quadralingual?

I was quadralingual (if thats what you call it...) on Sunday. I kind of made that word up but after bilingual comes trilingual and after trilingual comes qudralingual, right? Sounds good to me.

So I got the whole English and Portugues thing down but yesterday I had the chance to speak 2 other languages, Spanish and Sign Language. It made me think...I should/kind of want to learn another language. Maybe 2 more? But I might as well start off with Spanish since it's similar to Portugues.

So here's the story. Meet Fernando. 

He's new to the ward and doesn't know hardly any English. One beautiful thing about living in DC is that there are so many diverse people. Our ward is no exception. So Fernando has been living here for just a short amount of time. Last week he bore his testimony and I was able to understand everything he was saying in Spanish! I am retarded, was with him for a good 2 hours on this hike at our ward campout and never did it cross my mind to try and communicate with him with my Portugues. That ws until testimony meeting when I understood everything he was saying and by that point it was too late! Right after testimony meeting everyone left. So this past Sunday I was determined to talk to him. We talked after church and while he was speaking Spanish and I was speaking Portugues we were able to understand each other! He even taught me a few things. I just spoke to another girl from Panama and Mexico tonight at FHE and it was the same experience. They are going to teach me Spanish and I am going to teach them Portugues. Love it.

So why quadralingual? Well yesterday my roommate and I were invited to this group dinner. There was a guy named James who is deaf. I have always wanted to talk to him but the fact I don't know sign language kind of stands in the way. We were sitting on the same end of the table and I was determined to put my finger spelling to use. Thanks to some friends in High School who took sign language I was able to learn the alphabet and it has stuck over the years. So during dinner I was signing and spelling things out and we were able to have a full on conversation!!

So what I am trying to say is go me. I am basically quadralingual in English, Portugues, Spanish and Sign Language!!

president preito

I know what President Prieto was doing late Sunday afternoon. I opened up my emails and saw this! I am impressed by his knowledge with certain programs on the Internet. Google+ and LinkedIn aren't well known in Brasil. They were news to me when I got back off my mission. But I am officially in President Prietos circle of friends and connected to him on LinkedIn.  While our relationship isn't the same because I am not in Brasil, I am not a missionary anymore and we don't communicate nearly as much as I would like to at least I can feel semi connected to him in this way. On LinkedIn he even wrote me a nice recommendation. While I realize it's in portuguese...if ever one day I get a job that requires me to speak portuguese this will be of use!

I'd like to think that he has figured out all this himself and it's not the mission secretaries. I love my mission president and his wife.  I have never met such a powerful..short might I add...man who is full of the spirit and so powerful and passionate about his beliefs. I am grateful I was adopted into his family for 18 months as my father. I truly admire and respect him and all he has done for our mission, the missionaries, to his wife family and to the church. And while he never ceased to tease me from my dog bite wound to my hair color...literally every time I saw him he was cracking another joke sometime over the pulpit in front of 100 other missionaries I know it was all out of love. I miss him but at least we can "hangout" on Google now.

tuesdays tune

marking history

My mom just left me her first comment ever on facebook. Granted I had to guide her through this while I was talking to her on the phone but she did it. Go mom! This was blog post worthy because I am pretty sure this is the first and last time this will ever happen.

competition

I was born a to be competitive. I wouldn't blame it on my twin sister and the fact that we were born at the same time, doing the same things, being put in the same activities but I always felt the need to compete. It's in my blood and I can thank my highly competitive parents for this. If you know me I like to win. I don't just play something to play. What would be the point? I play to win. And this goes from  board games to landing my job at National Geographic to any and all sports. 

A lot of people tend to tell me "it's just a game." But how boring is that? Just a game? On my mission they prohibited keeping score while playing any kind of sport. I never understood that and that didn't keep me from making mental tallies in my head. My parents are highly competitive. My mom always taught to never give up and to fight for the things I want in life. For that I am grateful. If I see something that I want, I go after it and I go hard. I wish I had video recordings of my sister and I playing church jungle ball...I mean church basketball. We were by far the feistiest most competitive duo on the court. Clawing, (surprisingly no hair pulling) and shoving were involved and we always kept our parents laughing. 

I am not the only competitive one. It's a Vogel thing. My family loves to play the card game Nertz. The game divides you into teams of 2. Those 2 are generally the married couples and almost every time someone storms out mad because someone wasn't playing fast enough, someone didn't see a certain card, someone is going too slow etc. etc. Some of the in-laws were rather intimidated by family after witnessing this game for the first time but I have told myself... If my future hubby cant handle this then hes not the man for me. Is that being too picky? I just need him to keep up with me and my family.

