Day 308 | Sunday, November 1 | 2009

Sunset on Richland...

Caitlin and I slept in today and it was a nice surprise to wake up at 10:15 and have it be 9:15 (because of daylight savings time). Today has been mostly work / planning for the remaining three weeks. I cannot believe that there are only three more weeks left!

I met with my friend Emily Vargas today to help her prepare for the GRE. She takes it Thursday so I gave her all of the study materials that I had made over the summer. She was a little stressed about taking it in just a couple of days but I think she is going to do fine.

Not much else to say about today except that it's November! Happy birthday Steph (my cousin) although I know you don't read this blog!

Day 241 | Friday, August 28 | 2009

Caitlin...

Today I am twenty four years young. Feels exactly the same as it did when I was twenty three yesterday. Twenty four. On to bigger and better things, right?

I had a lovely lunch with an even lovelier lady. My sweetheart took me out to arguably my favorite restaurant Casa Nueva and I am so thankful that she had a gap in her busy schedule to be with me. I am really proud of how hard she is working -- I cannot remember which one of my friends said it but they (along with me) thought that college would not be so bad if someone like Caitlin (or especially Caitlin herself!) were their R.A.

The rest of the day was also really pleasant. Met with Mike and Shannon of whom I feel bad about being so out of touch, I met up briefly with Julia at Donkey to talk about her film project and my sound project, and then ended the day nicely by being treated to dinner by Rem and Amanda. Mike and Shannon lent me The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel by Edward Abbey and we also got to talking about various things like how Gram Parsons' cadaver was partly burned by his friends in the desert. As we were talking about Gram Parsons, one of his songs eerily made its way onto the randomized playlist of Mike and Shannon's iPod.

Day 201 | Sunday, July 19 | 2009

Happy Birthday...

Today was Caitlin's 21st birthday!  I am so happy for her and glad to celebrate her life.  We all went out to celebrate at Abuelo's -- a really good Mexican restaurant.  Pictured is me and Caitlin and her family.  From left to right (Me, Caitlin, Susan, Robin, and Mark).  

Caitlin had a margarita for dinner and was very responsible about it.  I remember my 21st birthday -- it was just me and my Dad and we went to the Star of India.  I had probably just two small glasses of wine.

Day 186 | Saturday, July 4 | 2009

Caitlin and Ola...

Happy fourth of July!  

Woke up this morning and ran with Caitlin around the neighborhood.  We alternated walking and running because sometimes it is very difficult for Caitlin to breathe because of her asthma.  

In the afternoon, the Kraus family and I went to the birthday party of Ola and Camille -- two fraternal twin girls (whose birthday was July 3).  The girls turned one today (yesterday) and the ceremony was lovely.  

It was also really nice to see some of Caitlin's family -- most of whom I had not seen since December.  I enjoyed seeing Jim and Patty (Caitlin's Aunt and Uncle), Jim and Susan (Caitlin's aunt and uncle too), and Dick and Nancy (more aunts and uncles of Caitlin).  It was nice too seeing Jeff and Robin (Caitlin's cousins) who are the proud parents of the birthday twins.

Pictured above is Caitlin with one of the twin girls Ola.  Ola is just beginning to walk and Caitlin is helping her out.

Día 135 | Jueves, 14 de Mayo | 2009

Ceviche...

Today in our Andean Literature class we learned how to dance.  Our professor Lcdo. Lojano didn't give us the name of the dance (if there is one) but it was a lot a fun.  The movements were hard to perform and involved what seemed as arrhythmic movement.  Our class objective will be to perform the singing and dancing of a couple songs in Quechua (the native language of many Andean populations) for our despida (good-bye meal) that takes place next Friday.  It was a little strange to watch my professor dance.  The vision of him moving to music is the polar opposite to the quiet, motionless, and peaceful demeanor in which he lectures.  He possesses a very deep energy that usually comes in as harmonious and clear.  When one of my classmates utter an off-hand remark, he usually accepts it as if it were a good idea -- muy bien is what he'll say in response.  Everything is totally different though when the music sets it.  He shuffles his feet, waves his arms, and even though his rhythm seems a little off, he transforms himself and becomes part of the music.

Today was mostly a good day.  I feel really bad right now that I cannot be there for Caitlin.  She is going through some turmoil surrounding one of her classes but I think that she will be strong enough to pull through.  There are only three weeks or so left in the quarter, so I hope she can see how close she really is to finishing.  I love you, babe.  I am there for you always (even if I am here in Ecuador).

Also, I feel a little sad that I cannot be home to see Michael Hurley perform at Jeff's house.  That and I wish I could see the film that Jeff has made.  Things like this also make me miss home and friends quite a bit.

Today was the birthday of my host sister, Verónica.  She turned 26 and I got her a tiny little coffee/tea mug that says feliz cumpleaños (happy birthday) on it.  I think she liked it.  It is pretty much a tiny trinket that has no practical use.

photo later.

later:  here is a photo of the ceviche we made.  Ceviche is a kind of sea-food soup that includes tomatoes, onions, lime, ketchup, fish and it is really delicious.  We also fried some plantains too as a side.  This was all for our cooking class tonight.

