Hi there! You’ve found Helena.

I’m a Rhetoric Studies major at Whitman College, studying abroad in Ecuador for the fall of 2017. I hail from the rural Oregon coast (Coos Bay represent!), and I miss the ocean all the time. My interests include: Cats (CATS!), tomatoes, sociolinguistics, Fun Science, social justice, Spanish, everything Terry Pratchett has ever written, sociology, and jokes about capitalism that betray a slight undercurrent of desperation.

I chose this program for a lot of reasons. For one, I really, really love Spanish and speaking Spanish and understanding how it works! For another, I didn’t really want a dual-enrollment study abroad (why would I leave my college to just… do more college?), so SIT’s field-based programs really appealed to me. But the the deciding factor was this program’s emphasis on language and the influence it has. I’m lowkey a Rhetoric major because Whitman doesn’t have a linguistics major, so a program with an emphasis on sociolinguistics is perfect for me.

I am so full of words all the time, so I’m very excited for this blog. Hope y’all enjoy it!

P.S. The title of my blog comes from the Ecuadorian tendency of sticking dimunitives onto EVERYTHING, so most Ecuadorians call me Helenita instead of Helena.