Some catching up to do

So, I haven't written in a while. 8 days, to be exact. I would have written a summary of last week's classes last Wednesday, but the one-two knockout punch of a storm and a misguided truck took out the electricity, phone, and internet. Well, the electricity was only out for about two hours, but the internet was out for two days. I left to go to the beach very very early the same morning they fixed the internet, and then I spent only a few precious minutes during the weekend on the internet. When I got back on Sunday, I was still having internet problems, so I didn't really get on until Monday. Yes, I went a whole 5+ days without internet (barring those few moments on Friday night). I know ... I'm surprised I survived too.

Let's see here. I'll brush off my "being concise" skills and try to summarize.

Last week's classes: I don't remember much. They were last week, after all. I did get a 9/10 on that paper that I turned in earlier (the one that I couldn't decide if it was horrible or brilliant.) I wouldn't call a 9/10 brilliant, but I thought that was pretty good all things considered. He said I had "good synthesis" -- I sure hope so! You guys have no idea how many random and seemingly unrelated readings I tied together in that thing. He also said I could disagree with the author, more like a critique. So this week, I wrote my second reflexion for that class, and I disagreed with one of the authors. I felt bad, because I don't think it was as good as the first one, and it was really repetitive even though he knocked 500 words off the minimum word limit because he said all of our 1500-2000 word papers were really repetitive. Oh well... it's turned in, and I don't really care right now.

Last weekend: Just about everyone in the grupo went to Panama last weekend - some of them needed to do their 3-day stint outside the country to be legal again, and others just wanted to tag along. Three of us didn't feel like dropping $200+ on the trip and getting drunk all weekend, so we chose to go somewhere closer, cheaper, and more conducive to getting work done (since we were gone for less time ... yeah right, like we'd do work at the beach). Sooooo, instead of heading to Panama, we went to Sámara, a sleepy little town on the Nicoyan Peninsula (aka Pacific Ocean).

On where we stayed: The guidebook gave a glowing recommendation to the Posada Matilori, so we called them ahead of time and made reservations. They gave us directions, but (not so) unfortunately, the directions got left behind. We took the 5:30 am bus (yes, 5:30 in the morning, that's not a typo) to Nicoya/the Sámara gas station, and then we caught a different bus into town. We got about 100 feet up the street with the directions we remembered, so we stopped into this laundry place to ask directions. Turns out we found the best possible place in town to ask for directions. We told the woman where we were staying, and she asked if we had reservations. We said we did, but then she asked if we got the number from the Lonely Planet guidebook. Well, yes... we did. Turns out the people who owned the hotel moved to a new location, but the phone number stayed attached to the building. The new owners of the building like to pretend they're the hotel and then trick people into staying there. Armed with the correct information and directions from some incredibly nice people, we walked over to the true location of the hotel. It was more expensive than we'd been planning at $50/night for the three of us, but it was such a nice place that we decided we wanted to stay there anyway. They had AC, cable TV, the nicest kitchen we'd seen yet, free internet (kinda slow), free use of boogie boards, and really nice owners. Let me tell you, compared to the places we've been staying, this was the lap of luxury. We spent the second half of Friday relaxing on the beach (that's why we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4:30, so we'd have time to relax during the afternoon), and we had a nacho and guacamole feast for dinner.

On Saturday morning, we attempted to walk to Playa Buena Vista (another nearby beach) which supposedly had turtles at some point. We probably walked like 2 miles, and we couldn't find the beach. We gave up, but we saw monkeys and a lot of pretty flowers on the way, so it wasn't a total loss. After that, we rented some surfboards and hit the waves. People make surfing look really easy, but I assure you, it is not. Just battling the waves to get the bulky heavy surfboard out into the ocean is a chore by itself. Then you have to wait there, either "floating" (trying not to fall off) the board until a wave comes, or you have to stand there with the board and jump on at the last second before a wave comes (requires coordination). Then, when the wave comes, you have to be in exactly the right spot on the board. If you're too far back, the wave just goes under you. If you're too far forward, you get a face full of ocean. If you're lucky, you'll also lose control of your board and have the ocean smack it into some unprotected part of your body. Needless to say, I was a complete failure at surfing. I was told I had a spectacular wipe out though ... well, at least I did something spectacularly, right?

