Thank you, technology

In spirit of the holiday season, I wanted to express my gratitude for all of the free technology that's available these days. I miss everyone a lot, but thanks to technology I don't feel nearly as isolated down here in the Southern Hemisphere. Many of my teen students can´t comprehend a world without Skype, but having spent my younger years without it, I truly appreciate how much easier my experience in Chile has been because of how easy it is to maintain my strong connections with the people at home.

One of my favorite options has been the "Text free" app that I have on my Itouch. It assigned me a number in my¨"home" area code so as long as I'm connected to wi-fi I can send and receive texts at no extra cost to anyone at home. This is great for sending birthday or congratulatory messages, coordinating Skype dates, or in general being able to send "can you believe this just happened!?!" texts to my friends at home.

If you sometimes get annoyed with the quirkiness of Skype, or if it's difficult to get both parties to the computer and you don't have a cool smart phone that forwards your Skype calls like I don't, you can currently use Google to call land lines and cell phones in the US for free until the end of the year. You have to download something first, but then you just load up your Gmail account and use the "call phones" option. One more month of free talking!!!