbye I've ever had to say in my life. On our last day together, we did the things we loved to do together, went and got ice cream from The Marble Slab, and sat around and talked about life, love and the future. We pictured ourselves and where we would be in 5, 10 , and 20 years, like we had done so many times before. We talked about our past, the many blessings God has given us, and how our past experiences have made us better people. We also laughed remembering some of our favorite and most hilarious memories. We remembered the crazy parties we'd been to, the all-nighters we've pulled together, the various times we danced so hard, we couldn't stand at the end of the night. We talked about the sad times, the times where we were there for each other. The times I cried to her, and the times she cried to me. The times we cried together. We talked about deaths, births, marriages, relationships, love, hate, hunger, sadness, happiness, heartache, and many other emotions and memories that we will always hold dear to our hearts. At the end of the night, I knew it was that time: the time to say goodbye. I had been dreading this moment for a year. The moment where I would have to say goodbye to my best friend, my sister. I knew that it wasn't goodbye forever, but at the same time, I knew that things would never be the same. I knew that I would miss her. I knew that I would miss being able to talk to her everyday, and tell her about my day and hearing about hers. I knew that I was going to miss laughing with her, joking with her, dancing, crying, singing, and talking with her. I knew that I would never be able to do those same things in that same way with anyone else. Of course I knew that we would write and always catch up over letters, but I also knew that it would never be the same. I knew that when she got back our lives would be completely different. But one thing that I did and do know is that no matter what happenes to us, or where our lives take us, we will always be each others best friend. I knew that Ingrid will always be my sister, and as I write this now, the tears streaming, the memories flowing, I know more than ever that she will always be my sister. She will always be the person that I have felt the deepest connection with over our 16 years of friendship. She will always be the person who I go to when life takes a turn for the bad or for the wonderful. When it was time to say goodbye, I couldn't think of what to say. I knew I wanted to tell her that I loved her and that she was going to make an amazing missionary, but most of all I wanted to speak from my heart, and so I did. I told her that I loved her. That she would make an amazing missionary. That she should be strong and always trust in the Lord. That I would always be here for her. That she is and always will be my best friend. As we held each other, we cried together for the last time in 18 months. I didn't want to let go. I wanted her to stay. I wanted my selfish desires to come true and I wanted to keep her here with me. How am I going to do this by myself, I thought. How am I expected to do this crazy thing called Life without my soul mate? In that moment, while holding my best friend, I knew that I didn't have to do it alone. I knew that what was about to happen wasn't going to be the end, but it was going to be the beginning. At that moment I felt peace, love and happiness. I knew that I would miss her, worry about her, and always pray that The Lord would keep her safe, but I also knew at that moment that even if our lives take us to the farthest ends of the earth, that we will forever be intertwined in the eternal bonds of love and friendship. At that moment, even though the tears would not subside, I let go and knew that everything was going to be alright. I miss my best friend every day. The selfish side of me wishes she was here with me again, but the logical side of me is so happy that she's serving the Lord. I love getting her letters telling me of her wonderful adventures, and I love writting to her, telling her about mine. I know now that even though we're hundreds of miles apart that the thread of our friendship will never be cut, but will grow stronger every day that we remain true to ourselves and to our friendship. I love you Ingrid!

The Weekend

This weekend has been crazy!! It all started some time last week. Kendra, Kyler and I had decided to go to Lethbridge for a Masque-Rave party that was happening. So we decided that Kendra and I would drive down on Saturday night after work. So Saturday after the longest day of work ever, I drive home, and get everything ready for the trip down. Kendra and I finally get going on our 3 hour trip down there. It wasn't a bad trip at all, but I'll admit, it was a bit scary driving so fast at night. So we get to Lethbridge and the Masque has started already. We're parked in front of the venue, and since we didn't really have any other place to get ready at, we are forced to make ourselves look as presentable as possible in the car, which was a fun adventure! The party was really fun! Kyler and the band performed, which I think was my favorite part, and then we partied like it was 1999!Everyone at the party had a mask on, and some people even went as far as to haul out their old grad dresses! Finally, it was about 2 in the morning and since we were staying at Kendra and Kyler's grandparents house in Mountainview, we decided that we should probably get going! So we're all quite tired, and ready to go to bed. We're going about 130 km/hr down a dark highway, when all of a sudden we see a deer slowly crossing the middle of the road. We swerved to miss it, and the car fishtailed for maybe 5 seconds. After that, my arms and legs felt like they were the consistency of Jello! I was shaking, and couldn't stop laughing, probably because I had just realized that we could have died and were so incredibly blessed and protected at that moment! It was such an out of body experience, and since I'd never felt that before, I was trying to think of how time seemed to slow down and how quick my brain had to react! The next day we woke up after maybe 5 hours of sleep and started for home! This is literally how my Sunday went: Home at 12, church at 1, home at 4, sleep 'till 6. Then I went to rehearsal for Handel's "Messiah" which was 3 hours of sitting and singing. The Kyler and I went to my parents house and hung out with them for a while. I think that was my favorite part of the whole weekend: sitting and talking and laughing with my family. It was pretty cool to hear my dad, Kyler, and our family friend Malcolm talking because they all served in the same mission in Guatemala! They talked about different missionary experiences, and what their missions meant to them, which I thought was so cool! It really got me thinking about my best friend Ingrid, who's on her mission right now, heading for Argentina! I started thinking about how cool it's going to be to hear all her stories and the amazing experiences she's going to have, and to be honest, it made me miss her that much more!
Now, I'm sitting here, in bed, procrastinating doing my homework by catching up on my blog, like Claudia told me to ;)!!! Sometimes when I look back to different times in my life, it's really weird to think that all those experiences happened to ME and that I'll always have those memories in my heart and mind!

