SMALL world

Dear Chris Kwon,

Some news about YS: She is from Guayaquil and is very interested in current political events (perhaps she is a politician?) Oh, and tonight she mentioned that her daughter lives in Spokane. Yeah, you heard me. Spokane. That city that barely beats Tacoma in population. That city I go to every year for a huge basketball tournament. There is a little YS moseying around Spokaloo. Perhaps I've met her. Perhaps I've played her at Hoopfest.

Today was bleh. My two fellow FUDIS volunteers bailed on service learning today, so I was on my own. My alarm went off at 6:30 and I stayed in bed until 7:30. I rolled into FUDIS around 9 (hey, it takes a long time to get there) and sat there for a good hour and a half. Olivia joined me at 11 and we talked until 11:40. Ines came by and asked me where the others were. I told her they were sick. She asked me what they said. I said "they said they were sick." She asked me again what they said, I told her "nothing." Talk about peer pressure. She told me to expect a call to my service learning advisor. We're never all there on the same day. I think I'm one of the worst volunteers ever (please don't read this future volunteer programs, like the Peace Corp), but at least I show up.

For lunch, I ate at Sbarro. The cheese here is awful. I miss all cheeses so much. I had a coke and it was the first caffeine I'd had in over a week. I was JAZZED. We had two presentations each. They were each supposed to be about 8 minutes. Some peoples' lasted 20 minutes. All I wanted was to leave. It was a struggle.

I kicked it at the mall for a little bit after school, then rushed home. It felt good to move and sweat. I miss exercise. A lot. I can't run at night here though, because it's "dangerous" and I am not a morning runner. So, I will just walk quickly (which is probably a good idea anyway).

I may have mentioned her before, but "D" is the older woman in my group. At first, I had mixed feelings about her. She works as a contracted computer software engineer or something, she has two daughters who attend Roosevelt High in Seattle, and she's married. Why on EARTH is she with a bunch of undergrad college kids? Because she is D. Further probing found that she is a graduate of Duke (it's no secret, I'm jealous, because I didn't even get in there- yes, I applied) and that there was some recent family drama that is (I think) all sorted out now. At Duke, she majored in zoology, but eventually decided she preferred computers. She's no Jones New York employee (I LOVED my older coworkers this summer), because she is accomplished, but she's D and she is cool in my book. In one of our classes, we are to debate about a controversial topic in Ecuador. D is my debate partner (aka enemy). Today, I found out she attended a semester of the Harvard school of Public Health with an intent on getting a masters in Epidemiology. WHAT? I hate her more now. I decided it would be fun if we debated a public health topic, since we are both somewhat [fully] interested in public health. Later, now that I've had some time to think about it, I think I've made a huge mistake. This lady went to a dream school for MY dream field. How could I possibly win a debate against her? It's not about winning. It's about gathering knowledge. I know, in the end, I will have learned way more than I will have lost, because she is D- an older, well-educated college student.

This weekend is Carnaval (it lasts until Tuesday). I will be in the Galapagos with the turtles and the majority of my classmates will be at the beach. So friends, in the tradition of Ecuadorians, go get into water balloon fights, dump pails of water on strangers, and pretend you can justifiably do this because you're Catholic.