Independence Day, of celebration and goodbyes.

Tonight I am taking the night off. Cintia left for her site today. I feel sad that I will not see her until November, and that is only if I make it to their site.

I am looking over my calendar trying to wrap my head around the craziness of these past weeks since I last wrote. We had our protocol paper due while I was getting over being really sick with strep throat. We had our protocol presentation to our committee which was ridiculously stressful. We had a five day field trip in the jungle which was lovely but wayyy too much time with my cohort. I had the trip I did to the beach with Charly Sam Cintia and Alex in which our tire popped at 9pm on a Sunday night in which we spent the night in nowhere ville after spending hours looking for an open tire shop on a Sunday night that had a spare that would fit our car. That was after crazy drama, which took everything out of me. We ended up getting back the night before our field trip, a day late.

We had our IRB forms to fill out, homework assignments, survey and interview questions due, buying our supplies for the field, meeting with our partner outside tuxtla at 8am (an hour and half away). We then had independence day celebrations but before that, end of school celebrations, goodbye celebrations before leaving to our sites, goodbye celebrations to San Cristobal's nightlife, meetings with committee members, thesis meetings, discussions of our methods, disagreements with friends committee and thesis members. Cintias family visited and I said by to my neighbors Charly and Sam.

In some ways these last months in San Cristobal feel like years, I feel like I have aged and grown a lot. I cannot keep the days straight and the timeline of my actions. My head is spinning like the giant spinning firework that flew off a tower during the independence day celebrations and fell near us. Friends got drunk and mad at each other, others found a side of themselves and others that they never knew existed, and then returned home at 9am, only to wake up two hours later hungover wondering what had happened. Keys and a cell phone were lost and found again. A new friend was made and quickly let go. Two random nights of drinking turned really fun. Then there was the special rooftop night of good friends telling stories, making my heart glow.

Its been a crazy three weeks. But the reality is that I love it. I love feeling so alive and present. I love that I am soo busy with being around friends having fun, learning and stressing. It is all part of this crazy life I am living.

But now, to a beautiful area in which alcohol is prohibited by the community heads and I will be busy working on my thesis and living with my thesis members.

This will be probably the hardest part of graduate school making this transition.

wish me luck