I really look forward to meeting him. I can’t wait to see his face, touch him and kiss him because he will be someone that with the help of God, my wife and I created. It is simply a miracle that we have witnessed for more than 8 months but that will change our lives forever.

But as I mentioned, at times I am terrified. Am I going to be a good father? What if the economic situation in Peru turns around now that Humala is the president? Does the money we have cover all the expenses of a baby? These and many more questions come to my mind at times. However, it is all because I want the best for Piero. The only thing I ask God is that he is a healthy and strong baby.

As we all know, babies are not cheap. Fortunately, my sister-in-law organized a great Baby Shower in which Piero was very blessed with gifts. More than 60 people went to the shower and we all had a great time. The host of the show was a clown and although I am quite shy, I had a good time and enjoyed it. We gathered many thing in the shower that will help us a lot!

Having a baby is also going to be very challenging. My wife and I live alone and we are not going to have much help. My parents live in Canada and my mother-in-law is really busy. For these reasons I am going to spend more time at home working and having private English classes.  As you know, I am the webmaster and teacher at www.inglestotal.com but I also work for a company that teaches executives English. I need to spend more time helping my wife at least for the first month so I am also going to start teaching classes through SKYPE .  We have little experience with babies so we are going to learn together which makes it very exciting but we get nervous to think if we will do it well or not. However, I feel this is the way it should be and we will enjoy knowing Piero and learning how to raise him.

We are quite expectant and full of dreams. We have been buying many things for Piero and his room is almost ready. We just need to buy some more clothes but basically we are all set. She is due on June 26th but I have the feeling that Peiro is going to be born earlier. Remember us in your prayers!!!

Vocabulary:

- Womb (noun): the organ in the body of a woman or other female mammal in which a baby develops before birth (VIENTRE)

- to look forward to (verb): to feel pleased and excited about something that is going to happen (esperar con ansias)

- Challenging (adjective) : difficult, in a way that tests your ability or determination (dificil/desafiante)

- to raise (verb) : to take care of a person, or an animal or plant, until they are completely grown (criar)

Today I would like top share my top 5 childhood cartoons. Most children think they are boring but I continue thinking they were the best

Fifth Place: Inspector Gadget

This cartoon is about a clumsy cyborg inspector who had many gadgets built into his body. I used to watch it every week day after school while I had lunch at my grandmother’s house. I did not have the opportunity to watch the episodes in English but really enjoyed the cartoon in Spanish. The song also was very catchy and I used to sing it a lot when I was a kid

What I loved about the inspector was that many times he was totally clueless about is missions.He didn’t understand anything. There is where his genius niece called  Penny used to come and help him. She was the real detective because Inspector Gadget was usually totally lost. He also had a really intelligent dog named Brain who came secretly with him and helped him solve the mystery.

Oh, and how could I not mention Inspector Gadget’s car. I loved it!!! The car was inspired in the French car Matra Murena and  turned from a family van into a cool sport detective car.

I used to always imagine having his gadgets and tricks especially his helicopter propeller which came out of his hat and made him fly.

Fourth Place: Steel Jeeg – El Vengador

This cartoon influenced me so much. I used to dream about being in the head of the robot so much that I played by myself imagining my body was the robot. I know I know, how sad huh? But remember, I am an only child. I don’t have brothers or sisters so I had to use my imagination a lot and Steel Jeeg was really inspiring.

I found on youtube a NEW VERSION called Steel Jeeg 2007 which I found very interesting. Here is the link: http://youtu.be/h8DsXPpEsTE

Third Place: Thundercats

Who can forget the phrase: Thunder, thunder, thundercats HO!!  The Thundercats is an american animated series that first appeared in 1985. It was based on a group of a combination of cats and human aliens. This cartoon was very entertaining and the best part of all was the power of Liono’s sword. Also, the enemy and evil Mumm-Ra was very scary looking. As a child he was really terrifying but was a great enemy. What I liked about the Thundercats were how they worked together and how they gathered after seeing the sign of the Thundercats which came from the sword when Liono was in trouble.

