Espanõl

A few years ago my teenage daughter was spending Wednesday nights at church teaching in the ESL class -- made up primarily of Spanish speaking adults wanting to learn English. I encouraged her with the one Spanish word I knew: Espanol. She grew to enjoy the experience (which she did for over two years) because of how nice and sincerely grateful the people were. And I was proud that she willingly made that choice at the expense of time with her friends.

Yesterday, I was able to attend a capstone presentation by one of my students, Allison Rank. She is a business major also majoring in Spanish. The picture included here is Allison with some of the children she has spent time with on her three visits to Mexico. I should probably tell you more about these boys pictured and the experience (life changing, perhaps) Allison had because it was part of her presentation. The problem for me was that she presented it completely in Spanish!

This is the first Spanish capstone I have attended and I enjoyed it immensely (authentic food provided). I better understand why we have business majors who also major in foreign language. For Allison it started with her visit to Mexico while she was a student here at Rockhurst. I suspect that she learned most of her Spanish while in Mexico. It further makes me aware of the opportunities Rockhurst students have across departments here on campus.

The one thing I could understand from her presentation is that Carlos Slim, a Mexican businessman, has a personal net worth of $59 Billion. Certainly, nothing slim about that!