I pretty much spent the entire day today brushing myself up on all the popular Latin music I’ve been listening to since I got here. The Spanish-language music on my iTunes hasn’t really grown that much (mostly because a lot of the music I hear here, I’ve already got on my iPod LOL) but today I did a lot of Googling and lyric-guessing to find some of the stuff I’ve been hearing that I didn’t already know. Figured I’d take the time out and plug some of my faves…

“Danza Kuduro” by Don Omar and Lucenzo
Oh god, this has become my absolute favorite of the moment. It’s your most basic of party songs (all about dancing and having fun) and the whole Spanish/Portuguese mash-up is pretty cool. I always freak whenever I hear this at the discos and clubs because it’s seriously just an awesome song to dance to. Plus, Don Omar actually looks pretty damn good without his cornrows.

“Niña Bonita” by Chino & Nacho
My girl friends and I always cheese hard when this song comes on, because it’s just so darn cute (plus Chino is so darn fine). In the music video, the duo are like today’s modern boy band and hundreds of girls just flock to wherever they go (can’t blame ‘em!). It’s the corniest love song ever, but I, of course, love it!

“Corazón Sin Cara” by Prince Royce
I first heard Prince Royce back home when radios started playing his bachata version of “Stand By Me” (which, by the way, is amazing). I finally took the time to listen to his second single, “Corazón Sin Cara,” and was immediately floored. First of all, just watching the music videos (there’s two versions, I believe) makes me want to bone him. Forreals. The boy is my age, from New York, has a pretty dope fashion sense, and is soooo cute! See, look at how I’m regressing back into a giggly teenager just thinking about him. I saw someone on the Internet compare him to Bruno Mars, which sounds silly at first since obviously Bruno Mars does not sing bachata, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. They’re both rising stars in their respective genres, as well as songwriters/singers of color (Mars is Puerto Rican and Filipino while Royce is Dominican). And “Corazón Sin Cara” is essentially Royce’s version of “Just The Way You Are” — both songs are about assuring women that they’re beautiful no matter what. Although if you ask me, Bruno Mars isn’t that cute and doesn’t make me want to bone him. Sorry dude.

I don’t know what to do about my camera dilemma. I’ve just about given up on trying to repair it on my own, and were I at home I probably would just hold off on buying a replacement or charge one to my Best Buy credit card. But I’m here in bloody Costa Rica, with about 4 weeks left. There are beaches, animals, and final good-byes to be photographed and I’ve nothing to fucking photograph them (is it weird that I just imagined myself saying all that in a British accent?).

And I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I don’t want to go home.

I don’t want to go back to the real world. To real life. I’m already starting to feel heart palpitations over my financial difficulties and the fact that I’m still not even fucking registered for classes for my supposed last semester of college. And what about after? I have to find a dumb job that I won’t even want just to pay off this useless paper degree? I love college for all that it’s taught me, academically and socially, but there is something to be said about a society such as ours that practically forces you into the most financially draining institutions possible because the “alternative” is supposedly worse.

My parents are updating me on all the goings-on at home, but surprisingly I don’t want to hear it anymore. The more disconnected I become, the more disinterested I am. I keep thinking about last weekend on the beach, and how I spent much of my Saturday night (or rather, early Sunday morning) sitting on the beach with random strangers from all around the world, smoking up and not having a care in the world. I felt I could literally spend the rest of my days staring out into the sea and not have to worry about anything else like bills or family drama or grades, whatnot. There’s no other feeling quite like it.

So today, as I’m sure everyone knows, is the day the first part of the last Harry Potter installment comes out. It’s been a whirlwind. At first I believed there were no midnight shows here in Costa Rica and that all the weekend evening shows were sold out. Then my friends discovered a midnight show at the cinemas nearby. I was all set to join then, and then I heard that the midnight show would be dubbed and not subtitled, which I absolutely refused to watch. So I didn’t join my friends. Then this morning, I hear that there were indeed subtitles at some of the shows last night and that the movie was, of course, amazing. And now I feel exceedingly frustrated.

