I became a teacher because…
I come from a family of teachers. My grandmother was a teacher, my dad was a principal, and my mother was also a principal and an elementary teacher. Since I was a little girl, I was the designated teacher, always teaching the kids. I was the appointed teacher for some reason… I love teaching and learning because you cannot teach without learning.

I think foreign languages are very important because…
Especially now, the way the world is going global, the economy is going to globalization. If our children are limited to one language, their opportunities to function in the world are also going to be very limited. Speaking another language gives you a life perspective that is different and new to everything you know. It’s almost like a new set of eyes. When I read “Hamlet” in Spanish, it was one experience, but when I read it in English, it was a completely different experience. I think I’m a different person because I speak three languages.

When in high school, I liked to…
Recite poetry and I also liked to write poetry. I love Pablo Neruda. He is a Chilean writer who won the Nobel Prize in literature. I absolutely love Mistral, Octavio Paz, and in English, I love e. e cummings. I liked to play sports, but I was not very good at them. I was a pretty decent swimmer so swimming was something that I really enjoyed doing. I loved participating in social events and activities and I always tried to help in student activities.

Now, I like to…
Spend time outdoors. I like to read as much as I can and as much as my busy schedule allows me. I like to work out a lot too and I love cooking! If I would have not been a teacher, I would have become a chef and you can write that down. I love cooking and watching cooking shows… My favorite meal to cook would have to be seafood pasta, barbeque ribs, and oriental dishes. I would love to learn how to make sushi!

My greatest fear is…
Our planet in peril. We are destroying our planet and there is no common awareness that we’re doing such things. I think some countries are becoming more and more aware and taking real steps to help the planet, but other countries are not aware yet. I fear that my grandchildren are not going to see the world that I am seeing… they probably will not see the species we see, the abundance of the crops, the weather… it’s all going to change.

My favorite motto is…
“Se cocecha lo que se siembra.” You harvest what you have planted. It’s basically saying all your actions have a consequence. If you plant hatred, you’re going to harvest hatred. It applies to everything… life’s going to give you whatever you put in.

The most important lesson I’ve ever learned is…
Never judge a book by its cover. In my relationships with people, I have learned my greatest lessons from the simplest of people. Often times, I thought the biggest lessons you learn are from scholars and wise men, but the biggest lessons I have learned in life actually come from people that maybe don’t even know how to read and write. Some of them possess wisdom that they acquire through life, not through books. You can see the smartest person in the world and not learn anything and you can see the most humble human being, a simple man, and learn something very insightful. When I visited Guatemala, I had the pleasure to talk to a local who brought me a lot of very insightful things about life, and I never thought someone of his simplicity had so much wisdom. It was like reading a good philosophy book, talking to this man.

When I stop teaching, I want to…
I’ll probably never stop teaching. If I leave the high school, I’ll probably continue teaching somehow. I wouldn’t be surprised if I died teaching because I don’t know what else I could do. Or I could learn how to be a chef and I will teach cooking and you can write that! Maybe I’ll learn to be a chef and become a chef teacher! Cooking is about bringing people together and about sharing. If you have a good recipe, why not teach it? Anyway, I definitely don’t want to stop teaching.