The title should convey all the information I need to share--but the emotion and exhilaration behind it is impossible to put into words. :) I got sunburned on my legs, though, which hardly ever happens and kinda stings. Also, I discovered a fascinating word from an obscure language a few days ago. Apparently lost-in-translation can get pretty bad sometimes. In addition, I will be meeting a movie star tomorrow (hopefully). The main actor in this year's hit film in this Central American country is best friends with my professor's son, and since half my class went to see the movie, he'll come visit us and we'll get to practice speaking Spanish with him. Should be fun.

I just saw on Yahoo! News that a Belgian man who was thought to have been in a coma wasn't really. The catch? He was in that supposed coma for 23 years !! (From the U.K.'s The Guardian .) Then a neurologist rediagnosed him... and figured out that he knew everything that was going on around him, just was severely paralyzed. So they gave him 3 years of intense therapy, and now he can use a finger and a touchpad to communicate. Experts say Laureys' findings are likely to reopen the debate over when the decision should be made to terminate the lives of those in comas who appear to be unconscious but may have almost fully-functioning brains. Now, I'm opposed to "pulling the plug" on a patient in a coma (or severely paralyzed, or what have you) on principle--but this just makes one ponder what could happen should a patient in a coma... not be in a coma... and have the life support stopped.

I miss... ...keeping my sister up late talking. ...going square dancing. ...talking literary/nerdy topics with my friends at college. ...sewing. ...my church. ...eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I will miss... ...my little host brother and sister. (Especially my sister. She is soooo cute.) ...talking to my host mamá about anything and everything. ...laughing at the clownish antics of one of my friends here (who will be transferring universities). ...talking to another friend (who will be graduating). ...the wonderful weather. ...public transportation. Oh well. Just two and a half weeks until I return to the States. I can't believe time has gone by so quickly.

Just been busy, is all. We went on a paseo this weekend, and I had lots of homework this week... or rather, less time to do homework, because of the things I've been doing every night. Monday: choir practice Tuesday: supper out at a Mexican restaurant with our professor and another professor-friend Wednesday: out to see a movie at the local cinema on discount night Tonight: movie night at my house So yeah. And this weekend will be ridiculous. In theory, I have three presentations to prepare for, and 13 sets of exercises in our grammar workbook to complete, plus several chapters to read in a book for one of the classes (these chapters are barely worth being called chapters though). Oh and I need to write about twenty sentences, each with a different verb-preposition pair off of a list. I sincerely doubt we'll ever get to review/present all this work in the three days of class that we have next week. Why does my prof do this? It's very odd--she'll assign too much to each

Today in chapel, the worship leader for today introduced us to a hymn I'd not heard before, "Thine be the Glory." Apparently, it's second only to Amazing Grace in popularity (or familiarity, shall we say) in England, from where this guy hails. I also discovered another song written by the same duo that wrote "In Christ Alone." I shall soon be learning that one. :)

I just found a Spanish (as in from Madrid) group that I really like. They were together in the seventies. Oh well. They have an awesome version of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Boxer" though!

Today in class, we got to listen to a lullaby (because we're studying Latino music this week). And then, one of the discussion questions was to think of some songs that we'd had our moms sing to us when we were little--our own lullabies. I came up with two from Mary Poppins ("Feed the Birds" and "Stay Awake") almost immediately, as well as a song called "Sleep little dream princess." There was also a song based on Psalm 5:1-3, and the song from Dumbo when we were really really little (which I don't remember much of, but would recognize if I heard it), and.... Well, lemme think. Now that I sit down and try to remember the other songs, I can't! I'm pretty sure there was another one that mentioned the moon. Yes, I'm sure there was... it's right there and I can't recall it... something about going to sleep, and then when you wake we'll be here... Ack! Don't you hate it when you know a song but you can't recall it at

I sat down earlier to write a blog post, and nothing came to mind, so I decided not to (again). Then I did homework, contemplated how little time I have left here (less than 5 weeks till we board the plane), and watch a Simpsons movie on TV. And then I logged onto Facebook. And saw that one of my good friends just got engaged. She's younger than I am!!

I know, I'm in Central America, and I have no excuse to say that. But really, this has been a normal week. We had classes, went on a field trip today (to the national museum and on a train), had a movie night tonight at my house... pretty normal proceedings. We watched "That Thing You Do" and I really enjoyed it. I'd never heard of it before someone mentioned he wanted to watch it, this week, but it turned out to be really cute and fun. We also had some potato chips (a rarity here) provided by one of my friends, and generally hung out for a while until everyone got here (and left and then returned from a quick trip to buy a late supper). I've not much experience as a hostess, but I like to do it. It helps that my host family is very willing to let me have people over whenever I want, and aren't home on weekend evenings anyway. Perhaps when I get back to living in an on-campus apartment I can continue having friends over regularly.

I've been reading A.W. Tozer again. If you've been reading long enough or paying attention, I love his writing . His book "The Pursuit of God" was wonderful the first time I read through it, and I keep drawing insights from that each time I read it again. However, this book I'm in is a collection of Tozer's 52 best chapters (which still makes for a little paperback, since his chapters are fairly short). I've read this before too. It has excerpts from "Pursuit of God" in addition to ten other books he wrote (I think there are eleven in total, anyway). Thing is, when I read Tozer I have to stop and think a lot, and pray, and read my Bible in the meantime. So I've been on several long bus rides since I started this and I'm still in chapter 11 or something. It amuses me that I started this blog, what, three years ago, with posts about Tozer. But his writing is really something. I recommend "Pursuit of God" especially.