Monday, July 26, 2004

happy birthday jong

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIYONG!

this post is all for jong the day after her bday
hope you had fun.
i tried calling you yesterday but got your voicemail.
unni

Monday, July 19, 2004

almost done with this program!

i went to a big waterfall on saturday that i don't remember the name of but it's in san luis.  and i get mesmerized by water so it was fun.  it was just patty and i.  the day started with me walking from the institute to canitas (still don't know how to tilda) to be back in time for painting the casa clup.  there ended up being more ppl than brushes so i was sent to the cement area.  then i mixed cement and handed buckets of it to the guy to pour it.  it was ok.  kinda tiring.  i later found out i wasn't supposed to mix cement but whatever.  then a bunch of us hung around until everyone had lunch and was ready to go.  it ended up just being patty and i.  we walked to santa elena and caught a taxi then hiked up through a farm (had to pay to go through private property) then hiked some more (like an obstacle course really) and finally got to the waterfall.  SO PRETTY!  i love monteverde and the surrounding areas.  then we head back and go for dinner with a buch of the others.  but morphos double booked the reservation and we ended up waiting an hour.  so our drinks were comped.  then there was a club that's only open that one night so we went there.  it was ok but every song that wasn't salsa was interupted 10 seconds into it.  irritated me.  i was tired so i went back early with patty on the back of a pick up.  which was interesting. 
sunday i went to gaudy's farm and went horseback riding with a bunch of other ppl and her son.  it was fun.  we rode along the continental divide.  then we all watched spiderman 2 bootlegged b/c there's a dvd place here that rents out bootlegged movies.  hehe.. 
oh!  last week, i went to a dairy farm (gaudy's) and a pig farm.  at the dairy farm, i had a sip of fresh milk and a shot of vodka (tastes like bailey's) and at the pig farm, i petted a baby pig (which will someday be my dinner).  the next morning, i told my host family all about the farms and confused them all when i kept saying knife farm instead of pig farm.  boo...  i hate being retarded in spanish. 
tomorrow my group starts focus groups!  yay!

Sunday, July 11, 2004

playa tamarindo

i got to playa tamarindo friday night but we didn't find a hotel with room for 10 ppl that we could agree on the price for. my only criteria was that i didn't want an over crowded bed. like 1 per twin, 2 per queen. and a few others agreed too. i mean, who wants to sleep 3 to a queen/king when we're all sticky and hot? not i said the fly. ok, i've decided that this keyboard is from hell. the wind blows and the spacebar moves. narf.
anyways, i tried surfing yesterday and that was a sad sad process. i can't stand up! ah well. that's what todays for. that and another sun burn on my sun burn.
i fo und some cute things and i want to buy a sarong. such pretty things. but also, tamarindo is very touristy so the prices are all us prices. b/c ppl will pay them. we went to a couple bars here and there's one restaurant that has super cheap drinks. a bit oer a dollar for cocktails. good stuff man.
welp, gotta go play in the water. it's so warm you don't need a wetsuit to surf or anything!

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

and the tobacco group wins the race!

today my group finished the IRB proposal to get approved for our project. now we have to wait to see if we get approval so that we can conduct ethical interviews. yay for us. haha, there´s a mini ¨we hate the tobacco group¨ club but whatever. that´s just because they´re jealous. hehe..
on a happy note, i haven´t had to eat beans in a while so now i don´t have as much gas. not just gas either. just a funky feeling in my stomach because of all the beans. just about everyone else has experienced the same thing.
this comming weekend i´m going to the beach! yay for sandra. this group is so organized and has connections to odd things. like reeve´s family knows someone who drives taxi busses so we´re getting a good price and chris talked to they guy who works at the internet cafe about hotels. so good.
my fourth of july here was un-fireworky. but it was still good. i went on the zip line and sky walk! i first did the walk and that was really cool. i saw a family of monkies and a bird of some sort (we´re thinking it´s a turkey). it´s called the sky walk because there are 6 different suspension bridges throughout the walk. really cool. i have some nice pictures. i hope they come out ok. the zip line is where there´s a cable that you´re attached to and you zip across. SO FUN!! there are 11 total. number 7 is the tallest and number 11 is the longest. half a mile! kitty and i had to go on number 11 together b/c it was too windy and we´d probably get stuck in the middle and someone would have to rescue us. so we go together. and we get stuck. but it was cool. they guy who rescued us came and wrapped his leg around us and pulled us to the platform. apparently, it was very sexy. i don´t know. i was just hanging out. haha...

Saturday, July 03, 2004

weekend so far

yesterday i went to elsa´s house with almost all the other ppl from the public health program and some other ppl who just work around the institute. elsa´s the public health coordinator. anyways, we stayed until about 1030ish which is late for us because most of us usually sleep by 9, 10 at the latest. most ppl left her house about 1030sih then the ones who stayed went to moon shiva. i swear. i love moon shiva. they had a dj and so we stayed there dancing until 1ish. it was patty, chris, scott, diana, oriana, elsa, christina, her boyfriend, and me at moon shiva. christina and her boyfriend decided to stay at moon shiva past 1. but yeah. after we got back to elsa´s, chris put on lock, stock, and two smoking barrels so we can watch it to sleep to. after patty, chris and i finished the movie, we just stayed up and talked some more. which was fun. we never get actual down time to just hang out with ppl. it was really fun and relaxing. elsa had enough beds so that if we doubled up, we all slept on a bed. then we had tamales for breakfast but there was hair still on the pork so i fed that to the dog.
now i´m gonna walk back to canitas to help clean and paint a community center. we have to because that´s how we negotiated getting to use the place.
tomorrow i´m going on a canopy tour and a zip line! it´ll be so much fun! basically the canopy tour is when you´re walking on bridges through the canopy of the forest and the zip line is where you´re harnesed to a cable and you swing through the canopy. i hope i see monkeys!

Thursday, July 01, 2004

i missed my bus!!

narf.. so now i´m here at the library typing this up because i missed my bus home. narrrrrrrf.. but whatever. only 8ish ppl were going home because 4 others had to go to a meeting and the rest wanted to do yoga. being oh so athletic and limber, i´m here in the library having successfully avoiding the yoga group.
yesterday, my host mom called me over to the living room and she had a broomstick in her hands and with the broom stick she pointed down to the ground. there was a scorpion! so i took a picture of it. no scale though so you won´t really know how big it was. i think it was probably an adult. then my host mom used the wooden end of the broomstick and started to poke it. she poked it until it died. then i said "it´s dead" and she said "i know" but kept poking it until she cut the tail off. then she showed me the tail and asked if we had them in our homes in the states. i said i don´t and she said that they have alot.
you know how in class projects theres always that one overachiever group? yeah, that´s my group. with not much help from me. and you know how in every group there´s the overachiever and the moocher? yeah.. i´m the moocher. also, i´m the slacker of the group. narff.. whatever. today our group was told to slow down a bit so i´m going at normal pace while the rest of the group was going superspeed.
there was a blood drive today at the cheese factory (which has really high fat content like all other yummy things) but i didn´t donate. they closed at 5 (the same time my bus left) and i was in class until then. ah well. it´s not like i would have been able to donate anyways.
this trip really makes me wish i had a laptob and a digital camera. ah well.