I need a drink or something.

After literally a decade of trying to get my younger now-19-year-old brother to read the Harry Potter books (although to his credit, he has seen most of the movies), I woke up this morning to the following email:

Hahaha I am suddenly interested in Harry Potter now. I’ve just finished reading the last book (i skipped the first 6 books but I made up by watching the movie) and I really want to watch part 1 of the last movie. Who knew I would be interested.

It almost caused me to fall out of my chair (AKA small wooden stool). This just made my week.

My camera has broken. Temporarily, permanently, I do not know; the fact of the matter is, it will not work. I press the button, the lens has a fit, and the LCD screen screams “LENS ERROR” to me for about half a minute. I’ve no idea who to blame for this. It was residing comfortably in my black purse all of Saturday night, I heard it accidentally turn on at one point and am wondering if the lack of space for lens extension in my small bag is what’s causing this malfunction. It was 3 in the morning and I was in the midst of chilling, hanging out with complete strangers at the beach when I realized my camera had ceased to function. Although I sadly suspect that it might be all the sand…

This is absolutely NOT what I want to be happening as I wind down my last few weeks in this glorious paradise known as Costa Rica. What the fuck?!

What else has brought me down besides the fact that my 3rd camera in 4 years has failed on me? I missed my first Pacquiao fight in years, and it turns out to be the most exciting one so far. I’ve yet to register for my last semester of classes, which probably means I won’t graduate on time. The amount of money I have to my name is very very limited. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with myself anymore.

Baaahhhhhhhhhiktyiuyt;ljkhlkuy

Today I spent much of the afternoon running around with the little kids after my family returned from my host niece’s First Communion. It was, needless to say, exhausting (but still fun!). We played Super Banco (a Costa Rican version of Monopoly), escondido (hide and seek), volleyball and a host of other games. I adore kids, but I was so exhausted from the afternoon I promptly passed out around 4:30.

Then I woke up at 7, after which I closed my drapes…and found this:

A huge, gross, slimy beetle. 4 hours later, the thing is still chilling on my curtain and I don’t know what to do. There was nobody home when I woke up from my nap, and I can’t even bring myself to try and kill it for fear that its gross bug guts will get everywhere. This is 2103498230x worse than yesterday’s silvery cockroach dilemma, and it’s preventing me from going to bed, because it’s right above it!! I did manage to go to the kitchen to fetch a Tupperware and lid, with the idea of trapping the beetle within it and tossing it outside in the backyard. But now it’s late and all the doors are locked and if I do that, I’d have to keep the beetle residence overnight until I can let it loose in the morning. Blechh. Just the idea of it grosses me out, but imprisoning it seems like a better option than letting it roam freely around my room.

… Well, after a 10-minute freakout, I managed to contain the giant beetle into the container. It moves A LOT faster than I anticipated, AND DID I MENTION ITS GROSS AND SLIMY-LOOKING?

Not sure if you can see it, but it’s peering out at me from the corner in that picture. Currently debating on whether to really leave it in my room for the night, or set it out in the hallway for my host family to find (hahaha). Wishing there was a way I could set fire to it or strap a bomb and watch it explode. Something gratifying. (I’m honestly not a real violent person, but in this case I am at war with all bugs that choose to invade my room now).

All disgusting bug business aside, life in Costa Rica remains the same: easy and stress-free. It’s starting to feel a little monotonous, I feel, maybe because my classes aren’t too demanding and I don’t have a real job (other than my library volunteering) to keep me busy (or to keep the income rolling in, that’d be nice!). I don’t really seem to have very many close friends either around these parts, so life gets a bit lonely sometimes when I don’t have anybody online to talk to. Everyone’s divided up into cliques, and I hate cliques so, as is usual, what ends up happening is I find myself as the outsider because, did I mention? I hate cliques. Why can’t we all be friends? More importantly, why doesn’t anyone want to be friends with me even if I don’t pledge loyalty to their little group? I miss my friends at home. At home I’m free to hang out with whomever I want. Here, it’s a tad more difficult.