Broodin'

Maybe I should begin this post sighting the fact that 27 people from Sweden have looked at my blog in the past few days, since there really is no better place to start from. What a thing. Hopefully they all enjoyed themselves reading about my anxieties/+adventures on the other side of the globe. If they didn't know already, it's incredibly beautiful here. However, it's been a while since I've said that - the information they were receiving wasn't exactly up-to-date, hopefully there are no grudges being held.

Meanwhile, here I am...sitting on my bed with still-packed bags, scratching bug bites. It's the late afternoon and I feel deflated, and at the same time like there is an immense pressure on me. I've just come from essentially finishing my Block II of this ICADS Field Program.

Students in my group have been talking about how sad this is all day - - the truth is I really don't give a damn either way. Maybe I'm just too tired to give one. I think it's more that I'm just exhausted with how fast and relentlessly time flies. Always, always, always. And we're always complaining about it, too, like it's some new phenomenon. Like wasting our time by saying how time goes so fast will slow it down. Or maybe let other people realize how much we value the time the time we've already lost with them. Calling it 'lost' time in itself seems fairly morbid, since there is no physical way we will ever get that time back. Ugh.

More than ever in my life I've been noticing how whiny I am these past three weeks. Maybe I should clarify - more than ever I've been noticing how I can't stand to listen to myself whine.

And before I get too deep into this - I know, I should be writing about everything I've seen and done - but I haven't the faintest clue about where to begin...so this is where we're going to start.

Probably it's the closeness with a small group of other students my age, from similar socio-economic backgrounds,which has amplified how much I notice the way I speak about the world, and how I react to it outwardly (and inwardly as well - just as, if not more importantly). Over the past three weeks I have seen more and learned more than I ever did in my entirety of high school, and yet the whole time I probably spoke more about a variety the little things I was dealing with (such as food, mosquitoes, fatigue, heat...the list goes on) more than I did about the actually tough subjects I've come to Costa Rica to learn about.

We culminated the Field program by completing one of the seemingly-longest hikes (in reality probably one of the shortest I've been on). We were climbing up through dry-forest to visit limestone bluffs to see out across expanses of marshland and rice paddies in Guanacaste. Recently, the entire country (continent even, maybe) has been soaking wet from endless rain, meaning the whole way we were swarmed by mosquitoes.

Not to whine yet again (it's endless! I can't believe it), but it was the same whining in my head that ruined the hike for me, and later really stung (more than the bug bites) when I realized how much I've missed just from grumbling over the petty annoyances of day-to-day life during these past three weeks. They held so much sway over me, practically controlling not only what I was thinking about but also how I felt in response. And in general, I'm an agreeable person, who tries to enjoy herself around everyone and everything (that's actually an exaggeration - but I do try). And where does place everyone else I know? What have the other students I was with gathered? What have students from past years gathered?

This anxiety possible comes from the pressure I've begin feeling now that I realize I have learned every single event on our crowded three week syllabus, attended class from 7 AM to 8 PM, and am now leaving with an intense sense of insecurity about how substantial what I have actually come away with is. Or whether I have come away with enough in comparison to how incredible the things I've just seen and done are. For some reason it feels incredibly inconcrete, like I've filled up my belly with food and will be hungry again tomorrow morning, or that the experiences I've had will slowly begin to seep out through my ears until there's nothing left but the shell of the memories. I won't remember the names of the people I met, their shoes, the smell of their houses. Or the shape of the leaves or the stripes on the beetles wings. In fact, I possibly won't remember very much at all from these past three weeks. And I don't think keeping a journal (if I'd ever had the time) could have changed that. Or any amount of sitting and thinking about how beautiful each moment is and how much I want to keep it.

All of this sounds ridiculous. And it is. But I'm just throwing a fit since the real intangibility of everything is sinking in - or maybe for the first time I feel dwarfed by how much there is to learn and yet personally responsible for not learning enough. Where the fuck do I go from here?

Well. I'll say where I think I'm going, at least for the next three weeks. But the foundations of everything else seem to be on the wobblier side right now, and I don't think any presumptions should be made on this blog about where I'll be a year from now, or worse, two years from now. Right now, all I can (and should - as I am realizing) be thinking about is right now, with a dash of spice from the past.

Nevermind! I'm not going to tell you where I'm going. I don't have time right now - but I'm around all week doing exams and will write more. For now, apparently I just came to brood and grumble a little. You'll have to wait for the cheery stuff for later.