(no subject)
yesterday a bunch of us took a bus ride out to san jose to visit the national theatre. we walked around and then left there to go around the city. we arrived at the artisan market and i met some people and talked to them. i think being an artisan for awhile would be a really cool experience, kind of like a gypsy, you just sit and make stuff and then set up a tent and have people buy it. i love that stuff. afterwards we went to a bar and got pretty drunk and smoked cuban cigars.it was fun, it was a new group that i hadnt hung out with yet. in the bar i met this 45 year old crazy artist who moved from atlanta to belgium, lived there without a visa or anything, constantly evading the immigration officers. he then moved to costa rica for the hell of it and has lived here for 3 years. we stumbled out of the bar and hopped on a bus that took the whole group to sabanilla. i got off there but i live in vargas araya, so i jumped in a cab and told the cabbie to go there. the thing was that i was kinda drunk and i only know how to get to my house coming from the university so we had to drive to the university and then back the way we came so that i could figure out how to get home. the cabbie had a jheri curl and eye of the tiger was playing on the radio. when i got in i introduced myself as gerardo(i love finally being able to introduce myself by my real name, i like it a lot more), a 20 year old spanish and sculpture major from juarez,chichuahua,mexico(i tell most people here im from mexico, simply so that i wont be overcharged for being american). his name was romano and he has a 20 year old daughter and a sixteen year old son. the rain keeps hitting the aluminum roof in sets, from mild tapping to very rapid and now its steadying out. i just wikipedia'd jheri curl and im listening to modest mouse via youtube, since i dont have itunes and pandora doesnt work outside the states, i just youtube songs and listen to them like that. from the jheri curl page, i went to the "high top fade" page and im reading that now. anyways, romano and i talked a bit and he didnt seem to mind looping back around. i paid him and when he gave me the change, i gave him half of it and told him to keep it. then i got out and walked down to the house(he dropped me off on the corner). all the houses here have iron gates in front, irmas has a small unlocked iron door in front of the small garden/porch and then theres the large iron gate in front of the front door and patio. by this time it was 845, and irma usually goes to bed at 9. i was a bit worried shed be able to smell the alchohol and cigars even though i had popped 5 tic tacs in the cab. i went in and turned around and quietly locked the 5 locks on the front door and looked around. the lamp in my room was on and i peeked into irmas room and saw her asleep already. i took off my clothes and sat on my bed and skyped matt and sammy for a bit before going to sleep. i had smoked 2 cubans and i had a headache.
http://mattlingo.com/home.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK1bi4emEkk&NR=1
i like this video.
today i woke up at 5 but irma was still asleep so i just laid in bed thinking cause i didnt want to wake her up. we both usually wake up at 5, but today she slept in till 6. when i heard her get up i got up and took a shower while she made breakfast. then i headed to class. i got in trouble in my first class because i get so bored in my spanish classes, and everyone else struggles so i always just end up drawing pictures and then the people around me start laughing at them and my teacher says im a distraction and even though i know all the material, i cant distract the other students because theyre all struggling. yesterday we watched La Misma Luna. i really like that movie, even though its pretty cheesy at some points. while watching it i thought about when we lived in pecos and wed watch "alguna vez tendremos alas," my mom and grandmas favorite soap opera, kate del castillo was the star of it, when she was just starting as an actress. i had the biggest crush on her. i think i popped my first boner to her. no wait, it was julia roberts in pretty woman. whoa, tmi, sorry about that. i mustve been around 7 i think. it cracks me up when los tigres del norte come on the screen in la misma luna cause theyre such huge stars but no one realizes it unless youre mexican. anyways, so yeah she held me after class and then i showed her my drawings cause she thought i had been making jokes about her or other students, but i told her i just get bored and draw pictures. she actually liked them and she laughed also and said shes going to have me draw pictures whenever she does presentations. today i drew a turtle with a mowhawk riding a motorcycle saying WHEE! and the day before i drew a penguin with an afro and the day before i drew a Trex fighting a jet and before that a stepford wife style woman with oversized facial features saying "i FUCKING LOVE pancakes!" oh yeah, today i also drew myself wearing a necklace and the thing on the necklace was a giant rendition of my face(i saw it in a rick ross video this morning before i went to class and it cracked me up). here it is-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJg7vdkj8w
