And thus it began...

Two weeks into classes and I'll swear I never even had a 2 month vacation.... There was none of the first day go-over-the-program-and-then-go-home nonsense, and there was DEFINITELY none of the no-homework-on-the-first-day-because-all-we-did-was-go-over-the-program bull. First week, first round of two-and-a-half-hour-long-lectures, first impossible-to-understand readings, and first wreck-my-brain-for-the-right-word translations. And here's an impossible question: how the hell do I translate the compound nouns we can only create in English??? Needless to say, it is 6pm on Saturday and I am exhausted. I can't blame it only on the 9 hours of class I have beginning at 7am, I mean I haven't been able to sleep well for the past two nights because of the wind that howls at my windows, but make no mistake...sitting in class from 7 am to 4:30 pm is excrutiating. At the beginning it sounded nice--class only two days a week and the rest of the time for homework and...fun...but as it turns out, come the end of the weekend all I want to do is rest and homework is the last thing on my agenda...and by last I mean, maybe I'll get to it on Thursday and have to cram everything into two days.


Of course all the "fun" starts this semester with my thesis paper. In two weeks I have to hand in Chapter 1: at least 20 pages of...well I haven't figured that part out yet. What is my chapter one. Here is when I start to wish I had taken the professor's advice six months ago and read more than I stared at a computer screen talking to people online or changing my Facebook status. But eh, we make our choices and we have to live with what comes of them. I'm not stressing out...yet...but all I can say at this point is that it isn't going to be the easy semester I had one year ago, where the beach didn't seem like an impossible dream, when I had visitors and we spent time talking about things OTHER than what the hell I'm going to write about in Chapter 1, when I traveled to other countries and missed class because, well, it was my birthday. I guess in the end all I can be thankful for is that I only have this year left. And what IS left of this year? That would be 279 days, 10 hours, 33 minutes, and 25 seconds, OR 9 months, 6 days, 10 hours, 33 minutes, and 25 seconds OR 39 weeks, 6,706 hours, 402,393 minutes, and 24,143, 605 seconds...and NONE of those makes it feel any shorter. Here's to hoping I make it out alive.


P.S. Side note, just so you know. My birthday is in 21 days :-) At least there IS something to look forward to this year. The big 2-5 :-)

And here we go again...

2/09/2010: Today I saw one of the most amazing sunsets I can remember, and since I've been here I've seen quite a few memorable ones. What is it about a sunset that no matter how many you see, there is still something completely and utterly magestic about it. And today, from high on a mountain, it was just that: magestic. The sun was a deep orange red colour and the sky around it was painted red, orange, pink, and purple. I was mesmerized. How can something so natural, so predicable, take my breath away? And then I know why I love Costa Rica. I'd been forgetting these last three weeks, wishing I could be back in California, wishing the Master's was over or that this year would just magically fly by. I had forgotten the reason why I fell in love with this country back in 2007 and although the people played a big role in that, the beauty of this country did too.

2/11/2010: I made it through my first French class today. There is something so utterly appealing about learning French in Spanish. My mind switches between English and Spanish and as the professor is talking (in Spanish) I noticed I was taking notes in Engish. Then I see French words that are almost, if not completely, identical to ones in English and I write down their definition in Spanish. What will be interesting is when I try to seperate the three languages in my mind. What happens when I get a full handle on French? To what language do I translate? Spanish since that is what I learned French in? Or English since its my mother tough. And if I translate to English will I actually be translating from French to Spanish to English all in my mind? I'm excited really to see what happens. Its an intesive language course focusing more on reading than actually speaking, but I guess I have to start somewhere and this is the only time I could take the course with my host brother. In the end I'm learning French and that makes me happy.

What doesn't make me that happy is that the classes in my Master's degree start tomorrow. Friday from 6-9pm and Saturday from 7am-4pm...No. Fun. But then again I should be almost used to it now since it's basically the same schedule I've had for a whole year now. Although waking up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning is not someone one gets used to easily...Anyway, I'm just hoping on have a good year, that my thesis will not stress me out too much, and that in approximately 10 months I will have my degree en mano. Pray for me.