Emanuel's biography

Emanuel’s biography

Born on January 6th 1986 from a loving Mexican family in the city of Toluca, which is located one hour away from Mexico city. I have two older brothers Nahum and Benjamin, my father is Alfredo and my mother Ruth. They divorced some years ago and now I live with my mother and grandparents. 

I was born and raised in Toluca where I studied from kindergarten to University. When I was in elementary school I met my best friend Jorge; he is a really nice person who cares about others and is really worried about animal rights. We have been friends since we were 10 years old. In secondary school I met a girl named Karen who is also one of my best friends, unfortunately, we have been losing touch because we live in different cities.  

I obtained my bachelor's degree in 2013 from the Faculty of Languages in the UAEM university, after that I worked in a hotel as a bellboy but I didn’t like it. After some time I was unemployed and my brother told me that one of his colleagues was looking for an English teacher, that's when I met my current girlfriend Angelica; she used to be my boss. After six months working with my girlfriend in a small school, I decided to apply for a job at the UAEM University. Luckily I got the job and started working as an English teacher in two different universities. I really like my job, though sometimes it is challenging because some of my students are not interested in learning English but in general is a really nice job but a salary increase wouldn't hurt. 

Biography made by Alfredo Emanuel León Casasola

 Bye for now

The Last Blog

Hello to everybody,

About my experience here in Seattle I can only talk about good things. My homestay was great because I had the opportunity to practice every day with native speakers, and they are awesome. The city is wonderful, there are so many places to visit that we may need another five months to visit all of them, but at least the ones I had the opportunity to go are great, and even better because some of them are free to visit. In the classroom we learnt a lot of things about language and also about culture thanks to our great teacher enthusiasm, knowledge, and patience. Regarding my classmate, I am glad we had such a nice group willing to learn and to cooperate with each other.

For my future, I plan to share these experiences with my students and encourage them to apply for a scholarship and try to see it by themselves.

I would like to finish by saying THANK YOU for everything. 

Bye. 

 

Bainbridge Island & Fremont

Hello,

A quick update because this week has been filled with lots of activities. Last Tuesday we visited Bainbridge Island but what made this trip really great was that we took the ferry to get there. The experience was amazing because we had the opportunity to admire the city with daylight and at night on our way back, just one thing it was really cold outside but it was totally worth it. 

In Bainbridge Island we went to Mora Iced Creamery which is supposed to have the best ice cream in Seattle, and after tasting one single Cinnamon scoop cone, I'm convinced it is one of the best ice creams I have ever tasted. 

Today we had a different experience, we visited the Fremont neighborhood where we went to visit an enormous Troll, a statue of Lenin, and as you may think it is pretty weird they have a statue of the father of communism in the US, a chocolate factory and a vintage store with very unusual objects for all tastes. 

Now you are updated. I will keep you informed. 

Bye for now. 

Burke & The Locks

Hello everybody,

It's been a few days since my last post, but let me tell you about my recent activities in the UW. This week we went to the Burke Museum and the Locks on Ballard.

First let me know about the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, it is not a big museum, but don't let size give you a wrong impression, because once you are inside you can see it is quite beautiful and has nice exhibitions about the five periods in Washington State history and there they will take you through ancient times, dino times and up to present times. 

In other section of the museum you can learn about cultures from the Pacific Ocean, their languages and traditions, like the Iñupiaq Whaling or the First Salmon Ceremony both explain how Native Americans have a great sense of respect for these creatures and in general have a great understanding for nature balance and sustainability.

 

Then today we went to Ballard to see the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks. And we learnt that the locks were built to prevent the mixture of water from the Puget Sound with the fresh water of the lakes, also to maintain the water level to 20 - 22 feet and to shorten distances. 

Next to the locks we could visit the Salmon ladder which is one of the passages Salmon have to go through in order to get back to the place they were born to spawn and die. Unfortunately there were no salmons because the spawn season is over. 

But in general I can tell you I have learnt a lot in just two days. I will keep you informed. 

Bye for now. 

 

Cultural week-end activity

The Underground tour

Hi, I´m back. This time I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite Seattle experiences so far which I did with some of my classmates. The Underground tour. You can find this tour on Pioneer Square and the cost is $15 showing your Husky card, regular price is $18. 

The tour begins with a ten minutes talk about the origin of Seattle, when the first settlers arrived. Then the tour guide, who by the way is a great storyteller and really funny, takes you to four different underground locations and each one holds a particular story, for example one of the stops is in a bank vault where a long time ago more than one ton of gold was stored from the Klondike gold rush and in other stop explains how the great fire occurred and what they did to rebuilt the city. 

I would like to tell you more but I don't want to spoil your visit to the highly recommended tour. 

Bye for now. 

Interviews

Hello everybody,

I'm back, and this time I'm going to tell you about today's activity in class. Our teacher arranged for some English native speaker to come to the class in order for us to have the oportunity to practice our questions for our final projects or just chat. We decided, Diana, Claudia and I, to use this chance to start asking questions about our survey regarding the culture of guns. In the end we were able to chat with almost all of them and we found out that they have really strong opinions regarding gun possession, even two of our interviewees were in opposite sides because one was completely against even considering having a gun at home and other mentioned that he / she was member of the NRA and collected guns. So we learnt that we have a really interesting topic and that we will get all kind of opinios regarding this topic.

Well this is all for today. 

Sweet dreams. 

Coffee shop - The University Bookstore

Hello,

Today the topic is coffee, one of my favourite drinks. In class we had to do a short survey to find out which are the most common coffees that Seattleites drink. We discovered that it depends on the season of the year, for example one of their most popular coffees is the Pumpkin Spice Latte because of the Halloween fever but if you ask in summer it is completely different, Seattleites go for iced coffee because the hot weather. 

The girl who answered our questions was really friendly so we asked her for a recommendation and she prepared for us a Mocha Latte, which I enjoyed, and I recommed for those chocolate lovers. But my search continuous for the perfect cup of coffee in Seattle. 

If you know where I can find it don't hesitate to let me know. 

PS The barista told us that Hillary Clinton visited the coffee shop a few months ago when she was doing a book presentation.

Bye for now.