in my next class we watched como agua por chocolate and that was okay. after class i walked to the san pedro mall and mailed two postcards, one for allison and one for alexi(he once sent me one from greece when i had just first gotten to meet him before we were good friends. i still have it on my desk, it was the first time a friend had ever sent me a postcard, and we werent even good friends at the time.) hrmm. maybe i should send more postcards. that was my frist time to send them. i think theyre kinda silly, but it is a nice reminder like, "hey wish you were here" or something. then i walked back from there to the house. oh yeah, i really need to get a digital camera. i havent shot near as much as i should be. i wsih i could make a stop motion of my walks to and from school. theyre 15 minute walks, but id only do segments. theres a store on the corner that serves as the neighborhood corner store, in mexico we call them abarrotes but here theyre simply referred to as "sodas." sodas differ in size, some of them are just little cornerstores, others are fullsized cafeterias. back to the walks though. i always pass a man who stands outside his house with his hands on his hips. he has down syndrome and we always just say buenas. i walk by a bunch of houses, and people usually sit inside their front porches which are in front of the iron fences. theres a house that has wooden chairs and desks set out front and a sign that says carpinteria. i wanna be that guy when im old. on another corner, thers a man with two crutches who is out there every morning by 630 who sells strawberries. "fresas, fresas, 3 por mil colones!" i always pass by him and say hi and he responds "buenos dias joven!" i still havent bought strawberries though. i think i will on the last day or something. theyre just always kind of not-fully-ripe though. oh yeah, hes out there from before i go to school, till afterwards, ive seen him there till about 3 or 4 sometimes. after that, i take a right and go a few meters before i see the old man who is always on his front porch with his dog. i think he might have down sydrome or some condition also. his poodle is really pampered looking though and she either sits on his lap or on his feet. "buenas." he always says. then, the sidewalk ends and i carefully walk through the street trying to avoid the cars because right next to the street theres like a 6 foot drop into a dirty creek thats usually pretty high, mostly because of rainwater. then after a few turns in the road i cross a couple intersections and then i get back to the sidewalk. across the street thers a truck with fruit, and i always think, damn i shouldve brought my camera and i wanna go snag a pineapple but i never do and i keep walking. maybe next week before i go. at least once. theres a lingerie store and then im on campus and i cut through the campus and get to my class which is held in an old house that was on campus that the university bought and turned it into part of the school, so its called la casita and theres a class held in every room. but its a house. teh.
new song now-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8crIHgjG1_I&NR=1
when i got home from school, irma wasnt home and i started watching videos. im in a small house and i have a small room so usually when i get home, i sit on the bed and watch videos and wikipedia and read my book and do sets of push ups(my sets are up thirty five now! whee! haha, lame, but when i first started it was hard to do twenty in a row, now i do at least 5 sets of 35 a day. haha, im lame, dunno why i told you that) and procrastinate and dont do my homework. irma got home with allison and i read the newspaper and she heated up the food. i usually have to buy my own lunch, but i got home early today and she made dinner last night, but i didnt come home for dinner and so she just heated up the dinner from last night. hooray, cause i dont wanna buy lunch anymore. i think ill just skip it or go to the grocery store tomorrow and buy some bread to make sandwiches here. ive spent 550 and i have 150 left and two weeks to go. i should have like 125 more, but i forgot that my parents took out the money for my phone bill and car insurance. damn. anyways, it was spaghetti and beans and avocado. after lunch, we sat at the table and dammit i really wish i brought my videocamera, irma talked for about an hour of things when she was young and then i told her i was going to the beach and she told me of this chinese woman she knew who owned a hotel on the beach but in 1950, her family had gone driving while she stayed at the hotel and it was her husband and 3 kids and they were crossing an old wooden bridge when somehow the car went over the side of the bridge because it was narrow and wooden and didnt have guardrails and was only one lane and the whole family died and the lady went mad. i think she said her name was irma leon. then she told me of a bus that had been driving with a bunch of schoolchildren in 1974 that also went on a narrow wooden bridge and it was on a cliff and on one side was a waterfall and the other side had an ocean and the bus