Back to School

So I'm back in the states now, obviously. Reverse culture shock was an interesting experience. It had me kinda screwed up for a while. I think I'm pretty much over it now. I've been back over a week and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. I moved back into the dorms today which was crazy and stressful as always. I was horribly nervous about it all yesterday, to the point of really freaking out. I just didn't feel ready having only had a week back at home. Nothing was packed and I just couldn't seem to get my shit together and prepare myself. Fortunately, today is a much better day. All my stuff ended up getting moved over here and I'm basically unpacked. (This means that all of my shit is out, however I will probably rearrange it about 20 times in the next coming days.) Being back with my suite mates has kind of put me back at ease. I like being back with all of them and it's sort of put me back in the mood for school, sort of. I'm still a little concerned about how my concentration level will be once school starts up again. Plus I still need to figure out what to do about my classes. I've overloaded myself once again, and since it is looking less and less like I'll be going to Argentina I think I need to meet with my advisers and figure out how I can loosen my schedule up a bit. I still don't really feel ready to start everything up again. To be perfectly honest I feel completely exhausted, but I don't really have a choice in the matter.

"Rusticating aint easy"

So the title is our favorite quote from this trip so far. It's ironic, considering we have never once had to rusticate on the school sponsored trips. Milton, our professor, who has become like our father over the course of this trip, told us at the beginning of the trip to the cloud forest that it would not be like rusticating, but it might be tough. Unfortunately half the class didn't understand what the hell he was talking about, and so a long debate erupted involving dictionaries and interesting conjugations of the word rustic. We have been using it in various phrases ever since. The trip to Nicaragua certainly was not rustic. It was fantastically fun and at times completely, and profoundly beautiful. I think the general belief is that Nicaragua has been the best part of the trip so far. There was a slight incident at the beginning of the adventure, where I and some of the other students were left at the boarder by our public bus, but everything worked out all right. (And it lead to a hilarious incident where Sol went running across the boarder, past the police, after the wrong bus cursing Milton. Fortunately Emmilce was able to follow after him with his passport and as we quickly learned it was not our bus that drove off into Nicaragua. Ours was stopped at the next check point across the boarder, getting the baggage checked and Milton was busy throwing a well deserved fit at the driver for leaving us behind.) Now we are back in Costa Rica and there is only a week left here. I should be writing my final right now (which I have absolutely no information for) but instead I am busy going through pictures and writing emails. I am ready to go home, but I'm surprised to discover I have become kind of accustomed to the way things run here. It is going to be a change going back to the US. I have become repeatedly frustrated with our group over the course of this trip, but over all, I am really happy that we have been together. I really love the whole group and I'm glad that that's the case. I'm going to be sad when we all split up. Some of us our going abroad again right away, and others will be gone for the whole year. (Sadness). I may be getting ahead of myself writing this. I still have this week after all, but where all the other weeks have seemed so long because they've been so packed, this week seems like it is going to fly by. Of course that may be a bad thing since I have a shit ton of work to finish up. Yikes. Better get going.

Nicaragua

Well I'm off to Nicaragua early tomorrow morning. As usual I am nervous as fuck about the trip. It is going to be 9 hours on a bus. I meeting with the rest of the students that live in my area early in the morning and we're being picked up by a burger joint and taken to the bus. I think I would feel better about things if they weren't slightly disorganized. Well, they're probably as organized as they can be. Traveling just always makes me anxious. It sounds like my time will be pretty filled while I'm in Nicaragua. I'll be visiting different cities and hospitals and trying to do the touristy stuff all at once. Well I think the program wants to cram as much as it can into the week that we're there. It'll certainly be interesting. Wish me luck.

Long time no blogging

So internet access, and time, have been kind of tough lately. The institute I´m attending seems to keep loosing internet access, as well as running out of international calling cards which is just really annoying. But at least I have a free moment to write now. A lot has happened since I last got a chance to post and things have been both good and very bad. I have done a lot of traveling recently, and now my internship is done and I´m about to head off for Nicaragua. My birthday weekend was not exactly the best, but I appreciated my friends celebrating it with me. We got to go see the movie just like I´d wanted and when it looked like we were stranded at a bus stop in the middle of no where the following day and I felt like I might loose it they suprised me with a birthday cake and a little plastic crown to wear. It was adorable. I´m staying in town for this weekend since we´re all leaving Tuesday. So far the highlight of the weekend has been the pilgrimage to Cartago for the virgin of Los Angeles. It´s pretty cool that I happen to be in town when practically the entire country walks to Cartago to worship at this church where the image of the Black Virgin first appeared. The Virgin de Los Angeles is the patron of Costa Rica and people walk for days to get to Cartago around this time. I, fortunately, only had to walk for 5 hours. But I made the pilgramage with my host mom and even though we didn´t go in the church, since I´m not religous and the lines we´re longer than you can even imagine we decided not to, I feel really moved to have done the walk. Well since I´m currently sitting in a cramped internet cafe with a really bitchy attendant glaring at me, I think I´ll end this post. Just 2 more weeks until I come home. I know I shouldn´t be, but I´m anxious to get back. Home sickness is really starting to set in. I miss everyone!
Laters