After writing this article I went to youtube and found out that there was a movie called “Thundercats ho!” If you want to watch it here is the link: http://youtu.be/wiX0OVDrZBw

Second Place: Looney Tunes

Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and all the other characters created a magical world in the animated cartoon series LOONEY TUNES. From 1942 until 1969, Looney Tunes was the most popular short cartoon in theaters and then entered the television era from 1955 to 1986, and returning from 1987 to 1996 (wikiPedia). Bugs Bunny was simply the best because of how cool he was to evade trouble and be funny at the same time. However, there were so many characters which made the cartoon so fun to watch and which have made our childhood happier.

First Place: The Transformers

The Transformers is my  favorite childhood cartoon. I am not talking about the latest movie characters which I don’t like at all. I am referring to the OLD TRANSFORMERS. The first season appeared in 1984 with great success. It was just what children, especially boys, dreamed of. I love cars and every kid enjoys playing with robots so combining them to create the AUTOBOTS was just so exciting and inspiring.  Optimus Prime became a true hero and we can’t forget his long time enemy Megatron. Many episodes and different variations came after the original series but the best ones were from the first seasons when The Transformers were on Earth.

What really impacted children was merchandising of The Transformers. I had toys, T-shirts, lamps, clothes, stickers, lunchboxes, magazines, comics and so on all with figures of The Transformers. This created more passion for the cartoon because we were immersed in this world.

So do you agree? What childhood cartoons were your favorite one?

Things changed when I traveled to the States. It was only my parents and me. It was tough and I felt very lonely dreaming of having a sibling which never came.  Being lonely became the worst feeling which accompanied me throughout the years.

That is why I always dreamed of being married and having children. I wanted to suppress the feeling of being lonely and my mind found peace imagining having a family of my own.However, pain came into my life to transform my dream into fear. I was scared of loving because that meant there was a huge risk of suffering. The more one loves the more one can suffer.

After getting married I avoided any discussion of having children. At first I hid by stating that I wanted to enjoy my time alone as a couple with my wife but years went by and realized that I did not want children because of my fear. I was honest and told my wife that I might not ever want children and it was hard for her. I even tried to convince her by telling her all the risks there were of suffering. Despite my arguments my wife did not give in to this idea and became very sad and I consoled her by telling her that  I might change my mind.

Fortunately, I began to change. We used to live with my in-laws and although they were very kind to us it did not help our relationship grow. As soon as we moved things changed in our lives. We talked more, shared many more things, and starting depending on each other. This caused an instant reaction. There was a void to be filled. I mean, as our relationship grew stronger, the feeling of building a family was born in my heart. The love Marisu and I had is so big  that I noticed that  my fears started to fade away. The idea of creating life with the woman I so truly love was so pure, magical that it overpowered the fear of suffering.

After knowing that my wife was pregnant life changed and we got excited. We started dreaming and for some reason we visualized a baby girl. We then noticed that most of our loved ones also had that same idea of having a girl but a few days we got the news that IT IS A BOY!!!

God is so great. Even though sometimes you don’t get what you think you want, God is wiser and knows you much better. There is no one in this world that loves us more than God and I am convinced that all His decisions are what are best for our lives. In his wisdom and love he chose a baby boy to come into our lives and I thank HIM so much. I trust God and know that my son will be the purest expression of the love I have with my wife. He is a gift and we have been awarded the privilege of raising him and guiding him.

Thank you God for giving me a son. Thank you so much for placing Marisu in my life and for giving me such great responsibility for looking after them. I can’t wait to meet my baby boy!!!

Finally we reached a long line where she knelt and finished dressing me up.

“You must look good because soon you will see your dad”, then I saw that she had tears running down her cheeks which she quickly wiped out.

“Why are you crying mom?”

“I am excited sonny”.

People don’t only cry when they are sad, I thought to myself

Then we reached to the front where a young lady began talking to my mom. I started looking around. There were many people around and all were carrying bags and suitcases. My mom grabbed me from my arm and then we were walking but at a faster pace.

