Gemischt (mixed up)

Hey folks. I'm feeling pretty mixed up today. I'm very tired coming off of my awesome weekend in Boston with my baltimore buddies. I got a great apartment for the fall with very little effort. I'm back at work. My Costa Rican family adopted a new pet turtle while I was gone. And the US appears to be going insane.

As proof of the last item, I offer Joel Achenbach's recent blog posts. My absolute favorite description of the war in Iraq so far comes from his post. It reads:

[W]e've got the most highly trained fighting force in the world trying to
play urban Whack-a-Mole.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the war on terror. And something is not sitting right with me. If the president believes that the war is so important to the spread of democracy, and so critical for national security, why isn't he sending his daughters to fight? They're of age. Presumably they have skills and intelligence capabilities that are deperately needed. Recruiters are clearly coming up empty handed these days. Reserve and national guard members are serving back-to-back tours because of this shortage. The country is in desperate need of fighters. And yet, the Bush daughters stay home. What does that say? Are some lives worth more than others? Just a question to ponder.

In other US news, Katie Holmes appears to be crazy. She is volunarily marrying this man.

Alright, seeing as how you may be reading this from the US, you're probably wondering what's going on in the Ciudad. The big news is that I can understand spanish. Really. I had a nice conversation with the cab driver on the way home from the airport yesterday. He was impressed with my pronounciation and comprehension. I smiled when he asked if my boyfriend lived in the US or Costa Rica. I said US. I think I may take up that lie for self-preservation. I usually like to tell the truth. But I'm so entirely exhausted of being aggressively hit on, and being made to feel like I am a social pariah for not having a man attached to me. One fantastic thing about Boston: I walked at night, by myself, to my new house and wasn't cat called, scared, or asked if I had a boyfriend. Not once! What a relief! Here, if I leave my house by myself after dark I attract an immense amount of attention. Because I am a female alone (so, obviously, of ill repute) and I am a north american (and everyone knows from the movies and TV that we're promiscuous). Grr.

Tonight I'm going to blow off my new African friend. He called last night after I got home, to check in on me because he hadn't seen me in a few days. He wants to get together tonight. I'm always leery of African men. Not in a racist way, in an I've-learned-from-my-experience way. Often there is a significant culture gap between my expectations of friendship and dating and theirs. Some african men really seem to think that it is their god-given right to sleep with every woman they encounter. And they merely see women as a means to an end. I've seen these attitudes in the states, in Africa, and here among our african students. This new friend of mine seems like a good guy. I enjoy talking to him, but I feel too exhausted by dealing with cultural differences with my host family to then spend my down time dealing with cultural differences with him. Besides, tonight I really want to call my best friend and get caught up with her. So my african friend will have to wait.