Coming up on three months down, three months to go here. I think time moves faster when you see the end coming up, as the weeks start becoming planned out, places start needing to be gone to, opportunities start shutting down. But let’s look on the bright side, I’ve done far more new things in the last three months than I had in the last year.
I underestimated (maybe) the ability to keep in touch with friends and family, as a different country is no further nor closer than New York City to Boston would practically be. The Internet has dominated the overall communication landscape, and there’s nothing I can do or say about it. A disclaimer is that it helps that I’m still in the Eastern time zone and many of my friends are in cubicles talking to me all the time because I’m so popular. wonder what the case would be if I was in New Zealand or Southeast Asia like original plans…
I’m not in SE Asia or Oceania, I’m in Santo Domingo and damn happy ’bout it! It’s not every day that you get to live with your landlord who’s more than happy to take a tequila shot with you on a Wednesday evening. In context, I was cooking up another experiment (read: food from a recipe) called Tequila Lime Roasted Chicken. It turned out well, and actually was the reason I came to write. Okay, half of it was the alcohol and guilty feelings that come along with it and the other half was the sobriety and the guilty feelings that come with it. Anyways, that’s been a hobby of mine recently. It’s much like my guitar practice: the more you do it the more you’re able to think in it. I have a few things in my ‘arsenal’ now, and it helps save costs like no other habit can. Social norms be damned, my familly is going to eat my cooking – most of the time.
Still no dance lessons, no recent exciting trips. Shoot, I did start that adventure story that I was really excited to write but ended up not finishing. I should finish that. That was now about a month ago, before all the interns left, before life started being ‘life’ here. I’ll try, but no longer promise to finish it. A week or so ago I went to Cabarete to surf again, and had a good couple days, even if the waves were small. I met Aussie, Swiss, and German characters, all there for different reasons. Hopefully I’ll stay in touch with them, they were cool. Next Friday, I’m leaving the first-world (Santo Domingo) for a week to work for a program called Smiles for Life, which is going to be extremely difficult but rewarding at the same time. It’ll be 7-5 for 6 straight days, each in a different rural community at least an hour from where we’re staying. I’ll be mainly helping with translating between kids/patients and the dentists, and helping with set-up/break-down. My restaurant days are already paying off, score. But really, it’s interesting how at any point in life, some ‘meaningless’ job will help you down the road with some unrelated task. Kind of like with babysitting and how I work with gringo girl children that I have to take care of all the time.
About my other hobby: guitar. I’ve been dedicating a month starting a couple weeks ago focusing purely on technical exercises, ignoring learning songs. Hopefully this will pay dividends, but the road to actually being able to play the blues is so long that it’s sometimes daunting. Oh well, I’ve got a long way to live – maybe (“Si Dios quiere” as they say here) – so I guess I have nothing to lose but time. I think I’m mature enough to see the dividends long term, but then again my friend said that she “roasted nuts” for her dinner and I giggled.
Finally finished the book American Theocracy, which was a relief. It was a fantastic book, but it started getting depressing and angering. I’m better for finishing it, though. More well versed and also not guilty about starting the book and stopping. There have been three attempts at reading that really stuck out to me, where I started but didn’t finish the books: Atlas Shrugged in 8th grade (looking back, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?), The Power of One in 6th grade, and the two sequels to Ender’s Game wayyyyy earlier (maybe 4th grade). In all three cases I came back and read every page. One situation where I won’t go back is this book The Reason for God. Now, I’m not religious, and like to keep an open mind to contrary opinions. However, I don’t feel guilty about dropping this book after a few chapters. It’s not an indictment of Christianity, just of the author, a condescending egoist. He actually thinks that the only dissenting views of religion are based around questions that 18-22 year-olds ask in classes (literally how he starts every “I’m going to systematically prove why not believing in God requires just as much faith as believing” segment). I am dropping that book like my adolescent acne problem and not feeling bad about it. Moving on to better ones, I got around to reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven and am in the middle of Tuesdays With Morrie, both instantly in my upper echelon of reads. I can’t say enough about how much everyone should read these books, especially young adults (I’d say first-week sophomore year of high school literature class). Even if they’re just cool stories, they cause one to think so far outside of the box. I also powered through The Kindness of Strangers, another good read about a guy who leaves his job and hitch-hikes penniless through America. Recommended. I just started The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo yesterday, and 100 pages in I think I’m going to like it a ton. I’m not much of a blockbuster reader, but this is very compelling. Keep you posted.
Listening: The Black Keys. All the time. Everything. They kick so much ass. Get Rubber Factory and Thickfreakness if you’re into the blues, these guys are so raw.
Learning: How to move my fingers on the guitar
Qué lo What? 