Only slightly creepy things

What a week and a half!

after three months in our communities, peace corps brought all the new volunteers together to make sure we're still breathing and fill us with a bunch more grandiose ideas about how we're going to change the world. it worked. or i worked. im still breathing, and yes, in fact, this weekend was a whirlwind of inspiration with that type of hot potato - 'do it as fast as you can before you lose it' urgency. I feel incredibly good about the next few months, and Incredibly full of the nerves, the nerves! that come with knowing you could either do something amazing or you could drop off the face of the earth and never accomplish anything. in this case it would be much easier to do something amazing. hooray!

i was definitely dreading the week long high school reunion feel of this training conference. 50 people doing something similar and new usually fall to the temptation of comparing what and how they are doing. this didnt seem appealing. then i realized, im doing great! i mean, i didnt realize that until i got there, so excuse the griping for the last few months, but wow! i am a lucky volunteer. i have a great host family, a ton of project possibilities, and the energy to do it. in fact, im going to quote Liz Coleman, president of Bennington College in Vermont.

"What do you do when you get overwhelmed? You have two things. Your mind and other people. Start with those and change the world." 

That's great. anyway, the week was much more fun and beneficial than i had imagined. The highlights were the daily 6am soccer games and the obscene amounts of food, but there was plenty of time spent just sitting around talking with people i havent seen in 3 months. i thought it would be lame, but it was great.

i was super tired at the end of the week. our last night we went out late which i never do, and i woke up early to go running before heading back to the community. i feel like i got back in the afternoon on saturday. all i remember was how incredibly sleepy i was all day. sleepy sleepiness. and nerves. BECAUSE...

Sunday we had a bingo at the school to raise funds. it was a huge success of an event, and i helped with all the setup, so it turned out to be a long day. but the biggest part of it all was this crazy skit that they signed me up to be a part of. we decided it should be educational and funny, so it all started with a "teacher" telling her class about how a pig was going to come to the school to talk about the swine flu. the kids all get freaked out because they think the swine flu is coming to the school. the kids dont understand because it is the english teacher who is telling them about this. well, guess which community member was most qualified to play the (female) english teacher. ME! so, in my acting debut, i had to dress up as a woman in front of about 200 community members and teach them about the dangers of the swine flu. it was absurd. i feel like im not really doing it justice in this description.

it was chaos. the costa rican style of rehearsal is to improvise as much as possible, which is not a style i was comfortable with, because im not quite ready to be witty in spanish yet. so i was the only one who had a script. but surely, they forced me to say some things that i had no idea i was going to say. and luckily, i had a couple of opportunities to launch into long, detailed english monologues for comic effect. it was a good time. so, you see in the photos, my playmate (?) jesus, with a wig. he was a student. and me, in blonde wig, padded bra, and make up, being the best peace corps volunteer i can be.

right now we are supposed to be in winter, but it is friggin hot here. it is not winter. it is not raining like it should. i sweat constantly. today im going to pull a pedro and cut my hair short because its hot. its gross hot. it is wake up sweating hot, yet it is winter.

its also an issue because i am training for a half marathon which i am running this weekend. i am going to throw myself out there and see if i can finish 13 miles. im a little worried because i still havent actually run that far in one go, but im banking on this strategy. the race will be run at sea level on flat roads. i am running at about 4,000 feet on some of the steepest hills i have ever seen. so it should even out. right? we'll see how it goes. i'll let you know. i'll also make sure to take photos of myself in short shorts. yuck.

i hope youre working hard for something you want.

the other quote from Liz Coleman is this. she was talking about service learning and how we need to revolutionize liberal arts education, which is a pretty incredible idea. she said that we need to change our students' way of thinking. "the choice is not between good and evil. it is between competing goods." when i get freaked out about how much i have to do here, and i find myself paralyzed between planning and action, i remember that whatever happens here will be incredible.

go after it.