This morning I woke up at some ungodly hour because a bug was crawling across my face. I don't know what it looked like or exactly how big it was, but it was big enough to make me FREAK out. I plucked it off my face in a half-awake daze before realizing what was going on and then I shot up and chucked it across the room, which was dumb because it was still alive and well somewhere in my room. Then I was all panicky and freaked out so I couldn't get back to sleep for a while. My covers ploy had failed me! So I covered my face with my arms in addition to the covers. I'm probably going to end up suffocating myself with all my feeble attempts to avoid bug bites.
Yesterday morning in Dean's class we watched this movie called The Silence of the Bees. It's a PBS thing about how the honeybees are disappearing and no one can figure out why. They have found a variety of different things that are causing CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder), but no single culprit to attribute the mass disappearances to. This one segment was about how in Beijing, they no longer have enough bees to pollinate their crops, so people have begun to pollinate by hand. I kid you not. It is the single most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my life. They use toothbrushes to brush pollen out of flowers, then let their meager pollen collection dry for a couple of days and then use little homemade feather dusters to individually brush each blossom of their pear trees or whatever it is they are trying to grow. This must be some sort of joke. This woman with the ecology program is a bee person and she was telling us that there are loads of other bee species, and some bat species, that could be pollinating plants. We just don't want to invest the time and money into figuring out how to do it on a mass production level. She thought the movie was really melodramatic because it was going on and on about how if they honeybees die off we won't be able to eat fruits, vegetables, or beef anymore; our diet will consist solely of corn, wheat, and the like.
Today Cayman put this stuff in her water called "ZipFizz." It's what she brought to replenish her electrolytes. This stuff has 833% of your daily recommended dosage of Vitamin C, and 41667% of B12. That's more than 41 days worth of B12. We decided that if you fed that stuff to a corpse, the body would come back to life. Needless to say, Cayms was tweaked for the remainder of the day.
After classes Tess and I had English lessons with Jennifer and Susan. They wanted to study ghosts, so I made a power point on scary things. It was just strange to have this lesson in between lessons on food and the rooms of the house. But whatever, that's what they wanted to do. My power point nonsense only provided a half hour of material, so then Tess did a lesson on question words. She's my hero.
Tess and I walked home together around 5, and when I got home my fam was MIA, which sucked because I was starving. I didn't freak out this time and walk around in the dark and rain. Instead I just read for a bit for Environmental Sociology. Olivier's parents came around with Olivier's nephew Lucas to feed the chickens shortly after I got home. So I went and helped them (I use the word "help" very loosely here). Lucas showed me that one of my babies had died. I was so sad. The poor thing was all gray and smushed-looking. Apparently they die because they all try to huddle together for warmth, but a lot of times they huddle on top of each other. So if there are like three layers of chicks, the bottom layer is out of luck. Olivier told me later that one time he had 11 chicks die in one night. I don't think my heart could take that. So they hung around and chatted for another couple of minutes before leaving me in the empty house again. Mi abuelita told me Marielos and Olivier would be back soon. Tico "soon" is not an equivalent of American "soon." Kevin and Kaylor came home at like 6:15, and they took care of me. Kevin made gallo-pinto, eggs, and plantains. I talked to them a fair amount, the most I've talked to them thus far actually. Mis padres came home at like 6:45. They felt bad that I'd been hanging around since 5 and hadn't eaten yet, but I told them it wasn't a big deal. Then Kevin fixed me the biggest plate of gallo-pinto ever. It was delish, but I could not finish it. He made sure I had my fill of eggs and plantains, too. I love my fam.
I don't know how many of you have been keeping up with Latin American Idol, but last night Maria Jose Castillo made it to the finals. Very big deal. She's tica. So I sat and anxiously awaited the results with the whole fam, and then jumped up and joined in the celebration when it was finally announced.
I went to bed at like 9 last night, and had a really hard time getting out of bed this morning, but we have a big day today so I need to get moving. And eat. I'm hungry and I hear plantains being fried.
Later.
peace love and maria jose castillo
