Liar, liar, pants on fire

Clearly, I'm a liar. I claimed I was going to get better at writing these blogs and stay up to date. And I failed miserably. So no more promises from me. :) I'll just say that I'll do my best to write as much as I can.

The ants have become my arch enemies in my apartment. I kill about 50 a day. Maybe more. I often find one or two on my toothbrush (ALWAYS check before you brush), I find a handful crawling on my clothes in my laundry bag, I find them crawling out from under my keyboard on my laptop (it really disturbs them when I type), I find them inside tightly ziplocked baggies of food (how did they get in there???) ... well, you get the point. They're driving me crazy. And I just had to get that off my chest.

Now, on to less disturbing matters. A couple weeks ago I went to this really cool carnival in a town called Palmares (less than an hour from San Jose). It's apparently the biggest carnival in Costa Rica, and they had all kinds of rides and a parade and clubs. It was a blast.


Last week I participated in my first model UN. It was a little more work than I had imagined. I was India in the Human Rights Council, and we were talking about torture in conflict situations. So I had to do a lot of research on India (what international conventions had it ratified against torture, what was its own record on torture, what countries did it align with). And then the conference lasted three full days, so I was up to my ears in motions for "moderated caucuses" and voting procedures on making "friendly" and "unfriendly" amendments to draft resolutions. It was pretty intense. I learned that speaking like a diplomat is like learning another language. And I learned that, while it's fun to play pretend diplomacy, it can also be incredibly stressful at times.

Last but not least, my sister Wendy is visiting me! She and her boyfriend flew in Wednesday and will be flying back out in a couple days. I met them at the beach this weekend, and we spent a few days relaxing on the Carribean coast. They're on their way to spend a couple days at the volcano now before heading home Friday.

Glenn (Wendy's boyfriend) took this awesome shot:

Wendy and I on a lazy Sunday morning

I have three more friends visiting the first week in March, so my calendar is filling up, people. You only have a few more months to come visit me! :)