“Let’s go sunny. We are late and the plane will leave in ten minutes”

“Plane?”

“Yes dear. We have to hurry”?

I remember lying with Paitomias in his bedroom and each time we heard a strong noise in the skies, he used to tell me my father was there. I was very close to my grandfather and did many things together. Once while we were on our way to buy some bread I actually saw a plane. It was so exciting and I could not believe I was going to be boarding one now.

Being at the airport was such a new feeling. It was quite exciting seeing the planes land and take off so closely. We rushed and quickly got on the plane. It was awesome.The seats, the flight attendants, the drinks were just part of this great new experience. I didn’t understand why my grandparents were so angry at mom.I was confused yet very exited.

After having slept on the plane and being dragged around half asleep, I noticed I was on a small bus. Mom  told me we were going to a house. I started to wonder why we were alone.

“Is my family coming with us”?, We started entering a horrible neighborhood and I noticed that there were other families with us and that there was a man who was guiding and people called him “el coyote”.

Dirty streets, amessy room and a quiet depressing atmosphere surrounded me. This was new. I tried to understand what was happening. Mom left me in this room to go and speak to “el coyote” while I tried to imagine Lima and being at home with my family. There were other people in the room. They did not look happy. I tried to ask questions but all I got were strange stares and rejection. My mom came back and tried to look calm but I noticed that she had cried again. This time I did not ask but I was getting this weird feeling of insecurity.

“Sonny, tonight we are going to stay here ok”

“And el chavo del ocho”?

“Oh yeah, umm… tomorrow ok”?

I sighed but was tired. My mom changed me and tucked me in a bed.

“I love you Carlitos”

“Me too mom but, Is it true we are going to see my dad?”

“Yes baby, we are going to be a family”

I then fell asleep thinking about why people called that mysterious man “el coyote”.

We haven’t been to the movies that much in 2010. I personally thought that it was a poor year although there were some movies that were quite interesting. A few months ago I saw a trailer about Skyline it caught my attention. I love alien movies.  Among my favorites are: Aliens, Independence Dy and Signs so instantly I was taken by what this movie could bring. The opening day was on the 25th here in Peru but I went the 28th.

We arrived to the mall at around 7 and bought two tickets for the screening of Skyline at 9:10 pm. We decided to get something to eat and soon after we finished we noticed that some people had started to make a line. Then one of the cinema workers told us that the movie was going to start around 15 minutes late. Who cares right? So my pregnant wife went and sat down and we waited. Then we saw people coming out from the previous screening of Skyline. I started checking people’s expressions to check if they liked the movie. Their faces didn’t look that excited and then we saw a guy facing us who said out loud, “Horrible movies, DON’T WATCH IT”. Gee! I looked at my wife and we both thought the same thing a the same time. Not because some people don’t like it doesn’t mean it is not a good movie. I was wrong.

We hurried in and got great seats. My wife bought some ice cream and we were set. As soon as the movie started I could tell something was not right about this movie. First of all I did not recognize any actors except one. Then, it was an independent film. But I continued trying to get involved in the film. The problem is that I never believed anything that I was seeing. The plot was simply so bad and the story line was messed up. The actors’ performance was pathetic and the aliens simply were laughable. The rest was just painful to watch. I wasn’t the only one. Some other spectators started laughing at how stupid the film was while other left. I have never left the cinema but did not blame them.

The worst part was the ending which is probably one of the worst I could have imagined. It was definitely the worst movie I have seen in 2010 and although some special effects were OK, the plot seemed to have been written on the go with no idea of what they were doing. I can’t believe this film was played worldwide and should have been made for DVD only. Have you sen this movie? If so, what do you think of it?

One morning, two months after moving in, Marisu came up to me with an envelope. I was intrigued but every now and then she gives me gifts. I smiled and received the envelope but this time she looked more excited than usual. I opened the envelope not knowing that what was inside was going to change my life.

