Finding Jessica

trying to reach that essential plateau of hopeless wonderment associated with achieving the ultimate inspiration...

...by katy perry

(chill, its a music video)

Soooo...I'm home now, and since I tend to use my blackberry more than my computer anyways (at least maybe until my new one!) the posts will probably be fewer and farther between. I will update on the last night out soonish, promise, but I will say that the bus ride from Santo Domingo was just as cold as expected, the Caribe Tours bus station in Santo Domingo is huge, I only paid $800 instead of $900-$1200 pesos for the taxi to the airport, ALL OF MY JEWELRY WAS STOLEN between Santo Domingo and Newark (obviously by someone who worked for the airline since I gate-checked my bag- never again) and I cried a lot and I'm still pretty pissed but what can I do? NOthing at all, except lament the years of gifts I no longer have.

Had dinner last night at Carolina Ale House with Mommy, pobrecito, and Adell. Food was good, service was not, Woodchuck was.

Now I'm avoiding washing all my crap and putting said crap away. and just cleaning in general. Would rather sleep and listen to Aventura.

Miss Em.

Maureen I want those CD's.

Until I feel like being at my computer again, or until US boredom sets in...

Wow...today I actually achieved what I said I would do...I haven't gone to bed! Sooo...its about 5:07am and my madre is making my last breakfast before Molly gets here and I take a taxi at 5:30 from here for the last time. Its sooo sad, but at the same time, I CANNOT wait! The day (yesterday) was crazy, bought a ton of stuff I didn't intend to in calle del sol but its all good b/c it wasn't for me, had lunch at pizza hut with em where we took pictures and printed them off for Julissa...she cried when we gave her the framed picture of us! Craziness...well, I haven't really the time to go into detail about my day, night and morning, but I will update later...possibly during my long-as-crap layover in Jersey. Until then...

XOXO

Oh man...I'm in the ISA office and I've descubrí some interesting words today...found out that a couple spanish words of african descent in my presentation were very bad words indeed.

A short list:

  1. toto - (pussy)
  2. cola - culo (ass)
  3. foquen - (fucking)
The third is just a funny one my *profesor* enjoys saying a lot since he lived in puerto rico for a couple of years. Has the same sound and meaning as in english, but a convenient spanish spelling! Craziness...OH, and today is the last day of classes! SWEET....as soon as I finish my part of the culture essay and pass it off to Emily (before lunch) I WILL BE DONE!!! Except of course editing my journal entries, but really who's worried about that much?! Easy as pie. Well...about to walk back home now for lunch and such, and finish up these hards times of my life. Wait...

TWO DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, ok! I hope I do something interesting tonight with the folks, will probably go out and live it up before leaving, you know how that goes! I'll be back to edit later...

...o dos días y un despierta!

Waiting for lunch so that I can leave and go work on my crap in Square 1 where the a/c is nice...and it smells like again today for lunch is locrio con some type of meat!!! =( (rice w/meat cooked in...and probably plantains either fried or boiled or something) Soooo much starch and fat! Hey Mommy, I think when I get back I wanna eat at either the Carolina Ale House or the Draft House in Cameron VIllage (can't remember the name right now). Somewhere with copious amounts of good AMERICAN FOOD and Woodchuck on tap. Mmmm. And REAL ketchup that ISN'T SWEET....ohhh! Think I'll eat fries and ketchup until my tongue is raw! And PICKLES!!! Oh man. Now I have to have a dominican lunch after thinking about that.

Someone needs to bring me some Claussen pickles when I get home.

EDIT:
Soooo...lunch turned out to be a vegetable-y chicken-ish soup with white rice (on the side) and we threw some diced avocado in there for fun times. Very filling. It was our almuerzo de despierta, but Julissa said we're not having a goodbye anything, so it was just a "lunch we all ate together and was special". If I didn't like soup I would have high-tailed it to Square 1 though immediately afterward for solid food. And the jugo de chinola (fresh passionfruit juice, hand-squeezed by the maid) helped alot too!

