So here I am. It's been about two and a half months since I hopped off the plane and into the pura vida life. It seems like a time warp in a sense. A long and brief history of time (credits of Mr. Hawking) packed into a finite period. A mini life experience. In a few words, I have to say this is one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. Costa Rica is where the nicest people in the world live, and it's been a contagious atmosphere of positivity and passionate Equatorial living. No, I don't have a tan, yet...
Since my last post was in February, first allow me to slap myself for being like George R.R. Martin teasing you with the possibility of dragons. This post should have come much earlier. [Slap!] [Recover] Okay. Now we're back.
One of the coolest experiences of my life happened just last month in late February. My work took me to the Osa Peninsula to mentor five students while we all did some volunteer work. Basically, the Osa Peninsula is a huge, giant, and enormous rainforest of biodiversity. Oh, and there's snakes. Everywhere! Luckily, we saw only one snake which happened to be non-venomous but totally cool. Everywhere I stepped I had to be looking out for coils, movement, and snake color patterns. My neck wanted to snap off after having to constantly look down for the entire stay. When my neck got a break from my constant anti-death watch, I had the chance to look at howler monkeys and spider monkeys gracing the trees above. Let me tell you; spider monkeys are territorial as Motherland Russia. It's absolutely incredible how they defend their land. We walked through one troop's territory, and they started shaking the branches and throwing things at us. If we hadn't of left in time, they would have conveniently gone to the bathroom in their hands and graced us with the pleasure of experiencing their past meals on our faces. Although it seemed that every single animal wanted to kill us in that jungle, we had some beautiful and extremely friendly people who took care of us at the conservation station. The workers played guitar and sang with us at night, and for our last day we put on a mini concert for everyone around. For volunteer work, we painted an entire house, varnished another house, dug drainage trenches, collected mini trees in the forest for a nursery, and created a trail through the rainforest on the side of a steep hill. Every night we went to sleep at 9 p.m. because everyone was exhausted. It was an amazing week, and I hope to cure this nostalgia someday by returning.
Next topic.
Graduate schools want me. Oh, they want me bad. Except for Yale. Yale, you can go suck it. Besides, I wouldn't have even gone to your school had you accepted me. Instead, I got accepted into the following list of schools:
1. University of Denver (With a $22,000/year scholarship offer)
2. Kennesaw State University
3. Marquette University (With a substantial Research Assistant position)
4. American University
5. Illinois State University (Waiting to hear from their fellowship program)
I've narrowed it down to two schools: Marquette and Illinois State. Of course, I'll have to work my ass off and use up basically all of my savings to attend these schools. In that sense, it sucks. On the bright side, I will have my masters degree in a field that is going to be the most important (along with sustainability and natural resource management) for the future. I can see myself working abroad for an international organization being a program manager of some sort. I can see myself working up towards being a professor. I can see myself working for the State Department. There are many places where I can go after my masters degree, but I won't really know where I'll be headed until I'm about a year into whatever program I choose. I will know where I'll be attending by the first week of April. Excited. Nervous. Anxious. My fingernails tell the story of this month's acceptance letters by how short they are, but the way how I see it is that this is first exciting financial journey of my life. So here's to ramen noodles, late night studying, and cheap beer for the next couple of years!
The next big thing for me is my vacation to Nicaragua. It's going down on the first week of April because, legally speaking, I have to keep my ass out of Costa Rica for three days in order to not get in trouble. Heard of a visa run before? Tis' what this is. I'm using my vacation days attached to my usual off days to make a 6-day vacation to the Island of Ometepe. It's a magical place in the Lake of Nicaragua with two volcanoes and a lot of gringos. I plan to spend a fair chunk of change because, hey, how many times in your life do you get to be in Nicaragua on a visa run vacation? Probably once.
Life's good. A little uncertain, but good. I miss all you folks back home.
Un beso.
