sun times

Today I got to sweat like a pig three times.

First off, this beautiful day was begun by a trip to the Barnes & Noble in Gilroy with Sarah (Burns) to scope out the Nooks and the difference between color or regular. (For her, not me. Maybe one day I'll think about an e-reader. Right now reading for pleasure is a rare privilege.) We then cruised by MIIS campus with schoolwork on our minds, only to see the library parking lot filled with people. We'd forgotten it was the international food bazaar - and what convenient timing, just at the lunch hour! So we mingled with our friends in the sun, eating random nationalities' food - I got Taiwanese (calamari and deep-fried chicken apparently) and cupcakes from the Japanese stand. What a friggin' beautiful day. Standing in my light sweater, I broke into a nice sweat. I couldn't complain about that, but then I had to pry myself away from the festivities and try to do a bit of homework. I wasn't very successful.

The second pig-sweat came about at the climbing gym with Burns. This was possibly the nicest day we'd gone climbing, and the wooden roof at the gym seems to soak up the heat, so that when we get to the top of the routes, it's positively pounding with warmth. But even down at the ground we were sweating. So we did our best and looked forward to a shower at home.

The third episode came about after we had dinner with Dan, Becky, and their friend Sam at the Cannery Row Brewing Co. (amazing beer selection, great food and service = excellent place) and headed to Luxe (random, somewhat sketchy, minimalist bar that's popular here for whatever reason - has some chairs, some bartenders and a lot of space for dancing... guess that's all you need to succeed here) for Antonio's birthday celebration. Burns and I were on the dance floor most of the time, busy sweating and fending off random meaty Latinos.

Thus ended a sunny Saturday in Monterey. Good fucking Lord is it hard to find time for school right now. I know the semester's wrapping up and now's the time to be doing all that shit I kept saying I would. But this week's just been a write-off, what with free Ben & Jerry's day in San José on Tuesday, Paul's birthday on Thursday, the Stop Trafficking wine and cheese chez moi on Friday... time's getting away from me. I didn't even find time to put the dishes in the dishwasher - Nick did it for me. Tomorrow heading to Santa Cruz for a mini day trip. Next weekend I am going to Victoria (B.C.) to hang out with my parents, and Adam maybe.

I have more good news even... first of all is that I have a place to live next year. Amy's boyfriend and his roomie are moving out of their 2-bedroom apartment after school ends, so we can move our stuff at the end of May, and I'll have somewhere to come back to after the summer. Saweet!

Second is that it looks like I'm going to be working in Mexico City for ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, a part of the UN) as a translator for a couple months. The internship race has been crazy here, and in the end I started thinking I wanted to spend time in Latin America to work on my Spanish... and this came up, and it looks like it's the plan for this summer. Burns is also applying and will probably be my acompañante. I hope she will, I'm pretty sure she can protect me and recommend me good food :P

Janzen might also come out to visit me after my exams! I have about three weeks from final exams until I have to show up for work in Mexico City. I hope she can and that we can get up to some adventures out here in Cali. :P I haven't been to L.A. yet...

Well, I'm not sober yet, but I should go to sleep I guess... shall try to update this a little more often, and hopefully/definitely when I get to Mexico I'll see if I have anything interesting to report.

Till then, wish me luck,

yours,

the Juicemeister