For dinner that night, we had another chip and guacamole feast, but I also made a pan of homemade mac and cheese -- no recipe, no measuring utensils. I was determined to take advantage of the cleanest, best-equipped kitchen we'd seen yet, and mac and cheese seemed like a good plan. It actually turned out pretty well too. Not the best mac and cheese I've ever eaten, but tasty nonetheless. Overall, Sámara was a really nice place to go. The town was small, felt really safe, everyone was super nice, and it wasn't as touristy as all the other places we've gone. Admittedly, we weren't sure that anyone actually spoke Spanish there since just about everyone we interacted with spoke English, but it was just a sleepy, relaxed atmosphere instead of a tourist-infested atmosphere. The beaches weren't as pretty as some of the other ones we've seen, but the fun factor definitely made up for that.

Since we wanted to get back relatively early on Sunday, we took the 8:30am bus from Sámara back to San José. When it pulled up, all the windows were up. I took one look at it and said, "I bet there is nobody on that bus yet. If there was anyone on there, the windows would be open." One of my friends commented, "Yeah, unless there's AC." We had a good laugh about that... AC on a bus in Costa Rica ... haha. After the bus driver chats with people for a bit, he finally gets back on the bus and lets us passengers on. Guess what? The bus had AC. It was a clean, relatively quiet, comfortable, AIR CONDITIONED bus. Let me put this in perspective: Say you're renting a car, and you've reserved the cheapest economy car you can. No, wait, not even that. Let's say that they've somehow decided to let you rent the ratty junker that their 15-year-old window washer drives to work. Then you get there, and the rental car people are all like, "Oh, our bad. We fired that window washer kid. Do you mind if we upgrade you to this Lexus free of charge?" Yeah, we were pretty stoked about that bus ride.

And finally, classes this week... Well, Monday was independence day here, so I didn't have my Monday class. I thought that was pretty sweet. Tuesday was Cartography and digitalizing maps. My shoulder hurt for at least an hour after that class; that computer lab is NOT designed for ergonomics. Then I had Geography of Costa Rica, where we learned in another power point/flip book about the climate of Costa Rica. I thought it was more interesting than tectonic plates, so that's good, I guess. We spent a lot of time talking about things I learned in either 7th grade, my intro to Environmental Studies class, Physical Geography, or from the previous week's Cartography class, though. Then today in Cartography, we went over a lot of the same earth-sciece/physical geography topics AGAIN. I mean, I think that stuff is interesting, but only to a certain point. World Geography was the usual giant mumble of unintelligible words. For some reason, I still like that class, and I still don't understand why. I don't understand the readings, I don't understand the lectures, I don't know what the professor wants (and I think he's the hard-to-please type), I have 4x more work in that class than in any other class, I can't say awake or pay attention... Believe me, I'm baffled by this "liking this class" phenomenon as well.

I got together with my group in that class to discuss our project on "Petroleo." I would translate that, but to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what we're talking about. I mean, are we talking about petroleum? Gas? Fuel? I'm supposed to research what it is and how it's used, so I guess I better figure out what we're talking about pretty soon, eh? The way we decided how this was all going to work was completely strange to me. They seemed to know this format to follow, and I did not understand why this precious format was so great. They started out with a "General Objective." Now, I would approach this step as a thesis statement, but that's not how it works. Basically, we just made it into a sentence explaining our ideas: "To make known the basic concepts and applications of petroleo, its uses in Latin America - specifically Costa Rica - and alternative sources of energy." I didn't really see how that helped us any, since it was just melding our four original idea sentences into one, but I decided that the nod-and-smile technique was the best plan at that point. Then we went on to the "Specific Objectives." This was basically re-using the same four sentences, only putting an infinitive verb at the front of each. Personally, I think we're writing a research paper, not a resume, but again, I chose nod-and-smile. "1) Define the basic concepts of petroleo. 2) Show some uses of petroleo. 3) Analyze the role that petroleo plays in Latin America/Costa Rica. 4) Emphasize the use of other sources of energy." We also have something about a "Conceptual Framework," but for some reason, we never got around to figuring out what that meant/filling it in. Whatevs. If it were me, I would have addressed the whole thing as like, problem-solution, or tried to prove the point that it's a multi-dimensional problem with economic, social, technological, geographical, (and etc) facets, or some other thesis-y sounding topic, but my group looked at me like I was crazy when I started to say that, so I gave up.