Día 111 | Lunes, 20 de Abril | 2009

Servicio Voluntario...

Todays has been another rainy one.  Turns out the climate down here is considerably cold and wet.  In the last week it has been sunny maybe once or twice.  My family said that this is pretty typical of April although it is usually a little less wet.  May will not be as wet but it will still be chilly.  Usually I wear a jacket or a couple layers of shirts walking to school -- just to dispel any assumptions that it is always sunny down here.  Today we had classes -- one exam in Andean Literature and then a pretty long Grammar class that was not very fun at all.  After classes we went to this elementary school here in Cuenca for some volunteer work.  Today we sanded down some of the walls and prepped them with primer so we can paint them the rest of the week.  If I wasn't feeling a little ill, I would be more excited about this project.

I have been feeling sick recently (feeling tired and having a sore throat) and it's just really bad timing right now.  This week I have a lot of work to do -- two exams and about four papers.  Good news is that we have next week off.   We'll just be traveling down to the coast to basically sight-see and relax.  That will be nice...

Today was a little disappointing because I found out that I wasn't awarded the Student Enhancement Award that I had applied for back in February.  I had applied for a considerable amount of money in order to conduct a research project about ambient noise and indigenous music of Ecuador.  I am not sure what the specific committee comments were (I'm waiting on an e-mail to find out why my proposal was not funded) but I think that I'm okay with the result in general.  Given the fact that I had found out about the grant a week before its due date, I am impressed and proud that I was even able to finish an acceptable application in that short amount of time.  I had stayed up working on the proposal for about 32 hours straight the day and night before it was due -- resulting in me being able to produce about 20 pages of proposal-worthy material.  

Even though I didn't get any funding, that still doesn't mean anything really in terms of my ability to still carry on my research.  All that it means now is that I will have to eat the money that I have already spent for my recorder and accessories.  Oh well...  the research has been going a little slow lately on account of being so busy with Spanish classes but maybe this is a good thing for me to kick in gear and get more work done.  I still intend to do what I had set out to do, regardless of being financially sponsored by the University.

In other news, it is my big brother Dustin's birthday today.  He is 27.  I wish I could be around to give him a hug.  I miss you brother.

Día 110 | Domingo, 19 de Abril | 2009

Cajas National Park...

Today was full of activity.  Got up early as usual (about 5:45) to shower, dressed, get packed, and meet up with my group to go hiking at Cajas National Park.  Cajas is a giant park that has some of the strangest vegetation I have ever seen in my life.  The whole place is like a giant sponge;  the grass is very bouncy and it absorbs water to send it through underground rivers that connect from lagoon to lagoon.  It turns out that Cajas supplies something like 95 percent of the water for Cuenca and surrounding areas.  The water there was strangely fresh and abundant.  

The hike was about 3-4 hours and we only traveled about 7 miles or so if I had to guess.  We stopped pretty frequently to listen to our tour guide Adrían (who was probably the nicest guy I have met thus far on our trip) and also we stopped to eat lunch in a cave in the middle of the forest (bosque) in Cajas.  The bosque (forest) was one of the weirdest places I have ever seen.  Suddenly, all of our surroundings transformed into this weird foggy ecosystem that resembled that planet where Yoda from Star Wars lives.  The place was really unreal, especially in the rain as the fog was lifting out of everywhere.  Another really strange thing to experience was seeing random Incan ruins scattered about during out hiking route.  We would be walking by a stream and then suddenly see Incan stones.  Really put things into perspective.

By the time I had gotten home, I was physically exhausted, cold and wet.  Today though it was my eldest host-sister Johanna's birthday (she turned 30 years old!).  A lot of my extended-host family was there and we spent a lot of time together.  I probably got home at around 4:00PM and I wasn't able to get to my homework until about 10:00PM.  When I had gotten home from Cajas, I played Johanna a song that I had written for her that went like this:

Feliz cumpleaños Johanna

Feliz cumpleaños a ti

Sobre el próximo año

Espero que seas feliz

(Happy Birthday Johanna

Happy Birthday to you

Over the next year

I hope that you be very happy)

The lyrics are pretty basic.  I guess the melody adds a lot to the otherwise stale lyrics.  I think that my sister really liked it, although me playing the song in front of all of the family sort of set a trap for myself -- we spent the next five hours listening to a lot of Latin music that the family wanted me to learn.  Actually, this was all very good (instead of bad) but during the whole time I was thinking how I ought to be working on homework instead of listening to music.  All in all, it was actually a really great experience and I am glad that I just soaked it all in.

Day 32 | Sunday, February 1 | 2009

Happy Birthday Susan!..

We are just about to leave to go meet Mark, Susan, and Robin at Casa Nueva for breakfast.  Tomorrow is Susan's birthday, so I made her this special message from American author and humorist, Mark Twain.  I hope she likes it.

Today will be a busy one -- lots of work to do for my spanish midterm, reading for both of my MDIA (media studies) classes, and then homework for music theory class.  After our group meeting for spanish class I will meet for the first time with my Ecuador study abroad group to comprehensively discuss the program in the Spring.  I am excited to learn more about what to expect this spring.

Well, I'll talk to you later...gotta get a movin'!