Jajaja...yeah right. Well, I'm supposed to be working, but I was really browsing some really nice approx. 2 week long cruises that I may want to do next june. Call it a graduation present to myself. I cannot decide which right now, and I have too many favorite, but HERE is the page to search the trips on.

Mmmm...my right foot is killing me. I think they know. Those malditos mosquitoes know I'm allergic to them, that's why one bit me, while I was sleeping and the pain woke me up, on the bottom of my middlw toe. That's why.

Watching Shreck 2 right now with the familia dominicana y em, but I'm gonna get my power cord and actually work on my essays and such. Seriously.

...or as pobrecito put it, three days and a wake up! That is technically how long it will be before I leave, but it will definitely be four full days before I arrive! Oh well, time is flying by with all the work we have to get done. Yay. Not really, but at least we don't really have time to wallow.
A picture for your thoughts...


Soooo...Julissa told us a couple of funny stories over dinner.

  1. When Bryan was smaller and she had finished taking a bath with him/bathing him she usually dressed then dressed him. ONe day she did not and he was all dressed in his pajamas and she was getting out her underwear when the towel fell off. Aparently he'd never seen a butt head-on before, because he screams at her "Mommy, your butt is broken, why is your butt broken?!" then he tries to see what's inside!!!!!!
  2. When Bryan was younger (again, crazy, the kid is only2) Julissa was breastfeeding him and another small child was nearby. The kid asks her what she is doing. She tells them she is feeding Bryan milk. They ask her what it is, so she responds "strawberry" since she figured the child was referring to what flavor milk she had. Then the kids asks what the flavor of the other one (breast) was! She thinks, and responds "chocolate". Then the kid thinks, and says "I think I want the other coffee flavored one"! And Julissa is like OMG! So I have a strawberry, a chocolate, and a third coffee flavored breast!
  3. Another time Julissa is carrying Bryan in the mall and he decides he wants some milk so he goes, "Mommy, quiero esto!" and rips out her breast to suck on it in the middle of the mall while her arms are full of bags (and him) and people are everywhere watching!
Man, she has told us some crazy stories about that kid. Seriously.

http://news14.com/content/top_stories/611427/raleigh--sewer-creature--surprises-city-officials/Default.aspx

In Raleigh, NC!!!?!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKpx2DxGwY&feature=rec-fresh+div

Walking to Square 1 was very interesting. I think storms here are mentally disabled. Light rain with ridiculous random gusts trying to tear me and my umbrella apart. Now I have to focus long enough to get some work done.

But one more thing, while its on my mind. Fall Refund Shopping List:

  1. new ipod nano (blue; 16GB-$200, 8GB-$150; free laser engraving online...who cares)
  2. external hard drive (blue, duh)
  3. Rough Guides for DR
  4. ummm... really want that new HP tablet, but that may have to wait until spring...dernnit, why do they have to have a sale on it now?! BEFORE my refund! I would SO snatch it up! about $1300 with my desired config. Man...hopefully they will have a back to school sale too! Oh well, without the huge sale it will probably be more like $17oo. That's life.
gosh, ok, about to work for real now. really.

Canterbury School
The Dwight School
Woodside Preschool

Never too early too look out for the future of your progeny.

...would want to be Paris Hilton's new BFF?! Seriously, Paris, use the almost-education your father intended you to have.

Sorry people, I have my shallow pleasures, and her silly show is hilarious. I have a link to MTV's tell-all watch-all site where you can see the full episodes...I don't have a choice, I'm still in the DR, and I've only seen an episode from the previous season.

