I'm afraid that my blog posts are getting boring/repetitious, and I'm at a loss to describe how things are here. This semester has been the farthest thing from boring, so I hope I'm doing it at least a little bit of justice by writing about each day, while nothing I ever write or take a picture of could truly capture what I'm experiencing.
With that said, today was a pretty typical day. I was worried about having lots to do this morning, but once again my worries proved needless, and everything got done in plenty of time. We had an excellent speaker today at LASP. She is an evangelical here attending grad school for theology, and it was really refreshing to hear from someone with a more solid Christian worldview than we've been exposed to lately. She had a lot of wisdom to share about cross-cultural experiences and the importance of leaning on the Bible as the sole authority in our lives.
After our lecture, we had lunch as usual, and then Haleigh and I left right away in order to have time to stop at the post office on the way to ICADS. I think the reason I was feeling so anxious about getting that done was because we're leaving San Jose already on Monday, and I needed to send some forms before I leave. The fretting probably had more to do with anticipating this move than getting the forms sent. Haleigh found my paranoia pretty hilarious, and despite the fact that I rushed the whole time because I thought we were late, we arrived at ICADS 20 minutes before class started. Some days I just get too caught up in my thoughts to be in touch with reality...apparently this was one of those days ;)
At ICADS, we gave mini-presentations as part of our final grade (the second part will come tomorrow in the form of a quiz). The presentations were fun because we all chose topics that we are personally connected to, and it was fun to recognize how far we've come in our Spanish skills this semester. Our professor (who is an amazing cook and has been giving us recipes for the last two weeks) brought ingredients for guacamole to class, so after we finished reviewing for our quiz we enjoyed a little snack. It was delicious!!
I took a taxi over to my previous host family's house after ICADS because they had invited me back to say goodbye before I leave. My host mom wasn't there because she was working, but I got to say goodbye to Monica and she passed on a bunch of gifts her mom had gotten for me and my family back in the States. It was weird to be saying goodbye, and it makes it seem like the semester is already starting to wrap up! Looking at the calendar, I'm anticipating that the next few weeks will fly by, and then I'll be flying back to the great state of Minnesota!
When Monica and I had chatted for a bit and said our goodbyes, I headed over to a classmate's house to meet with my LASP group to finish our presentation for tomorrow. I was surprised by how well everything went together and relieved by how quickly we got things finished. I had been anticipating another long and crowded night like last night, but I made it home in time for the afternoon cafecito, which was exciting. Mami made us hot chocolate today instead of coffee...it was absolutely delicious, and it totally hit the spot because it was pretty windy and overcast.
With the extra time I had because of the successful group meeting, I went through my suitcases and collected some things I won't need for the rest of the semester to send home tomorrow. I really didn't want to have to send a package home, but with the gifts from my old host family and the other things I've bought here, it seems inevitable, so I might as well send it off now so that my things will be home by the time I get there. My host siblings crowded into my room while I was doing this to play a game on my computer.
Luckily, it didn't take too long, and we soon moved to the dining room where we played Scategories for at least an hour. For a person who is not even good at Scategories in English, tying for first place while using only Spanish was a huge triumph! (I'll not mention how many answers papi gave me or the fact that I was competing against my 13- and 10-year-old brothers) ;) We had a few good laughs, mami insisted on serving me a huge dinner, and then I studied for my Spanish quiz a little before going to bed.
Side note for the more worry-prone followers of my blog: My eyes are almost back to their normal condition, and I'm hoping that the rest of my allergy symptoms will clear up over the next couple of days while I'm still on the prescribed medicines. Its a little scary to be moving away from the clinic right after that little episode, but I'll just have to be sure to take plenty of OTC allergy medicine when I go to my internship and have faith that God will figure out any problems that come up.
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