Backsliding?

I'm not sure but I've been feeling lately that my Spanish has started backsliding, its been a greater struggle to speak and think in Spanish, which is pretty disheartening. Maybe its just a short slump? I was feeling so good about my speaking skills when I got back here about a month ago. In order to combat this I'm back to basics as far as looking up almost every word I don't know when I'm reading (there are so many!) and trying to speak a little more each day (without completely embarrassing myself I hope). Rumor on campus is of another protest tomorrow, apparently the government still isn't meeting the demand of the universities to increase their funding by 11%. For me that possibly means no class tomorrow, yay!
About time for my Philosophy and Ethics class, so far of which has proved to be overwhelmingly boring-essentially we are learning the history of philosophy and being told how absolutely amazing Socrates was, which is nice, but what about discussing his actual ideas?

¡20!

Officially out of the teens now, and at a solid two decades, wow. My actual birthday was pretty normal, had class, went to boxing. My host family was super sweet though and surprised me with a birthday cake after dinner. Went out for drinks and a little dancing after wards with friends. Unfortunately had to leave my house at 4:30 in the morning in order to catch a bus in San Jose for Uvita on the Pacific Coast, which meant that I got absolutely no sleep.
There were three of us, Sydney, me and then our friend Lauren from school. She had just come in because she's doing another study abroad program in Costa Rica for the semester. So generally good times just catching up and hearing about everyone at school. Our hostel, the Tucan Hotel was great 1. because we had AC in our room (so wonderful on the humid/hot coast) 2. because it had an abundance of comfy chairs and hammocks to hang-out/sleep-in and 3. because it had free coffee (i love free and I love coffee :).
Saturday we headed out to the national park Marino Ballena, where we did exactly what you're supposed to do at the beach, sleep/relax/read/swim/chat/snack. Around 4 in the afternoon we headed over to the parks most distinctive feature. Due to awesome and to me inexplicable forces of geography, there is a whale's tail (in shape) that extends out from the beach into the ocean at probably a football field's length. At low tide you can walk out on the tail and have ocean waves lapping over your feet from both left and right. The view and feeling of almost walking on the ocean was incredible.
Sunday though was the best, because the three of us paid for a group surf lesson. Our instructor was Travis, an American who'd come to Costa Rica originally as a Peace Corps volunteer and then later had staid and married a Tica. He teaches surf lessons on the side as his main focus is community development. By amazing or perhaps not so amazing coincidence, Lauren, Sydney and I are all interested in doing the Peace Corps post-college. So just getting to talk with him was super interesting. However the surfing was even more amazing (terribly sorry to be using all the superlatives, but its was the day calls for :). This was my second time and while it took me a good 45 minutes before I managaged to stand, stand I did and it was a blast. I am absolutely determined to surf at least once or twice more before I leave Costa Rica, surfing just gives you such a rush and all I was doing was riding in the white-wash, not even touching the huge crashing waves further off shore, I can't imagine how much fun that must be to master those.
So that about sums up my twentieth birthday, pretty darn good time if I do say so myself. Now back to the schoolwork, of which I just found out I have more than I thought. Apparently I will be writing a 30 page history paper this semester. Eeek! I haven't even written a 30 page paper in English let alone Spanish before. So wish me luck! :)

Caribe-Cahuita

Not much to report on the school front, just lots of reading :( Campus did get interesting last Wednesday when there was student/faculty/administration protest march against the proposed cuts in Costa Rica's budget for higher education. The main street in front of the campus was blocked off, there were theatrical/dance performances and then a march through town. I only hung around for the being, as a foreign student I didn't feel like me participating would really be a legitimate action and of course I had a ton of reading to do.
This weekend went with three friends to Cahuita on the southern Caribbean side of Costa Rica. Apparently the Caribbean has its whole own weather pattern, because despite the fact that its been pouring like crazy on the rest of the country every day, we enjoyed two sunny mostly rain-free days. We checked out the beach in the national park and then Playa Negra (Black Beach) the next day, the water was exactly how Caribbean water is meant to be, beautifully clear and blue. Our hostel was also nice, very laid back and fairly new. The owner was an Italian who had built the whole thing himself in the last two years. The name, Hostel Shangri-La was a bit much I thought, but the front porch with comfy chairs and hammocks great. I was sad to have return on Sunday. However it won't be long until I'm gone again. This Thursday is my 20th birthday, eek! So I'll be headed to Uvita on the Pacific side on Friday :)

¡Vamos Morados/Go Purple!

Made through the second week of school and I'm definitely going to have a heavier work load this semester than last. As a result I probably won't be traveling as much I did last semester. My load for this semester is: History of Central America, Cities and Urbanism, The Political Economy of Globalization, Ethics and Philosophy and Mandarin. Yup, Mandarin, it actually hasn't been too bad, I have two sweet extremely cheerful young chinese girls teaching my class and while the whole four tone thing I know will probably kill me, so far I've had fun.
I've also had a lot of fun with my new martial art, I wasn't really getting much out of last semester's samurai class, exciting as it seemed on the surface- all those wooden swords and nunchucks. For this semester I'm going to be taking Muay Thai boxing classes at a place literally right next door to my university. I've already been five times in the last two weeks and I love it. Very very exhausting, my abs are currently a tight ball achiness, but we do real boxing, something I never got to do with Krav Maga, and while the sweaty boxing gloves are kind of gross, the high-energy of the classes has been really nice.
This past Wednesday I went to my first real futból/soccer game in Costa Rica. It was a very intense experience, I already had a jersey for the team I was supporting, Saprissa. So chosen because I liked their purple of the other team's black and red and also because my tico friend was taking us I a huge fan of Saprissa. We sat in the Saprissa fan section, which was criss-crossed with huge purple banners and got handed balloons to cheer with during the game. Riot police lined up at the fence at the bottom of our bleachers, a measure which extreme to me since the game we were watching was an early one in the championship. However when we looked down the back and behind the bleachers and saw police collaring some already drunk and belligerent fans early on in the first half I thought the riot police might be a smart move. Especially when a few of the opposing team's fans were trying to exit the stadium and passing thru our section, inciting quite a few curses and a number of drinks and other food items thrown in their general direction. Quite a first futból experience, I just wish someone had actually scored a goal, the game ended zero to zero.