Ok, now I'm playing something I've seen before so that I actually get some writing done to my paper...next version is due in the morning, and I still have to do the homework for culture class after lunch (no biggie) and the approx. 12-page paper for same class (waay biggie). Ahhh well, maybe, just maybe, I will work tomorrow afternoon after eating a reasonable size lunch (instead of an unreasonably huge one) and find some good sources and write like the first half of the paper ten tell emily to run with it (its a partner paper). Sounds good, she might go for it, its always harder to start them, then I could edit the whole thing maybe wednesday night for grammar and cohesiveness since its due thursday...nothing friday except the bye-bye-chau dinner. Then saturday my plane leaves! A better schedule:

6 July - turn in 2nd draft of Darhower's paper, work on presentation for said paper/workshop for presentation in class; do homework for PUCMM and start on paper, la mitad

7 July - PUCMM final exam; finish Darhower presentation, newpaper article for class?

8 July - presentation in class for FLS412, finish final revisions on paper; finish PUCMM paper

9 July - PUCMM paper due; final draft of FLS412 paper due; last day of classes

10 July - Farewell dinner with ISA and the gang; out on the town ALL NIGHT LONG!

11 July - leave for the bus station by 5:45am to catch the nearest to 6am bus to Santo Domingo, arrive in Santo Domingo around 8am, take taxi to airport (~45min) and arrive around 9ish am, check in and such, flight leaves at ~12 noon (YAY!)

Unfortunately I don't get to raleigh/RDU until like 9pm, but more specifics on the arrival times later in the week just in case (please!) the layover times change or some such. Can't wait to see you Mommy and Pobrecito!

Ok, gonna write a little now. Guess I'm getting up early.

*warning, this blog will be long, semi-mostly-interesting, and picture-filled. sit back and enjoy with a glass of something or just really good focus.*


Well...Santo Domingo was interesting. It was nice being out of Santiago (again), but it would probably have been better if, say, we had spent more than one afternoon/night in the city. The entire 2nd day was spent at Playa Boca Chica (Little Mouth Beach...weird in english, I know, apparently it looks like a "woman's" mouth from above or some excuse) and was actually cut short because *some* of the people in our group couldn't (wouldn't) afford to eat more than fries at the beach and would still be hungry for more lunch...after of course we had eaten! Whatev, our lastest excursion, throw out some pesos for almost the last time.


The mansion of the prez, though interestingly the president never lives there, only works there, and has an apartment nearby. Sucks, our prez (Obama!) has the whole white house for livin' and eatin' and workin'.

A supposed "lighthouse" we visited in SD. NEver seen such a strange thing. Our folks look like ants, everyone being tourists.

ME and 2 (of the 4) (all same color) guys. That's all there was to choose from, lol. Meet Daniel and Zach. Zack = crazy as h*ll and hard to catch on camera unless you force him to sit. OH, LOOK! You can see a bit of the cross I bought en Calle del Sol in Santiago!!! Love it...

Me and Jewel showing off our matching (kinda) dresses. Hers had green numbers on the sleeve, case closed.

A monument inside the lighthouse-thing-museum-place. The only thing we were *allowed* to take pictures of. Was, quote, to commemorate NOT celebrate Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colon).

Ummm...we went to the amber museum (duh) and I bought my only *expensive* anything of the trip...an awesome silver and lárimar ring that I could not put down. $1,200RD = approx. $33 (muy expensive...very vale la pena)

Me and Em sitting at a very cool set of furnitures at the museum's little inside-outside terrace-y sorta place.

Terrible lighting, you can see the cord from my camera (Zach took it, its like he only knows how to use his SLR) but I look good in it and my legs look a millioin feel long...so must be included. Oh, I was in good-'ol Chris Columbus' wife's bedroom window. Bored.

View of the square (where the old stuff is) from the balcony at Columbus' house.

Sooo hot...icecream time. Get it girls! (I didn't buy any.)

A horse and buggy we passed on our walk to the town square.

The square full of sky-rats a.k.a. pigeons

Because she's beautiful. Hey Em, you go Em, get that tourist purse-thingy down your shirt Em.

