Wine, Cheese, and a little Spanish.

October 1, 2012 by WineDown Yoga 3 Comments

Last Thursday the office had a going away for a guy who was leaving to go work in Africa, he was tall and French with narrow black glasses. I never formally introduced myself, but the speeches and personal stories painted a glowing picture of how nice, smart and hardworking he was.

To send him off in style, the conference room was filled with wine and cheese, and a giant carrot cake, his favorite! I’m lactose intolerant, but when put in front of 3 plates of 8 different kinds of cheeses, I can’t resist.   I also took full advantage of the grapes, crackers and strawberries, but I did avoid the carrot cake!

I was glad to get the chance to talk with the other staff working on different projects, like our education programs and the global good practices team. Something I wouldn’t normally get to do on the average day. I met a woman who joined one of the teams a month ago, but had been working for the World Bank for 20 years. She said, “Even after 20 years, I still love working for the Bank. I’ve been all over the world with my work with them, and I love their mission to alleviate poverty.”

We began to discuss how I got here (a story I still have to write), but the jist was that it took a lot of persistence, follow up and a positive outlook. And NETWORKING! “It seemed there were giant walls I couldn’t get over when I first arrived in D.C. but eventually I got here!” She was glad to hear it was still possible to get beyond the walls even without having any connections or having gone to grad school in D.C.

Later, I started talking with our Program Assistant whose from Guatemala, and soon realized there was someone from Colombia and Mexico on the GPE team. My heaven! I absolutely love Latin Americans, they’re always so nice and warm. Not to mention, I am determined to learn Spanish and they want me to practice with them! Wooo hoo!

Turns out I’m not the only one determined to learn Spanish. The head of GPE is also trying to learn, and has the Program Assistant only speaking Spanish to him so he can practice. I love it, he’s proof you’re never too old to learn another language!

So now that I’m surrounded by Spanish speakers, I have a pledge to make to myself (much like the 500 million dollar pledge GPE made last night at the global poverty project concert in NYC) and that is to PRACTICE and practice as much as I can. This means when I get home from work to spend 30-60 min using my Rosetta Stone and on the weekends. By the end of this year, I want to write a blog post in Spanish!

AND, now that I’m starting to get in a routine with work, it’s time to buckle down on my work outs. This means to continue my hot yoga routine, but add cycle and running into the mix. This week I want to go to a 5:45 am spin class 2x this week.

It all begins tomorrow, TOMORROW TOMORROW, is only a dayyyyyyy awayyyyyy 🙂 Stay tuned followers, aka Nikki Fiedler.