Well, here I am still.

Boatswain’s Log October 6th. Well, here I am still.

Yessir, I am still in this city and country. Let’s talk about Sunday.

I woke up and traveled about 20 minutes to the middle of whoknowswhere, where I met my advisor/friend Karina. We were supposed to hear some theologian guy give a sermon at a Baptist church in Desamparados. Don’t actually know where that is. He didn’t end up showing, so we left church a tad early. We went and got pizza for lunch at this really distracting place that showed chicken little and then the incredibles, I was thoroughly distracted by all of the fun videoness, but at the same time Karina and I had some great conversation about all sorts of things.

While I was on the bus trying to get to the place where I was meeting Karina, our bus took the front end off of another car. Don’t mess with buses. Seriously. I felt a small jolt and heard a crunching sound, then I looked back and this other car was there in the road with the front foot and a half absolutely crushed. The drivers were fine, but looked less than thrilled. Costa Rica…

Afterwards I came back to San Jose and after celebrating Juan Carlos’ (host brother) birthday I worked on my paper for about 4 hours and ended up finishing. I revised it this evening. It stands firm at 19 pages…about 9 pages more than the maximum length. Karina said it was okay…

Anyway, on to today. I woke up really really tired. Then I went to Spanish class for the last time that it will be class. We played scrabble and had some good conversation. I didn’t win as usual by about 20 points. My friend Jazmin got a nose ring over the weekend. Makes me want to get that tattoo of a mustache on my finger. We have a presentation on Wednesday (as I found out today) that is our final test.

After class I talked with my friend Kasey on my way to LASP so I could get the money Karina owed me from lunch to go to an internet café. I really enjoy talking with this guy, it was nice to be able to share parts of life that are deeper than “how are you?”. We don’t do a good job of getting past the surface level here, but we talk about politics very easily. Andrew Ryan says things that I don’t really process until afterwards, then they make me uncomfortable.

Anyhow, Kasey and I talked about life and I realized that I don’t really enjoy living in this city. Every time I leave, I don’t want to come back. I am not really sure what it is. Today I felt like I was a bother to my host family and that they probably didn’t enjoy having me in the house. Sometimes we don’t say too much to each other. I am coming to the conclusion that I like having people ask me questions about myself, and I like being able to ask questions about them. As it is, I sort of live in this strange semi-talking universe.

Mostly though I think it is the lack of community I experience here. It’s frustrating to be with people for so short of a time. We don’t get much chance to talk in any great depth, and I really need that in life. I need people to ask me hard questions and wonder what’s going on with me. I also need people who I can do the same with. I like real relationships…gosh. Today I missed home very much.

After talking with Kasey I went to an internet café. I hung out there and did research for a bit and learned the name of the guy at the desk. (David). For some reason I thought he said Esteban. Wrong.

Then I came home and realized I had a headache after revising my paper. I called the folks back in the states, ate dinner, and now it is time for early bed. Here’s to over 10 hours of sleep.