Drum roll please.....da da da da da da da da... us at HARD ROCK CAFÉ, Santo Domingo! Unfortunately, I did not buy a glass nor shirt nor shot glass...if they had the shorted traditional shotglass I would have, but, alas, they only had the tall drunken bastards, so I did not purchase one for $6USD. BUt I ate all my food! Pobrecito, can you believe it? And I think we were all trying really hard to lay on Courtney's bosoms....way to go Court!

The HARD ROCK man. Sweet.

A cigar shop a couple stores down from Hard Rock. And Em said this picture was *provocative*.

Baskin Robins...me and em had floats made with pepsi... yum. It was funny, everything was in english but of course you had to order in Spanish...weird country.

Street sign, on the side of a building, th ereason its hard to get around here! Name of the street of our hotel and the main shopping area with shops and people set up outside.

Calle el Conde.


BOOKS!!! I had to take a foto of the books in this bookstore...why would you have a bookstore you couldn't walk through?! Had to ask for the book you had in mind, I'm sure, instead of just letting it "come to you" while you walk through...I miss Barnes and Noble. and Starbucks. Mmmm.
The chicas! Savannah, me, em.

The MACHETE weilding coconut guy. I bought a small edible one off him for $100RD, even though he told me $150RD for the edible one and $200RD for both the edible (brown) one and a drinkable (green) one. No way.

Man, that was a good, freshly massacred coconut.

View of Playa Boca Chica from our table. I was lazy that day, only took a handful of pictures.

HAD to take a picture of this boat! Why? What do you guess the major code is for Biochemistry at NCSU??? BCH, of course!!! So sweet.

Sooo...this country is particularly racist against those *malditos haitianos* that like to cross the border illegaly, similar to the stonger sentiments against mexicans in the US, only tons stonger thanks to good-'ol Trujillo, so this is a racist bumber-sticker that I saw so much I had to take a picture. Translation? Haitians: Non-negotiable!

What is that Sarah and I are eating??? Well...take a look at that little box there, Pobrecito....yes, its a CINNABON!!! Oh, it was soooo good! A nice slice of the US of A, know what I mean?

WELL, for those of you that have TRUDGED through this...FIN! Its over, the highlights in picture form of the trip. Whatever does not have a photo wasn't really something to be missed on this one, ya know? Hope you enjoyed!

Happy Fourth of July, America.

Back in Santiago now...yayyy (sarcasm, kinda). Ready to return home I think, but as I told mommy I'm trying to not be as negative as I've been today...not good for the soul, ya know? Plus, no need to project a foul mood onto others...let's just say I miss home, and SEVEN DAYS (left before I leave, for all you creepy The Ring buffs).

More later on the trip...pictures and such things. Details. I wrote in my journal today! On the beach, too. And bought a coconut. Anyways, supposed to be watching a movie with Em, so I'll write back tonight...

Things to buy when i get home:

  1. smallest container of oxyclean i can find to GET RID OF STAINS THE MAID GOT ON MY CLOTHES WHEN SHE WASHED THEM!
  2. Clorox for the whites in that doesn't work
  3. pickles to calm me down over my possibly-ruined-expensive-white-clothes and bathing-suit (hey, they float my boat, k?)
  4. new album for the DR
Things to do in the morning (i.e. in a few hours):
  1. get out of bed
  2. shower (yay, just to get yucky again)
  3. talk to Julissa about my POSSIBLY RUINED BATHING SUIT ($100!)
  4. breakfast
  5. Shell station at 7am to get picked up
  6. ride to Santo Domingo
  7. 2hr walking tour of the city (ugghhh)
  8. released at 2pm to lunch and have some dang on fun!
  9. sunday- don't remember the morning...breakfast and check out?
  10. playa boca chica like all day (about 5 hrs! ugh) on the FOURTH OF JULY
  11. all I can remember, going to bed now.
  12. return to Santiago (maybe) afternoon/nightish of sunday


Today in my culture class at PUCMM we watched a documentary on Puerto Rico called Soy Boricua, pa' que tu lo sepas (I'm Puerto Rican, Just so you know!) that is mostly done and narrated by famous actress Rosie Pérez.
It made me sad and confused, as I usually am when thinking about myself. Why? I have a very medium "black" skin tone. But my mother is "black" and has native american so strong in her veins that her cheek bones could campaign on their own and her perms are unneccesary. And my father's mother is native american (possibly with something else too, but I don't think so). And his father? Puerto Rican. The Puerto Ricans that are more spanish than native with nary a hint of african, the sort of complexion Trujillo himself wanted, blue eyes and all. But I've only seen his picture.