The Joys of "The Burn"

Ok, so a few years ago I was a running machine! I used to run every day for about 45 minutes. As the days of my life rolled by, I got lazier and lazier, and decided that running was just not an option. I made several different excuses over the years: Too much homework, too stressed, too tired, rather sleep, have to clean, blah, blah, blah. The point is, I stopped running. Every once in a while I would go for a run, and it just felt so good. I've always been one of those people who just loves to run!! It sounds weird, but sometimes I just love being tired at the end of the day and getting ready, putting on some good music on my iPod, and just running, and ever since I've stopped running, I sometimes find myself at work or at school thinking to myself: "Oh man, I'd love to just run right now". And I would always tell myself that tonight, when I got home from work or school that I would actually do it and go for a run! But alas, the excuses train comes rolling in: my feet hurt, I'm tired, etc. I felt like that guy in the New Balance commercial where the narrator says something like this: "You broke up with running a week ago, and now, you see running everywhere, looking really, really good!". That was exactly me! I always saw people who were running and was just wishing that I had the energy to run and actually get back to doing something that I've always loved! A few weeks ago, I started to run again! I actually got my runners on, which coincidentally are New Balances, got my iPod and ran!! I've run in my new neighborhood before and I loved it because there were so many trees and greenery, so I decided to run the same route again and it was fabulous!! So I've been running almost every day for the last three weeks, and I must say, that it's like I've fallen in love with running all over again! It felt so good to be able to run on nice sunny days, and even sometimes on cloudy rainy days because it just makes me remember how awesome it is to do something for yourself, even if you're tired, especially if it's doing something that you love to do! Now I can definitely say that when I see running everywhere, I'm don't get jealous, because that's what I get to come home to every night now!!!

I Love Movies!!

Ok, so I've watched a lot of movies over the past few weeks and I thought it would be kind of fun to go through them and kinda give them my own little "reviews" if you will. The first movie that I want to talk about is one of my favorites! It's called "Legends of the Fall". It stars Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. Now, other than the obvious reasons for why I love this movie (Mr. Pitt!!!) I think that the movie is really well made. I really like the cinematography, the costumes, the animals and the story itself. Now most people agree that the story is very depressing and it seems to just be a story of tortured souls, but personally I think thats it's a beautiful story about love and the way that life doesn't always turn out the way you think it will. It's defffinately one of my most favorite movies!
Another movie that I just finished watching with one of my roommates is "Spiceworld"!! Now don't ask me why, but for some reason my house has had spice girl mania for the past few days and we've been wanting to watch this movie for so long!!! the movie itself is obviously not Oscar worthy and it's the corniest thing I've ever seen, but it's really fun and it brings me back to my Junior High days when I was obsessed with the Spice Girls, as probably a lot of girls were!

I also watched a movie called "All about Eve". It's an old movie that was made in 1950. It's about an actress, Eve Harrington, who is an aspiring actress, and ends up taking over as an understudy for a famous broadway actress Margot Channing. It's a really good movie and I think it kind of speaks to the fickleness of fame and how image and age are the biggest and most important thing to Hollywood!

The last movie that I watched about a week ago was one of the best new movies I've seen all year!! It was "Wall-E"!!!!! I absolutely LOVED this movie!! It was so cute!! I was expecting the movie to be just amazing, and to be honest, It was 10 times better than what I thought it was going to be! The animation was amazing, Wall-E was super cute, and although it does seem to be aimed at kids, it had a great message and commentary to it that seemed to be aimed for adults. It was fun, entertaining, and really just made me happy! It was so much fun to watch and I would deffinatley watch it again!!!