At first I didn’t understand because I saw a rectangular carton shaped strip which I inspected quickly. I saw 2 small lines and suddenly I realized what was happening. I was completely surprised and did not stop saying it can’t be true. I was going to be a father.

A couple of years ago we talked about having a baby. We decided to wait until we had more money and also because we wanted to enjoy time together as a couple. In that time, the idea of having a baby was something that I tried to avoid thinking about. In fact, I did not want to have a baby. I felt I was not prepared and that if I was to have a child he or she would need to have the best there is. My wife did not think the same way I did and she has always dreamed of having a baby. She felt that we had the most important things already and was sad to hear what I was thinking.

As time went by things started to change. Our marriage grew stronger and I felt different around children. I have always wanted a family but I was scared of responsibility and pain. The truth is that I am afraid of loving because that love can eventually turn into some kind of pain. What if the baby gets sick? What if we don’t have enough money? What if this and what if that. However, with that mindset, I wouldn’t live a happy life. One can’t be thinking of suffering and pain because in that way happiness and joy will never come. There is nothing more precious than imagining creating life with the woman I love.  I knew that it was not going to be easy but I have changed. I wanted to be a father and have a baby

But one thing is imagining having a baby and another is receiving the news that you are going to have one. Marisu expected me to cry and get very happy but my reaction was of unbelief and fear. We were going to start trying in 2011 and this was a big surprise. I was overwhelmed with many feelings and started to panic inside crunching numbers imaging all the expenses and the needs for the baby. Clinic bills, milk, diapers, clothes, food, and much MORE!!!!

After getting a good night sleep I got up with a different feeling. I was excited and realized that it was the best thing that could ever happen to us. I hugged my wife and talked to my baby expressing how much we loved him or her. The following weeks were just amazing. We got the first pictures form our baby and heard his heartbeats. The feeling was simply something indescribable and we are so happy.

This is one of the reasons I haven’t been posting to my blog. We have been very busy with this blessing. It has been the best Christmas gift ever!

When I was 15 I had a very particular connection with dreams. I used to control them intentionally and it was quite fun. It was weird but I don’t know how it started. It soon became my favorite past time because I could do things I have always dreamed of. Let me explain what I did.

Every night before I went to bed I used to concentrate and repeat to myself “Carlos, you are soon going to sleep and you will start dreaming. It is not for real”. I did this for like 10 minutes until I fell asleep. After that I started dreaming and realized I was part of a dream and that it was not part of my reality. I then woke up still in my dream while sleeping and took control over it. It was something that I did nearly every night and it was like living another life. Why?

In a dream you can do everything you have ever imagined. The first thing I started doing and practicing was flying. In my dream I went top high places and threw myself over into the air and started flying. This was probably what I did most and although sometimes I simply fell to the floor, most times I flew and enjoyed the great view of the parallel world which a mind creates. Once I realized that I could fly I started noticing that I had special powers in my dream which made me special. I then explored everything I could do and couldn’t do in my dream. It was crazy and extremely fun.

But I had something which I always tried to do in my dreams. I tried to search for God. I wanted to find him and I knew that in the real world one can’t physically see him so I did everything I could to find him. Most of the time I had no luck but every now and then I could talk to him. I remember once in my dream I died so that I could see him. Once dead, I was taking to heaven and was taken to talk to Jesus. It was so incredible but he told me to be patient and that it wasn’t my  time and then I immediately woke up.

However, not everything was great. Sometimes I would wake up in my dream and realize I was in a nightmare. That was horrible because I couldn’t control a nightmare. I remember that in one opportunity I was stuck in a horrible dream and was running away from horrible people and creatures. I hid in a corner and started repeating “WAKE UP, you are dreaming”. I started pinching myself but could not wake up at all. I was terrified.

Most of the times it was a great experience though. Nowadays, I can’t do it anymore. It lasted for about 2 years and had a great time. Dreams are so weird. It is like the MATRIX. When you dream you actually believe what you see. It is crazy and messed up. I mean, many times when we dream we see absolutely stupid incoherent things. For example we dream we are in other countries, and then suddenly we appear in our hometown. We talk to people who had died years ago and don’t question the logic of the situation. We see animals fly, airports in our yard and relive old memories and events and have no doubts it is real.

