Meet Minneapolis at night

Night view from Guthrie endless bridge on Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Sorry, the image is not very crisp but that's the best my simple flip video camera can do :-)

Concordia Language Villages at MCTLC 2007

Today I volunteered at the CLV booth at the MCTLC conference 2007.

And of course Magda and I play with my Flip Video Camera :-)

Playing the YouTube game: "Water Can Burn?"

Having a little more free time in my hands I decided to play the YouTube game. You know, you see a video, you post a response, you get some comments, etc.

I saw a pretty interesting but simple video Water Can Burn?

And I replied with a series of 4 videos (see links at the bottom) that I then complied in one final version. Here:




Other responses
Trying to burn water # 1
Trying to burn water # 2
Trying to burn water # 3
Trying to burn water # 4 (final video)

The result was pretty amazing. I got more views and in less time than usual. A few people subscribed to my channel and I even started to get a few "honors" for my Re: Water Can Burn? The final attempt

MNStories

Yay! My Pillow Fight video made it to MNStories.com! I am honored to be posted there again! :-)

Yum, yum, yum! Milanesas de pollo!

Today my friend Elena invited me to eat with her and the whole Casa Hispana -Hispanic House)at Macalester College for their weekly common meal. She and Romina, both from Santa Fe, Argentina, are the native speakers this year. I was a native speaker at Macalester College 5 years go. Anyway, the meal was "milanesas de pollo con pure". My absolutely all time favorite meal of all!!!!! It was delicious, yummy, gimme more!!! :)

Here is Elena explaining how to make this plate. The video is in Spanish, sorry for the monolingual people out there :-)

Whomp, whomp! Pillow Fight Minneapolis 2007

Pillow Fight tomorrow!

I got this from

http://www.unapologeticnonsense.com/2007/10/pillow_fight.html

Pillow Fight!

You may remember the Pillow Fight from last year. If it looked like fun, you have a chance to participate in this upcoming event. From what I can tell, the two pillow fights are not related, but don't take my word for it. At any rate, get the word out.

Feathers fly and teddies soar as you converge for the Twin Cities first giant urban pillow fight! Swing and whack as you evade pillow-wielding assailants. Bring a soft pillow at 6 PM and wait for the signal (you'll know when). Pillow fight!

PJs and funky pillows encouraged. More fun with Feathers.

Pillow Fight Minneapolis
Outside Walker Art Center (grass circles) @ 6:00 PM
Friday, October 12th 2007
Rain Date TBA. Free for all ages!

Rules: Please follow these guidelines to ensure a safe and fun pillow fight for everybody!

+ Soft pillows only!
+ Swing lightly, many people will be swinging at once.
+ Do not swing at people without pillows or with cameras.
+ Remove glasses beforehand!
+ Wait until the signal to begin.
+ Spectators welcome, but consider bringing a pillow.
+ Bring garbage bags to help clean up afterwards.
+ TELL EVERYONE ABOUT PILLOW FIGHT.

Feel free to repost this on blogs, forums, Myspace, Facebook, etc…

Get them moving!

Have you ever been in a big room with 500 high schoolers and your job was to make them move/dance? OK. Now add to that the fact that those students are from MINNESOTA!
Today I had the honor and pleasure to work with the University of Minnesota and do exactly that! They received about 500 students from high schools in the suburbs and provided them with a mini "university experience". In this case I opened the event doing some dances from the workshop "Bailemos Juntos". I am glad that I just presented that at IWLA conference so I had all the dances very fresh in my mind. Of course there was a big difference in sharing the presentation with 3 other people (Kika, Alicia and Luz, the other members of "Bailemos Juntos" team) to a group of Spanish teachers to doing it all by myself with 500 teenagers! But it was quite a success. Most of them were quite engaged and they all seem to be having fun. A bonus was that I did part of the presentation in Spanish so they got to hear a native speaker using his mother tongue. Most of these students are taught by American teachers, and there is nothing wrong with that at all, but they are not native speakers of Spanish. So it was a great opportunity for them AND for me. It was very good for me to break out of my 1st to 8th grade mode (which I love) and be a dance/rock start among teenagers! I even had some of them on the stage leading some steps with me. I had my own "dance with the stars" moment. The organizer (and the teachers) were very impressed and satisfied with my work. They already requested that I come back in April for another presentation similar to this one. My presentation was followed by a university teacher who had the hard task to have these kids thinking about the issue of immigration and undocumented immigrants for a moment. A Cuban salsa band was the perfect closing part of this experience. Students were up again dancing and moving. It was great to see such a large group of students from Minnesota shaking their bodies and having fun!

Chango Spasiuk, accordion genius!

I forgot to write a post about it but a few weeks ago I had the pleasure to go to a concert of Chango Spasiuk. He is a musician from Argentina and an accordion genius. I always admired him and loved his music while I lived in Argentina but I never had the chance to see him live. That chance came to a reality on Sept. 22nd at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN. Here you have a few shots.

Mini-summer in Iowa

Iowa was a lot of fun! The IWLA conference was pretty good and I had fun with my friends. It was also very hot! I couldn't believe how hot it was being the first weekend in October. We also sold several DVD of "Bailemos Juntos". I am going to be selling the DVD's online soon.

First "Bailemos Juntos" DVD is here!!!

I seems I have been presenting "Bailemos Juntos" workshop for ever. But I never get tired of doing that. Not only because I love dancing and teaching dances but also because I get to see my friends from El Lago del Bosque (Spanish summer camp at Concordia Language Villages): Alicia, Kika y Luz. It's like a mini reunion at each conference and we have so much fun together! We will be presenting this weekend at IWLA for there annual conference. There is one more reason that will make this presentation very exciting. We are launching our first DVD!! Si, si, si! El DVD esta aqui!!! We recorded one of our previous sessions and I've been working really hard in editing it. I think it looks pretty good. It contains explanations of seven dances from our workshop plus a couple of extras (surprise!). I can wait to see my friends again and dance with them! You can learn more about our workshop and dances at our Bailemos Juntos website

Flip Video Vs. Flip Video Ultra

I got a new Flip Video Ultra now. This video is a comparison between my "old" Flip Video and my new Flip Video Ultra. Do you notice any difference? Tell me what differences you see.

Faces While Driving

En la vida de Paulino (Oct/02/07)

Paulino's Life Update