VICTORY...for now

I turned in my bioarchaeology paper yesterday!! I printed it out, put it in a pretty folder, and an hour later (did i mention i hate public transportation??) it was in the hands of my TA for the class. And then I skipped all the way home listening to Carrie Underwood. Little by little...it will ALL get done and then it will all just be a memory as I am sitting on the plane with my best friend on our way to Iguazu Falls! yay...ok disclaimer...for the rest of this entry i am going to try not to use capital letters because every time i hit the shift key i am in pain. eeek. not good but i got up early today to run and fell pretty hard when i was running down a hill. i scraped up my knee and it wasn't pretty for my hands. now my pinky is all swollen and hurts really bad. i am just praying that if i baby it, the swelling will go away and it will heal. i dont want to end my time here with an injury...i started my time here with an injury and i should hope i would not be granted with this priceless experience ever again. lol

Alright, mental checklist...what does Rose have to do in the next two weeks...i have to finish my medical anthropology research paper by tomorrow and then prepare a presentation on the two month study that i did which i will be presenting next wednesday. i also have a crazy bioarch. test on thursday which i have to cram for. then i will have to write my final paper for the investigation i did with the gastronomy class for my scholarship presentation when i get back. but everything in time...thats how i see it. one thing at a time!! and i have faith that it will all get done. gosh i am trying to remember what epiphany i had this morning while i was getting ready. i HAVE (owwwww that hurt! lol) to write that stuff down when i think of it.

i will tell you one thing that has been on my mind alot these past few weeks. seeing my family. oooooh i miss them more and more now that i know i will be seeing them in a matter of weeks. i think that when we begin an experience like this we mentally prepare ourselves to be away from those we love for a long period of time. i mean six months! that is crazy long...and i have really been good these past months with not getting homesick because i am a trooper. i got into this situation prepared to not see the fam for a long time. now that i know it is only a matter of time before i am running off the plane and hugging them, i am always thinking of them. not to mention they are always thinking of me and doing such sweet things to show me they love me. i am always getting cards and packages from them and they mean sooo much to me. i can't express how nice it is to get back from these days that take every last ounce of energy out of you and see a package waiting for you on your bed full of love and lovely things. and i recently got a package from lee lee that she wrapped up with a trader joes bag for memory's sake and then preceeded to hand paint the outer layer of the bag that was not the envelope. in the end, it was like someone had sent me a present with a VanGosh work of art wrapped around it. amazing.

when i get home i have so many things that i want to do that i have figured out through this experience. of course, i am going to keep practicing my spanish because i dont want to lose it but besides that...i am going to learn guitar. i am going to keep singing and learn songs with the guitar so that i dont need a track to be played every time i want to sing my heart out. i am also going to print out all of my pictures from chile and make a bad-ass album. maybe i will even print out the pics from my entire college experience and start making that so it can be done when i graduate. and mama...we are gonna make that album of all of your professional photos too so we can look forward to that. ooooh i hope you know that i plan on spending many many weekends in san diego when i get back. six months is too long to be away from my amazing family and amazing san diego. :) (that smiley face hurt my pinky too but it was worth it lol)

guess what i just did? i downloaded rascal flatts newest songs including some beautiful christmas cover songs. oooh i love them. and carrie underwood has a new album so i am in hog heaven. gosh i can't wait to learn them all and start performing them for my friends at the manor :) if i have realized one thing during my time here, it is that i need to sing. regardless of how loud i sing...i need to let it out and when i live with a lot of other people, i need to not be timid about letting it out. i mean...it took me 5 months to get over the loudness of my singing and actually let it out! lol sounds weird but it is so true. actually one of my dearest chilean friends Pablo and i have been singing together everytime we are together at Megan's house because she has a guitar and he knows soooo many songs. it sounds goofy but we sing like backstreet boys and nsync songs but the words come back to me as if i had listened to their albums just yesterday...wait it was yesterday hehe. singing is singing. i am not gonna go on being all bashful about singing because i can sing and i want to sing and i am gonna sing. punto. hehe i like figuring out cool things about myself. another thing that i have found out about myself is something that is pretty cool and i have constructed this epiphany through the kind words of the people i love and through my experience here. i am a very poised person and i also can "wing" things well. take my experience here for example. how many things have i done for the first time while i have been here....oh basically everything...everything has been a first for me and whats not it was all in spanish. and when i go into these situations for the first time and wing it, i always do ok. and as my mommy told me, i think it is because 1) i am very poised 2) i am not afraid to ask questions because i learn quickly 3) i have faith that the situation will always turn out ok 4) i know that i can wing things well 5) im a bad ass haha ok that last one is a joke...kinda. hehe

hmmm i should probably not write anymore for now because my pinky is really starting to hurt. maybe i will go ask my dear friends at the counter for another bag of ice. haha i am such a regular at this starbucks...the atmosphere, my friends that work here, and the cafe del dia have all really helped get me through this crazy school semester that i am about to finish. and here i sit again...about to finish my med. anth. paper...bring it. i would have written that in capitals for the effect but we all know that would be way too painful haha LOVE you all! that one was worth it ;) CHAO!