What I've been up to lately

It’s been a while since I have updated my blog and I have sooo much to tell, I hope I remember everything. Here goes..

For a while I was feeling really bored, I didn’t feel like I had enough to do and it became frustrating. At home, I am used to being away from home all day long because of work and other things that demand my time. Sometimes I would feel overwhelmed but now that I am here I feel differently. When I was in the US, I didn’t have much leisure time, which I didn’t mind. Once I got here I had so much time on my hands that I didn’t know what to do with myself. Of course a 20 year old could find lots of troublesome things to do in a country where the legal drinking age is 18, but I wanted more to do than party so I joined the gym. For a little over 2 weeks I have been waking up at 5:30AM Monday-Friday to go to the gym and work out for an hour. I started to look at the gym as a job that I needed to wake up early for. The first two days I was accompanied by my roommate who couldn’t believe I would wake up that early just to work out. To my surprise, there are MANY people who are up at the same time jogging and going to the gym to get in their daily exercise. So far I have been successful in getting back in shape and I feel better about myself because I now have a purpose and a reason to busy myself.

I also recently visited Arenal Volcano where there are natural hot springs that are heated by the volcano lava. During that weekend the clouds hung really low so I didn’t get a chance to see the lava but the hot springs resort was a blast.

Last weekend we took a group trip to Manuel Antonio beach...Pictures are posted.

Now what I can remember...
This past Monday my business Spanish class took a field trip to La Nacion, which is the Central American headquarters for news and radio. The first tour where we got to see the what newspapers were made was a bit boring but the second half was amazing. We got a behind the scenes look at way radio stations produce the programs we hear. There is a station called besame here in Costa Rica that plays more tropical, salsa, meringue music. We met a producer and later met a radio host who interviewed us and we were on the live radio. We were all shocked because we didn’t know he would put us on a national station. He told the Ticos how we are students from the US here to study Spanish at ULACIT.

Also, this Monday I had a job interview and I will be interning with a small business that offers consulting. They are pretty successful. I start working with them tomorrow and I feel a little nervous. Not about my ability to work but about changing works cultures. I am afraid to see the differences in work culture because I don’t want to make any mistakes, especially since I am now challenged to broaden my professional vocabulary in Spanish. At the same time I know this is a great opportunity for me to invest in myself. A chance to work abroad really pushes one to step outside of the norm and to learn new ways of working with people, especially when you are the true minority.

Enjoy...