fell off on the waterfall side and they all died and its so important that bridges arent made of wood anymore and she forgets the exact dates but she thinks it was 1974, yeah that sounds about right, it was 35 years ago and arent i glad that the bridges i go on are better bridges than they had then? and its so sad, all the kids died, but one cant go crazy like irma leon did, its sad and life is too short for some, but one cant go crazy. i really wish i had my videocamera, you have to see the motions and the faces she does to get the full effect. i honestly just sit there enraptured hanging on to her every word, even though she repeats herself at least 3 times for every sentence, and i think holy shit shes 80 and at this point allison has already gotten up from the table and just started shuffling around in the living room the way kids do, the way i used to do at least whenever adults were talking and im 20 and irma is 4 times my age and i look into her face lined with age and her eyes are big brown eyes that get wider when she enunciates on certain things like "si la VIDA SI ES TRISTE pero un NO PUEDE dejar que eso lo vuelva LOCO" and then i look at allison and shes half my age, 10 years old what was i doing when i was 10? shes so bored listening to our stories, but shes a very sweet girl and she doesnt say much she just shuffles around and i look back at irma and when shes finally done telling me her stories, or shes had her fill or whatever i get up and take the dishes outside to wash them and she gets the coats for her and allison because theyre going to go to the store. i start washing the dishes and just look around think about how in the states, we have those little handles with the soap already in them and the end is a sponge and its so ridiculous compared to the way things are here and the rain was falling heavy on the metal roof outside and im right beneath it and its moments like these that i so badly wish i could just give you my eyes and show you all the things i see, because honestly i wouldnt even care to share this with anybody but you, i just want to share with you everything i can i dont care if it doesnt make me "mysterious" enough for you and teh, i really am quite ridiculously in love with you. anyways, i wash the dishes and she finishes getting allison ready and then i run in and get my camera and while irma gets ready i take pictures of allison playing with the turtles HOLY FUCK I FUCKING LOVE TURTLES SO MUCH, ive learned a lot this trip, but honestly, one big thing is that i really really love turtles. pita is 18 and flipper is six. a turtle named pita living in a plastic bucket on the back porch of a small house in costa rica is two years younger than i am. all the experiences i had up until high school, this turtle has had its share of the same time frame of experiences. irma comes out and says "toma fotos para que salga allison!" and then i take a couple of her and allison and then i take one final close up of just her face and she smiles nervously while i focus it and finally ive got it and i click and she asks if i made her look good and tries to see in back of my camera, but once again, like always, i tell her its film and not digital and she smiles and says, thats the type we had during my time, you need to get one like the kids use now, one from your time" and then they leave and i lock the door and i read blogs and look at bike chicks and travel gear
http://vimeo.com/4989874
the first one is the one that led me to the link i showed you first and i really really like this second one cause i just love cycling, not just fixed, but even the really intense specialized stuff. not that i wanna do that, i just like riding my bike, but its still interesting to me.
http://vimeo.com/4261719
anywho, this has been long enough and i have to start my paper on immigration and what i think about it. oh yeah, so you know how mexicans try to get to the us and americans dont like them? well here, its the same problem with nicaraguans trying to get into costa rica. irma is nicaraguan but shes been here for like 60 years, but yesterday i went to a friends house before we went to san jose and they asked where i was staying and i said Irma Castro's house and they said, oh yes, irma, we know of her, but its ridiculous cause they kinda frowned and its only because she wasnt born here, it doesnt matter that shes been here fore 60+ years. stupid.
holy shit, that was a giant giant wall of text. hannah asked me in email last night if ive been keeping a journal and i havent but a lot of people here have but i dunno if i like that idea, i think it kind of impedes the learning process if youre constantly writing about your experiences instead of just experiencing them. i guess this is kind of like a journal. same for photography, theres so many things i could take pictures of, but i hate it, i feel like instead of constantly trying to document everything, i should just let it go and see it myself and stop trying to show everyone else.
"make sure to get pictures so people can tell you were there!"
bullshit, i was here and thats all that really matters.
i hope you have a good day when you read this!
bye shereen