For those of you who (1) still check this page every once and a while, and/or (2) get discouraged with giant strings of text, you´ll either have to be a big boy or girl and do a little reading - or contribute to My New Camera Fund. (Donations are now being accepted through PayPal - my account is paypal@jdangelo.com. I guess this is a good place to insert a Happy Holidays greeting, so... Merry Christmas everyone! All of your gifts are in the mail, but they´ll probably get stolen before they get to you.) I suppose you could stop visiting here too, but I´d really prefer that you just stick around and wait it out!
I´m not going to lie: I think my camera still technically works. But, the flash is done for as well as the LCD. It is quite a lovely abstract piece of artwork that appears on the screen that resembles the feather of a neotropical bird, purple and black, cracked down the middle. I may resort to taking pictures with the viewfinder, but I still have no way of controlling the manual settings (and I doubt I left it on automatic). So, basically, it needs to be repaired. Yesterday I found this to be impossible unless I go to Panama City or San Jose. Bleck.
Since I find myself here in Panama with too much time on my hands, I decided to provide the journal with a quarterly report on some important issues in my life. But first, a little overview of the past two days:
Yesterday was much like today: woke up, walked to get breakfast, went shopping in the central part of town, went to a movie (Elizabethtown and A History of Violence), walked to the Internet cafe, and later I will go to play pool. I met a nice boy there last night, Olmedo...I only understood about 70% of what he said, but hell, that´s close enough. He was a spitting image of a friend named Drew, mannerisms and all, except he´s brown and speaks spanish. The boys here are sooo different. It´s all about the blue eyes here, like they´ve never seen them in their life. I imagine it´s what it is like to be a supermodel. It can be annoying at times, but I suppose it´s better than dealing with all you crazy American boys. You all have way more issues than you know.
So, on to some important things. Keep in mind this is all a bit relative to the moment...
First of all, I know how much I raved and raved about this new job, but two weeks later and I am on the brink of hating it. A few reasons:
I live in the middle of the jungle. There are seven-foot snakes seen on a daily basis, we caught 8 terciopelos in the past 10 days before I left right near the house (these are some of the most poisonous snakes on earth), and I really just don´t like snakes. There are a lot of them. I walk through the yard in fear with my rubber boots (I don´t ever walk on the lawn with my sandals because of the terciopelos), and I know they can still give a wicked bite through the boots. Granted last year there were only two people bitten, it´s a halfway rational fear.
As far as the creatures, I think the only other ones I worry about in the back of my head are the wild cats... I think it would be soo amazing to see a jaguar, puma, ocelot, or jaguarundi, but at the same time, I wouldn´t want it to be within 10 feet of me. Jaguars are 200 lb. cats for chrissake.
The second main point is that I am living without music. I never imagined how difficult this would be. I have my guitar (which I finally started playing again after I got some new strings), but there is only so much music we can make with one guitar and a few harmonicas. The variety of music that I like cannot be produced by measly me and Tom (who by the way, is an excellent bassist and guitarist from St. Augustine). Case and point: During Elizabethtown, tears started rolling down my face when I heard Jim James singing. It was a feeling I have never experienced through music before. There is no better feeling in this world than the feeling I experienced at that moment. It´s kind of like embracing your lover after a long-awaited return or what I imagine it´s like to see the Taj Mahal in person. Tears of love.
So, I´ve come to realize that it is possible to live in the most beautiful places I´ve ever been, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and one of the most biologically diverse National Parks in the world with bone-chilling sunsets, and not be happy. It may sound nice to have a job where you do virtually nothing but cook and clean a few hours a day, if at all, but it´s not very rewarding. But, the reason that tops it all is the isolation. I have zero social life living in the middle of nowhere. I live two older guys, one is 56 and one is close to that. They are great people, Craig is an amazing person with great stories and sense of humor and all, but I need more interaction. We only go into Puerto Jimenez twice a week and I´m always in a rush there and the Internet cafe is relatively expensive. Other than that, we went out one Friday night to the only local bar within 40km (it´s fabulous and also expensive). Everyone in the Osa speaks English! It´s so frustrating. One of the reasons I came to Costa Rica was to immerse myself in Spanish. I miss Uvita and all the people there so much. So that´s that. My tentative plan is to return to Uvita sometime at the end of January. I will be returning there for New Year´s Eve and I already can´t wait.
Okay, so this first important issue in my life lends itself well as a segue. Every now and again (like yesterday) I get overwhelmed about being so ungrounded. What the hell am I doing here, what am I looking for, if anything? At times it´s hard to accept that I don´t have a home anymore, nothing cozy to return to. I have to start all over when I get back. And I haven´t a dust particle of an idea of what I will do for work when I get back to the states. But, I also know that everything will work itself out as it always does.