What the hell happens to our reasoning during a dream? Do we become less intelligent? Do we lose sense of what is real or not? Why don’t we realize that what we are seeing does not make sense? It is just incredible and I am always amazed at this issue.

One other things that amazes me is the fact that our dream follows a script. It is like a play or like a movie. It might not have any logic but many times has a story. But, WHO IS THE DIRECTOR? How can the subconscious choose what to dream and more surprisingly, how can it make it flow to make us feel we are part of a story. Incredible right? In fact, many times the story is written in real time. What do I mean? If we fall asleep watching news, whatever we are hearing in the “real world” might influence the story directed in our dream by our subconscious in real time.

Anyway, dreaming is just an incredible experience which even in our modern era cannot be fully understood.  So what do you guys think about dreaming? Have you ever controlled your dreams?

Here I live with my mother and sister in-law and my wife’s grandparents. Grandma is a really special person and is the center of the family. She is very kind and generous although she is quite moody but it’s probably because of her age. She is in the 90′s and my wife loves her so much. She is the main reason we have stayed so long.

But we all know that living with the in-laws is not good for a newly married couple. We noticed that we are not yet a “real” husband and wife. Marisu is treated like a daughter and we depend on others to make decisions. We also noticed that our relationship was falling into a routine and without realizing we started to drift apart. When Marisu arrived home she would go upstairs and be with her grandma while she watched tv and I would come downstairs and write classes and go online. The worst thing about this situation is that we got used to it.

Fortunately we snapped out of this situation and decided to start looking for a place of our own. It is so difficult to find a place nowadays. We went to several small apartments but they were just so small that it wasn’t worth the price. I was very discouraged and thought that we would never get out of here. However, accidentally we came across a friend that was going to move out of her apartment. I loved it and told her I wanted it. She told me she was going to talk to her landlord and tell her about us. Days past and we didn’t get any answer until a couple of days ago when I got a sad message from her via Facebook titles “Bad news”. Someone had already made a deal and we lost the apartment.

I lost hope but in her message she included the landlord’s phone so my wife called and tried to convince her to give it to us.  It was in vain but she told us that she had another flat so I told my wife that we should go and see it. We met Leonor at her house and we saw the apartment. It wasn’t bad but it was not that great. It was on the last floor and the bathroom was not in the apartment itself. I felt a bit disappointed but I asked her if she had any other place. And then we saw it. The apartment is amazing. It is just what we have been looking for. It is more expensive but we think it is worth it.

Marisu and I are so excited. It is like we are going to start our real family. Today I am calling Leonor to confirm the place and we are going to move next month. It is going to be positive for us although we don’t know how to cook. I will have to buy one of those cooking buys and start learning. We just can’t wait to move out.

It is going to be difficult for my wife’s family specially for grandma. We had a great time here and appreciate their help. I never had any problems with them and they made me feel part of the family. But it is time to start our family and we have a mix of feelings. We are excited, a bit scared, anxious but very happy.

 I have been blogging for about 3 years and don’t think I’ll ever quit. Blogging is now part of me. It is what I mainly do. But how did I start?

 When I was in the States I met a guy from India who had many blogs. At that time I didn’t understand the concept of blogging. He showed me some benefits of having a blog and how it brings opportunities. Since then I have always wanted to do something online related to blogs. When I finished my career in the States I came to Peru and got married. The only experience I had was teaching and therefore finding a job in that area wasn’t difficult. However I needed something else. I wanted to be able to do something special, something that with time could bloom into a business. I thought about it for many weeks and had the first idea of creating a blog with English links. Something easy, simple and more importantly, free!

 The first thing I thought about was, what am I going to blog about? Well, I had to follow my passion. I needed something which I could spend lots of time on without getting bored. I needed a topic that people were going to be interested in. In addition, I wanted something that was different. Then it is when I decided to blog about English.