So while I am highly competitve, I'd like to say I am not a sore loser...or shall I say most of the times I am not a sore loser. But I will admit winning to guys is the best feeling ever especially when they think you don't think you can hit a ball. Sorry just because I like to dress cute and I am a girl doesn't mean I don't have some sense of coordination.  The best thing is seeing their faces when you prove them wrong. My last day at Govloop ended in a triumphant win against my coworker, who was a guy.  I had broken the status quo and I tend to continue breaking it.  

september 11

So I'm not even sure if I am allowed to be doing this. I pulled these photos from work but it's not like I am making any money off my blog or better yet...it's not like that many people are looking and reading this thing. So I swiped them anyways.

I was at work trying to find a good photo for a Hulu web banner on News. My creative director told me to look at some of the photos from 9-11. As I was looking at the photos it struck me...today is September 11. I got a little emotional looking at all the photos and had lots of time to reflect on this incident that made a mark in American history. May we never forget. May we always remember to be grateful for the things that we have and live each day to its fullest. We never know what tomorrow may bring. 

tuesdays tune

love her. love this song.

my lifesaver

My lifesaver =iPhone. It does everything. And while I don't know what that everything entails because my apps are pretty limited and so is my knowledge, it does everything I need. My iPhone can scan my license and save it as a pdf because I need to send it to the HR department ASAP and don't have a scanner close by to being my flashlight when the power decides to go out for a couple days to telling me my mood swings (in love, sad, mad, happy...because we all know it speaks the truth) through my scanned fingerprint. My go to app since I have been out here in DC- Google maps. It has become my new best friend. I don't know what I would do without it! But really. 

So I keeps my apps simple. I don't browse around for other apps, I really don't know all the iPhone has to offer. I am open to any suggestions hence the reason why the majority of my apps are because other people have told me about them.  My 13 year-old nephew laughed when he found out my apps were arranged according to color but hey...it works for me. Did I already say that my life depends on my iPhone? Especially when you are directionally challenged, and are new to a city. Now that my car is out here my iPhone and  I will become even closer. 

When I first got off my mission I opted for the cheaper phone (without the high quality camera) thinking...i wont use my iPhone to take pictures. I had been taking pictures with my digital camera the past year and a half and that's all I really need! Little did I know how society had changed and just how convenient the iPhone really is. So I do have the whole taking picture thing down. Just check out my Instagram but the whole video thing is going at a slower pace. I forget I have it but lately I have been better and here are a few gems I captured recently.

After being away the past 2 years on my birthday this was all I needed.

My only question was how did this girl get hired? (one of my bosses is the woman across from me in the leopard just fyi) 

Only 2 weeks in and I got to enjoy myself on a nice boat cruise down the Potomac with the best entertainment might I add. That would be the CEO of Natgeo dancing right in front of me.

love her. wish I would've captured the end.

natgeo

So a lot has been happening to me this past month or I guess I could say ever since I got back from my mission or maybe it'd be safe to say so much has happened since the second I graduated High School. I have yet to be home for more than 2-3 months since I stepped out to venture on my own. My life is always on the go and that's why I think the fast-paced environment at National Geographic will be the pefect fit. Did I mention that this is my dream job?! Seriously I was on cloud 9 and still am. After multiple interviews, battling out the spot with another graphic designer and a week (or so I thought) long trial run they told me on Wednesday that I had gotten the job! I am seriously loving every second of it. Loving the people. My office. My bosses. The content I get to design. The fact that I have found other creative people like me in the DC area. My official title is the Digital Junior Graphic Designer. There's one senior graphic designer and then there's me! So anything you see that's relating to the NatGeo Channel or NatGeo Wild on the web (Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, Itunes etc) that will be me!

Photos: 

1. I am not a government rockstar anymore.  I was sad to say goodbye to GovLoop but now I am onto bigger and better things.

2. The first time I saw the National Geographic Headquarters heading in for my first interview.

3. My new work station. I am still getting to used to working and staring at such a huge monitor!

4. My lovely view from my desk.

5. Already loving the perks of my new job. Today we got to go on a cruise along the Potomac. For most people this meant food and alcohol. Good thing I love my water.

6. It's official. After weeks and weeks of temporary visitor passes I finally got the real deal today....my badge. No more stickers for me.