Add to this what my country has done to my other people, which trying to identify with only one group of people in this day and age...would confuse anyone, especially me, whose strongest roots that pull at my heartstrings I didn't even know about until high school. But I always knew, I think. I could feel it, in the way I had to move my hips to a latin beat, the way spanish seemed etched in my brain before I started studying it...

But how do I identify? So I have dark skin, but everyone that looks at me in the states can see that something else. I don't quite look black. And I'm not ashamed to be proud of that, why? Because my closest ties have not a thing to do with africa. I was raised in a "white" school and neighborhood, danced ballet for 11years, now I salsa and merengue until I can hardly walk. The family I grew up with is "black", the family I did not isn't. I haven't yet reached my conclusion, but I'm sure I will claim them all.
What do I check on those race questions? If the "hispanic" option says not of african descent, well, my mommy is black, soo that knocks me out. But there is still "other", and that's what I think I will be.
----
Part of the problem is the emphasis placed on color. If you ask me its as easy to change your skin tone and hair texture as a good salon, some sun, or michael's dermatologist. So who cares? All I care about is my past, my family, my culture, and that is what I want people to see, to ask about.

must see this *link*

and this *link*


The second one is a funny story about a girl in our group (ERYN) who supposedly was attacked and/or robbed maybe 2 (?) days ago and decided to go home LESS THAN A WEEK AND A HALF FROM THE END OF THE PROGRAM without credit, or refund, and paid extra to change her flight. Em sums it up pretty well. Funniest part? Miraculously her bag with everything inside seems to have been turned in, nothing at all missing, just before she left this morning at 1am. Funny, like I said.

First one is crazy pics.

Soooo...we're waiting for:

  1. lunch to be ready
  2. someone to go with us to calle del sol b/c I really want to go now
  3. lunch to be ready
  4. to leave at 7 AM FOR SANTO DOMINGO!!! (what shall I wear?!)
Ok, that's about it. There will be crazy pics of me and em on emgoes...you know the rest.

Ahhh...now for the pics I mentioned yesterday! Crazy that today is the 2nd of July.
Another pic someone else (em) took of me dancing on the boat to Isla Saona.Me and Dedé Mirabal while she is signing my book, Vivas en su jardínOne of the (5) cats at Plaza Lucitania sleeping on a shelf in their smaller kitchen...hmmm, a kitchen, I know.Another of the (5) cats at our hotel, dilligently eating, and ignoring me taking pictures of it.
Daniel and one of his amigos at the french-owned pizzeria, in front of the doors to the inner sanctum (club) that was inside. Don't remember the guys name, but he thought me and Courtney were dominican, and keep calling her beautiful and she was like "gracias" with a stink face and he said it again anyways. So funny, dominican men.

--->>>>>--<<<<<---

So, the itenerary for this weekend is..... (drumroll please...)

Emily in the water at Las Galeras. Jajaja, I can see your butt!
Awesome palms on the beach.
Our hotel room at...hold on, I can remember...Plaza...Lucitania! We paid about $23USD each (5 of us), very upper scale for the DR. And it was already a mess at this point, so...don't judge. What you can't see: kitchenette, fridge, 3 nightstands, door to the balcony, the wood door leads to our nice bathroom that had a rain shower.
I'm sitting on a tree stump inside the hotel. There was like a four-tree forest winding up through the hotel straight through the ceiling! So cool.
When they went off to playa rincón before we were dressed, we walked the city a bit, bought some snacks for the road, and had lunch at the same awesome french pizzeria we had dinner at. We = daniel, me, courtney.