 So I went to www.blogger.com and opened an account and started my first blog called http://estudiaingles.blogspot.com  It was something so small and here is where I learned how to blog. I learned by watching YouTube videos, by looking at other blogs and by trial and error. I spent a lot of time researching about different strategies to get more traffic. After a couple of months I noticed that I began to get more visitors and got really excited. I got better at designing but my blog was not mine because it was from “blogspot”. I wanted to have my own URL, my own space on the Internet.

 In all this process I had the idea of teaching English online for free in a different way. Students always told me that I had charisma, was energetic and funny and made the English classes special and memorable. I thought about that and decided to create a whole website related to this topic. I wanted to be able to give many people that had no resources or time the possibility of learning English. However I needed to learn about coding and designing in a much deeper level. It was very difficult and frustrating at first. I had no idea what I was doing but remained convinced that I had a winning business model.

 Wordpress was the platform I used with the website InglesTotal. It is a blogging programming tool which is a more complex than Blogger. It took time to start but I had a strong conviction that it was going to work out. Finally, I had my first audio lesson online after weeks of hard work. It was so exciting to get my first comment. After that it all just started to grow.

 InglesTotal is like a son to me. I have seen it grow and improve. I have also seen it suffer because of some virus attacks. I have met wonderful people and have enjoyed their comments, suggestions and attacks. Yeah, some don’t like my blog but it is only 1% of my visitors but I like to hear all of them. At this site I have a Podcast and that allows me to reach more places. I get emails from doctors, business people, children, grandparents, janitors, waiters that tell me they listen to my classes on the by, taxi, while they do exercises and it is just a fantastic feeling.

 It is difficult to please everyone but I am glad most appreciate my job. People have been so generous and kind that I have no words to express my gratitude.  It is because of the visitors and my passion for English that I continue. I have more than four blogs now and have plans of opening more. I have a greater vision but have decided to take things step by step. It has been a marvelous experience and one day I will see my complete dream come true.

Shrek 4, or Shrek Forever After, built some expectations. It was the final episode and I wanted to be surprised and thrilled so my faithful companion Marisu and I decided to go watch it. When we got to the first cinema it was just so crowded. Lines of parents with their children, teenage couples and groups of friends of all ages were just everywhere. I was not in the mood to wait in line so we agreed to go to another theater.

Fortunately this one was not that crowded although when we got into the cinema there were no seats available. So it was all set. We got good seats at the back and in the middle. We had a full house and popcorn and drinks. The only downside was that the movie was in Spanish (BOO) but I tried to keep exited.

The movie started interesting. It was building drama related to Shrek. He goes through a midlife crisis where his marriage is pathetic and where he has lost his identity as an ogre. Shrek feels like he is a joke because he is not he is supposed to be: A TERRIFYING OGRE. I thought that it was an interesting change to the Shrek saga. Unfortunately the villain Rumpelstiltskin is quite annoying and irritating. He comes in to give Shrek the opportunity to relive his old life so they make a deal and Rumpelstiltskin changes the past.

Here is where things get complicated, confusing and quite boring. In essence, the cat is obese, the donkey remains the same anthough with less jokes and more random lines, all the people in Far Far Away are witches and Fiona is the leader of the ogre resistance. HUH? What were the writers thinking? The only woman ogre was the leader? Why would a princess be the leader? Didn’t she transform into a princess during the day? So she was only the leader at night time? Now Shrek need Fiona to fall in love and to kiss him before the day ends or he will die.
Who is supposed to be excited by this?

Anyway, Shrek finally gets Fiona to kiss him and to put things back to normal. There is no pleasing ending because all the movie was just about a parallel past which at the end never really happened. The alternate reality plot did not work at all and I wonder if children understood all this mess.

Shrek was a success mainly because of its story although in Shrek The Third, we started to see that the magic was going away. It was a disappointment to see Shrek leave the big screen like this. Of course many enjoyed the 3D effects but it seemed that the writers were just fulfilling a contract before a deadline. Rest in peace Shrek.