The hurricane... known as life

Well, supposedly Raleigh was hit by Hurricane Hanna last night... good thing I was having the best night of sleep in a long time and missed all the hullabaloo. Even though the physical hurricane didn't leave a mark on my life (or on my car, thank goodness) my life has become a hurricane of its own. My 18 hours of classes are catching up with me, and my new practice of not procrastinating and getting assignments ahead of time is slowly fizzling. Everytime I open up my assignment notebook, it is a flurry of tests, quizzes, homework, meetings, talks, events, activities, wow! Every day is packed full with something, and the weekends have truly become my only free time of the week, even though I'm still working on homework. We were supposed to go the beach this weekend and have some true down time, but obviously the hurricane, the real one, ruined those plans. But I'm enjoying not having to worry about what's going on tomorrow and what I have to get ready.

Something that just hit me: my life is so structured in the states. In CR I did what I wanted to, when I wanted to. There was no assignment notebook. There was no planning my life. I went with the flow, traveled when I could, did homework when I wanted to, and never stressed over deadlines. I recently have been put through the wringer with my schedule changes, and experienced some truly unnecessarily stress and I just flat out miss my carefree life in Central America. Not to mention my friends, family, and favorite hangouts. Just tell me one place in this country where I can slip under the bartender door and help myself or my friends to our choice of beverages... I got nothing, you?

Some hopeful news: as part of my GRASP application for my airfare to CR, I had said that I was going to give a seminar in the food science department about food handling practices in Central America given my vast knowledge on the subject. I talked with my mentor and decided that the perfect place to practice would be the Study Abroad Symposium. I am going to give a lecture about the differences in food storage and preparation and really try to inspire students and professors to do something about, especially from the educational point-of-view. If a couple of dedicated people educated the masses of Central America about the fact that although microwaves keep rats and flies away from food, they are not proper alternatives to refrigerators or freezers that would be amazing. And I have seen both extremes as far as economic status goes, from my spacious Costa Rican home to my dirt-floored, rotting shack in Nicaragua. Even my travels to Guatemala and Peru can shine some perspective on my audience, or so I hope. And that is what I will be working on independently this semester, hoping to give my lecture on Nov 17 (so if you're in the area, COME!). Obviously I will be working closely with my mentor to perfect the seminar, but I really hope to put a lot of Elena into the mix and make it a personable experience. I'm excited, if you can't tell :)

Oh, I have officially started working on the novel. We'll see how that goes...

PEACE!