Check out DJ Karim and Sonámbulo

I´m getting to know the kids that work at the hostel I'm staying at --Hostel Casa Yoses, which is the bomb diggity. :) <--- L00k. I made a smiley face -- and so I went out with a few of them to a show last night at Jazz Café in the San Pedro neighborhood. Sure, I´m sick, but other than sporadically feeling super tired, I feel quite fine most of the time. I took it easy and watched the people dancing to DJ Karim, and dude, it was awesome seeing these people´s personalities come out as they danced. I feel like I know all of them to a certain extent, especially since once the main act came on, Sonámbulo, a Costa Rican band that´s funking up some of the traditional samba, merengue, and cumbia by throwing in some reggae, punk rock, and an ode to the Pink Pather, well, I just had to dance. Everybody was dancing, dancing their own way, dancing shamelessly, and smiling like fools. What a fun night.

I felt right at home. I´ve realized that I´m a city girl. Let me give you a really strange example. In the country, though we live in the mountains, most every woman wears high heels, which most of you know I not a huge fan of. At the Jazz Café, only one girl wore high heels, but that didn't slow her dancing down. She looked liked the kind of girl that could wear high heels in a race and win. Everyone else, sandles, tennis, any type of flat shoes. Though I was dressed in my mom´s old t-shirt and (again no pun intended) a pair of mom-jeans, I felt right at home in my roman sandles (which I had just purchased at the Mercado Central earlier that day as my flip flops were rubbing my feet).

The point is, every girl came to dance. Every guy too for that matter. They didn't conform to the styles I've seen in San Isidro or in the little surrounding towns, where the super colors and extreme style of the 80s still thrive. When I first got to my town, my host mom bought me a cheap set of every color in the world earrings so that I have a pair for every outfit. Later, she and one of her friends tried to convince me to buy one of those bras that you can switch the straps to match your earrings, your shirt, your shoes, purse, and of course, most importantly your eye-shadow.

There was nothing like that at Jazz Café. Now don´t get me wrong. I don´t dislike matchy-matchy colors, and I don´t mind getting dressed up once in a while. But, since I had been asked to go to this show last minute and had no time to change or put on any makeup if I had had any with me, it was quite a relief that I fit right in. Sure, I wasn´t as punk rock, funky, or hippie looking as a lot of the other people, but I don´t get the feeling anyone but me was aware of the visual aspect of the night. And once I started dancing I wasn't paying attention to anything but the rhythm and taking part of the energy that was running through the night .

I'm not so lazy after all.

I am sorry that I haven't been keeping my blog up and keeping in better contact with everyone, but I just found out that it's not all entirely my fault. I'm in San Jose where WorldTeach has English speaking doctors for us. I felt ill while I was hanging out down in the Osa Penisula and then I was fine, no worries right? Wrong. After having another one of those cold spells, and really just feeling like a lazy bum and not wanting to teach. I took Thursday off (Friday we didn't have classes) and went to San Jose.

Well it turns out I wasn't playing hooky from school. Quite the opposite. I have mono, so tada that's my very good reason why I haven't had energy to write (or really to teach if you must know the truth). Check this out. It turns out, I am a workaholic because not only have I been trying to plow through this spell of mono, non-stop, but apparently, I have also had mono at some point in the past that I didn't know about. So, um, by the way, if you've been extremely tired and it ends up being mono, you gave it to me, not I to you.

Enough about you, back to me. (I wish I knew how to make smiley faces on these international keyboards!) I also apparently have a parasite, which I guess is a blessing in disguise because if I hadn't gotten, I might have gone the whole year thinking I was just lazy and liked to sleep more than live an exciting life, when really it's just been my liver and kidney(?) trying to tell me something. (The drugs they've given me are for liver and kidney problems.) As far as the parasite, they're just having to trial and error with different medicines, which means no school for me. Woohoo! Though now I'm thinking the reason I've been dreading school everyday has been because I've been sick. Maybe now I'll have more fun with it.

Okay feeling lazy again. I love all you guys. Send me healthy energy!