On a more positive note: I´ve realized within the three months that I´ve been here that it is more than possible to be cognizant of what is happiness. Overall and aside from the new job, I´ve been more happy in the past three months than I´ve been in years. That alone makes this entire trip worth it. That, and I can now have three-hour conversations in Spanish. I still have a lot left to learn...
I´m not going to lie: I think my camera still technically works. But, the flash is done for as well as the LCD. It is quite a lovely abstract piece of artwork that appears on the screen that resembles the feather of a neotropical bird, purple and black, cracked down the middle. I may resort to taking pictures with the viewfinder, but I still have no way of controlling the manual settings (and I doubt I left it on automatic). So, basically, it needs to be repaired. Yesterday I found this to be impossible unless I go to Panama City or San Jose. Bleck.
Since I find myself here in Panama with too much time on my hands, I decided to provide the journal with a quarterly report on some important issues in my life. But first, a little overview of the past two days:
Yesterday was much like today: woke up, walked to get breakfast, went shopping in the central part of town, went to a movie (Elizabethtown and A History of Violence), walked to the Internet cafe, and later I will go to play pool. I met a nice boy there last night, Olmedo...I only understood about 70% of what he said, but hell, that´s close enough. He was a spitting image of a friend named Drew, mannerisms and all, except he´s brown and speaks spanish. The boys here are sooo different. It´s all about the blue eyes here, like they´ve never seen them in their life. I imagine it´s what it is like to be a supermodel. It can be annoying at times, but I suppose it´s better than dealing with all you crazy American boys. You all have way more issues than you know.
So, on to some important things. Keep in mind this is all a bit relative to the moment...
First of all, I know how much I raved and raved about this new job, but two weeks later and I am on the brink of hating it. A few reasons:
I live in the middle of the jungle. There are seven-foot snakes seen on a daily basis, we caught 8 terciopelos in the past 10 days before I left right near the house (these are some of the most poisonous snakes on earth), and I really just don´t like snakes. There are a lot of them. I walk through the yard in fear with my rubber boots (I don´t ever walk on the lawn with my sandals because of the terciopelos), and I know they can still give a wicked bite through the boots. Granted last year there were only two people bitten, it´s a halfway rational fear.
As far as the creatures, I think the only other ones I worry about in the back of my head are the wild cats... I think it would be soo amazing to see a jaguar, puma, ocelot, or jaguarundi, but at the same time, I wouldn´t want it to be within 10 feet of me. Jaguars are 200 lb. cats for chrissake.
The second main point is that I am living without music. I never imagined how difficult this would be. I have my guitar (which I finally started playing again after I got some new strings), but there is only so much music we can make with one guitar and a few harmonicas. The variety of music that I like cannot be produced by measly me and Tom (who by the way, is an excellent bassist and guitarist from St. Augustine). Case and point: During Elizabethtown, tears started rolling down my face when I heard Jim James singing. It was a feeling I have never experienced through music before. There is no better feeling in this world than the feeling I experienced at that moment. It´s kind of like embracing your lover after a long-awaited return or what I imagine it´s like to see the Taj Mahal in person. Tears of love.
So, I´ve come to realize that it is possible to live in the most beautiful places I´ve ever been, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and one of the most biologically diverse National Parks in the world with bone-chilling sunsets, and not be happy. It may sound nice to have a job where you do virtually nothing but cook and clean a few hours a day, if at all, but it´s not very rewarding. But, the reason that tops it all is the isolation. I have zero social life living in the middle of nowhere. I live two older guys, one is 56 and one is close to that. They are great people, Craig is an amazing person with great stories and sense of humor and all, but I need more interaction. We only go into Puerto Jimenez twice a week and I´m always in a rush there and the Internet cafe is relatively expensive. Other than that, we went out one Friday night to the only local bar within 40km (it´s fabulous and also expensive). Everyone in the Osa speaks English! It´s so frustrating. One of the reasons I came to Costa Rica was to immerse myself in Spanish. I miss Uvita and all the people there so much. So that´s that. My tentative plan is to return to Uvita sometime at the end of January. I will be returning there for New Year´s Eve and I already can´t wait.
Okay, so this first important issue in my life lends itself well as a segue. Every now and again (like yesterday) I get overwhelmed about being so ungrounded. What the hell am I doing here, what am I looking for, if anything? At times it´s hard to accept that I don´t have a home anymore, nothing cozy to return to. I have to start all over when I get back. And I haven´t a dust particle of an idea of what I will do for work when I get back to the states. But, I also know that everything will work itself out as it always does.
On a more positive note: I´ve realized within the three months that I´ve been here that it is more than possible to be cognizant of what is happiness. Overall and aside from the new job, I´ve been more happy in the past three months than I´ve been in years. That alone makes this entire trip worth it. That, and I can now have three-hour conversations in Spanish. I still have a lot left to learn...
posted by Jennifer at 6:26 PM
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