*for an intro read the first one*
Sooo pretty! A step of mine on the beach of Puerto Plata. I make good impressions, lol.
Me and Em at a First Communion Mass. The contrast was amusing us. I had on white, she had on black, I had the darker rainbows, she the lighter, well its obvious who has the lighter skin and who the darker.
Los pies de Dedé Mirabal. I was sitting in front of her while she was telling us about her and her sisters' lives and her museum. What an animated, sweet, healthy old lady...84 years old!
My feet in the amazing sand in Las Galeras, Samaná. So soft and white...
I couldn't help playnig, ok? This too is Las Galeras, I had a mini photo shoot (there are others, trust me) while playing with the small tides against my feet. This was just after one rinsed away the sand of the previous pic.

***join me next time!***

**I added pictures to the Dedé Mirabal post and a few more words. Worth taking a look at I think.**

Sooo...I always do strange things (according to my friends) and I've noticed over the course of this trip that I tend to take pictures of my feet almost everywhere we go. Usually just one, though there have been those instances...jajaja.

Entonces, here commence my traveling foot diaries, the adventures that me and my feet (and sometimes others) embarq on often (enough). Enjoy!

First day on campus while we were waiting for our rides after the campus tour. Funny memory, Waldry couldn't find us and we waited for about half and hour before we found out way home. Later we found out that he had been driving all over campus looking for us and he and Julissa were worried. C'est la vie.
With some shells on Isla Saona. I think, if I remember correctly, they had hermit crabs inside.
Tour of the coffee plantation...I bought two bags of coffee, should have bought more. Remember that coffee I mentioned before with NOTHING in it??? Yes, well, this is where it started its journey into my tummy.
In the frigid waters at the cascadas (waterfalls) in Jarabacoa, after an interesting horse ride up the mountain followed by a short hike. You get used to the temperature, especially after so much heat, anything cool/cold feels great.
On the beach in Puerto Plata. What a hot *ss day. Seriously. Think I tanned more in that 20-30 minutes on that beach than my whole previous time here combined. Nuts.
>>>>-<<<<
Watch out for the next installment! (I can only add 5 pictures per post...malditos idiotas.)


*In a slightly later post there will be a picture of me and Dedé Mirabal herself!!! Insane, I know. For those of you like "what???? (confused face)" go read about some dominican history and aquaint yourself with the awesome Failed Pig Leonidas Trujillo and the women he had brutally beaten to death for resisiting him and who inspired the Nov.25th latin holiday of Prevention of Violence Against Women.*

Its the first of July, in case someone out there didn't notice. Gonna be in Santo Domingo on the Fourth. Seems like I'm starting a trend, last year on the Fourth I was in Turkey having weird versions of hamburgers they prepared for our american group, sitting in the dinning room overlooking the Turkish coast...rather nice.

This year I will be in a city hotter than the one I'm in now...how is that possible? I cannot imagine, and I think I would rather leave my imagination out of that one. Hmmm...weird, but every year I can't help but remember that person who's birthday is on the fourth. I should really stop coming up with things that cement facts about people not in my life in my head. Very inconvenient. And irritating.

Hmmm...gotta get to class #2 now...sucks, I know. And I'm sooooo itchy. Malditos mosquitos. I'm gotta need an oatmeal bath alternating with lemon and mint baths when I get home. Gosh my skin....I miss you so much! Least its cheap to get waxed here...yes!!!!

Though I will say, poor poor Em, what she did to you was not right, or maybe you should have asked for clarification on what she said a couple of times, but you should only have removed what you expect! Welll...feel breezy, at least?

By the way, who is the monkey that visited my page???

I knew my paper was a jumbled mess, but let's just say a "total re-vamp face-lift" would be the minimum requirement to salvage it! Ok, so there are good points in it, but its a terrible mess, de verdad.

Where are my fans from?