So I’ve just killed what I believe to be a cockroach with my flip flop. I was just sitting here at my desk, eatin’ some crackers. Undoubtedly some crumbs were flying around, and when I bent over to toss them into the garbage can, I saw a bright silvery thing chilling on the carpet. Not sure what it was, I reached out to pick it up and when I touched it, it SHUDDERED and MOVED and started crawling up the trash can! After letting out a rather quiet squeal (if I were in my apartment at home I’d promptly scream my lungs out) I grabbed my slipper and smashed the thing. It’s still resting under my flip flop because I’m too grossed out by the thought of what it looks like now, but I know I’m going to have to clean it up eventually.

… OK, it’s been an hour later and I just lifted my flip flop to retrieve the bug with a whole bunch of toilet paper. Guess what happened? IT MOVED EVER SO SLIGHTLY!! Why don’t these little fuckers die?? Why does it have to be in my room right now?

This current crisis is seriously preventing me from moving on with my night. There’s no more paper towels in the house and I feel I’m going to need something much thicker than toilet paper for me to even let my hands go near this thing again.

I’ve gotten pretty used to seeing bugs all over my room, and moreover, this house. They’re pretty much unavoidable in Costa Rica. Even at home I’m known to kill little spiders and other crawlers with my bare hands. But when it comes to creepy little fuckers like cockroaches, I’m a mess.

Amongst the inside jokes my friends and I are continually forming during our time abroad here:

“It feels like I’m walking on…rocks.”
“That’s because…we are?”

“I’m totally not as sloppy as her!”

“I feel like Angelina on MVP night.”

“It’s the bread before the bread.”

“Hey guys, so what’s your 5-year plan?”

“But why is the rum gone?”

“She sounds like a man!”

“I made out with four guys in the past 24 hours!”

“You speak six languages? You must have a good tongue.”

“I’m going to fuck the guts out of that girl.”

“No soy un color!”

“I feel like a Chilean miner in here.”

“Shots on the corner, weed in the park.”

ETA: This recent one just HAD to be added in:

“This is my fucking country. I’m a cowboy!”

I normally don’t write much about political issues going on in the news because, well, sometimes I just have too much to say and it’s hard to put down in words. But I have several I would like to say now.

During my last few weeks in Illinois, I ventured to downtown Chicago with a few friends to catch the annual Air and Water Show. After enduring long hours at the beach (after which I realized my skin was positively sunburned, a rarity), my friends and I began walking towards Lincoln Park along with a giant group of other show attendees. I remember, quite clearly, walking on the street in an underpass when I overheard a man declaring, “I fucking hate Muslims!”

At this point, I had turned around to glare menacingly at the man, who noticed my stare and continued ranting on about Iraq, Muslims, and 9/11. I was so infuriated by his anti-Muslim sentiments that I stormed off after he began threatening those who would dare defend Muslims (i.e. directly at me), leaving my friends either oblivious or confused about my sudden change of mood.

I say this story now in light of the increasing anti-Muslim rhetoric today in America. What with the controversy surrounding the planned mosque in NYC, plus Bill O’Reilly’s absolutely deplorable comments on The View (I beamed when Whoopi and Joy Behar walked offstage) and the firing of NPR‘s Juan Williams, this is a time when we should be singling out the true terrorists (many of whom are men who happen to be Muslim and are inappropriately using their religion for their own gains) instead of blatantly pursuing prejudice against a very diverse group of people not unlike many others.

Brian Kilmeade of Fox (= complete and utter shit) even went so far as to defend O’Reilly by saying:

“They were outraged that someone was saying that there was a reason, there was a certain group of people that attacked us on 9/11. It wasn’t just one person, it was one religion. Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.”

Seriously? All terrorists are Muslims? A terrorist is someone who employs terror tactics in the name of his/her radical beliefs, whether they be political or religious. Nowhere in any dictionary do I see the word “Muslim” next to the definition of a terrorist. When will this total ignorance stop? I don’t know why I feel so heated about this growing Islamophobia, but it just absolutely angers me when conservative nutjobs like O’Reilly and everyone on Fox News continue to advocate anti-Muslim rhetoric in the name of “patriotism.” We live in very troubled times, indeed…

/endrant

Why does everyone in this country think I am either of the following:

• Under 18 years of age (16, to be more specific)
• Chinese
• Native Costa Rican, or even just Latina
• Not a real American

Forreals.

There’s a rumbling outside and I’ve been debating for the past few minutes on whether it is a looming thunderstorm or just a volcano making some ruckus. Loving how things like that are even options here.

At any rate, my epic adventure in Panama has now passed with a blur. It literally was just 5 straight days of awesomeness: snorkeling and swimming with fish (including jellyfish, eeks!) by day, and insane Jersey Shore-esque drinking marathons by night. I returned to San Joaquin, Costa Rica late Sunday afternoon, and have been detoxing ever since.

I have a plethora of stories to share, but considering several of them somehow involve very illegal things and other non-illegal but still very inappropriate things, I feel I must — for once — censor myself. I do, however, have several pictures to show off!

Accompanied by several Panamanian children we met at the border.

More pictures

I did manage to accomplish the following in Panama:

• Attain free beer at the border (in what manner, I will not say…LOL)
• Drunkenly jump into the Caribbean in my underwear
• Get stung by a small, innocent jellyfish (I say innocent because there did not appear to be any serious harmful effects from it)
• Barter down every vendor I performed transactions with, saving roughly $6 on the few souvenirs I purchased
• Meet a handful of people from all over the world, including Canada, UK, Germany, Cuba, and more
• Jump off the roof of a bar (Aqua Lounge = AWESOME) and into the sea (greatest accomplishment of the list, I must say)
• Snorkel with some of the most colorful fish I’d ever seen (except in Finding Nemo)
• All these, amongst others…