So Are The Days of My Life

Ok, so its been a really long time since I've updated my blog, so I think it's definitely time to update. I've been up to a lot lately, so although my adoring fans have been patiently anticipating a new post, my excuse remains the same, New Job + New Home= No time to blog. I started my new job at the Aveda Academy and Salon downtown about a month ago, and I love it. Every day I get to go in and see people's mediocre hair turn into stylish fashionablee coifs!! There are so many great things that I love about this job, that I think it calls for a good old fashioned list!! 1. It's a 15 minute train ride away. 2. I'm never bored, there's always something to do. 3. When I need to, I get my hair done for FREE! Yes, that's right, when regularly a cut, colour and highlight would cost me about $200, working there gets me a great new doo for FREE!!!! 4. Management is great and coming from a place where the management was awful, this place is a great solution. 5. I work for the only salon and company that has all organic and plant based products, which I'm starting to really wonder why anyone would want to buy anything else?!. Overall, my new job is really great and I'm really enjoying it!! Another new event that I haven't really talked about is my new living situation. I am happily settled into my new home that's an amazing 5 minute walk from the university train station. I love this house. There are trees everywhere and everything is nice and close. I must say that I sometimes do miss living at home because I miss my family, but to be honest I feel like living away from home has helped me to appreciate my family so much more. The other day I got home from work and I was so tired. My feet hurt, my back hurt and I all I wanted to do was pass out, but of course I was hungry as well. So what's a girl to do? I got up and cooked a rather delicious meal if I do say so myself!! That night I really began to feel a little bit of what my mom feels when she has to come home from work as tired as she is and cook and clean not only for herself, but for her whole family as well. I think that living on my own is going to be a really good thing for me. It already has taught me so much about myself and about living with roommates, and I can only imagine what else I'm going to learn during my time here.

Me and my wonderful roomates!!

My birthday just passed and I had so much fun!! I got to sleep in, which never happens! Then me and Luke went to my parents house and my mom made a delicious lunch for all of us. Then I got some nice gifts and that was nice!! After that me and my mom went to the mall and she bought me some new shoes for work, which I really needed!! Then I went over to Luke's house and he made me an amazing dinner and gave me some really sweet gifts that I loved! Then, because I share my birthday with my roommate Mindy, we had some people over for a little get together and we had left over desert for like a week!! Jana made me an amazing cake and I loved it!!! All in all my 22nd birthday was great!! I enjoyed it so much and It really superseded my expectations. Its kinda weird because every year my birthday seems to come and go quicker and quicker and to be honest it makes me a little more scared every year, but one thing that stays constant is the fact that my birthday, no matter how old I get, I still get excited every birthday!!

The AMAZING cake that Jana made me for my birthday!!!

The Birthday Girls with their Boys!!

Paris + El Sal = Are You Kidding Me???

A pastime that I have found to be horribly addictive when I'm at work is to go on to PerezHilton.com to check out the latest celeb news and (dare I say) gossip!! Well today, like any other day, I went on to the infamous blogger's website and as I was casually browsing, I notice the head line "Hello, Latino America!" with a picture of Paris Hilton with one of her 7 Million boyfriends, Benji Madden. I read on to find out that Paris and Benji will be heading down to El Salvador as Madden and his band are going to be performing there. I don't know why but all of a sudden I started to get a bit bothered by this news. I thought to myself, what on earth could a useless celeb like Paris Hilton have to do in a country like El Salvador?
Taking into account that I was born in El Salvador and that most of my family lives there, I began to speculate as to what good Paris and beau # whatever could possibly do that would be of any good or influence in my home country? El Salvador is still considered to be a developing country and it is among one of the 10 poorest countries in Latin America. It is a country that has been through decades of war and natural disasters that have left the country devastated.
Now, I understand that not all of the country is poverty stricken and that there are those that are few that can afford to go see a concert, but I just think that instead of going to a country that has been through such traumatizing events only to put on a concert or to get some good shopping done, why not use all that money that they pretty much are able to shred by helping out with a local charity or to the Red Cross or some other humanitarian organization that could help out a bit with all the impoverished people, not only in El Salvador, but in other central American countries where I'm sure Paris has traveled? My point is that Paris Hilton and celebrities such as herself spend all their time and money traveling to countries that they know nothing about, and what's worse is that with all the money and all the resources they have, they're probably not taking all these trips to go an volunteer at a hospital in Chile or an orphanage in Ecuador, but I'm sure that Paris gets some good shopping done. . .