The One Where I put my last F.R.I.E.N.D.S Reference

Oh my gosh this is it! I can't believe we've gotten to the last blog post!

This experience has honestly been an incredible one and I do hope to be able to continue doing this in another blog. Its an entirely new concept to me as I had never written a blog before and always wondered how the people that do this for a living managed to do it. While this experience is merely a brief glimpse into theirs I did thoroughly enjoy it.

I spent the last 15 minutes re-reading everything I posted, noticing errors in grammar and places where my argument could have been presented better and with more evidence than I had in that moment. But even if I can go back and fix them now I'm not going to, it shows my growth and expansion of knowledge in the last few months. In all honesty this has turned out more fun than I could have hoped for, the readings allowed me to explore different sides of myself and Puerto Rico and how we all feet kind of seamlessly into this chaotic puzzle of the world.

Looking back at the very first post I did, and the way I decorated the blog speaks volumes of who I am and the last few posts show who I am becoming. At the beginning of it all, I was very bitter considering everything that had been happening in my life during that time, and now though the situation is by no means fixed it has become easier to deal with. The quote at the top of my bog is from one of my favorite authors, J.R.R Tolkien and its from the poem "All That is Gold Does Not Glitter", which goes as follows:

The whole poem is one huge monument of inspiration because it describes a character who has shunned his lineage, refused to be king because he believes his father's line is weak, and that the same weakness flows through his veins but in the end he perseveres and wins the battle against the darkest forces of his land. The line that is featured in my blog is the one I most look to when I am lost, I take solace in it because it tells me that even if I am wandering around not knowing exactly what I am going to do with my life it doesn't mean I am forever lost.

To this I add that the song I have on the side of my blog also reflects a new part of my life and I shall once again be explicit on which lyrics I am talking about:

Every time I hear this song, this line gives me chills and I think it is because a part of me understood that there comes a time when you are going to have to start again, be it with friendship, university degrees or any other situation. Its learning how to be alone after being with someone for so long, its learning that sometimes people grow apart and that that is a part of life and you cant change that. Times change and you have to change with them even if it means starting again. Its amazing that something as simple (and complex) as this blog has helped me come to these conclusions.

It has not been easy doing all this plus all my other university work, and dealing with the transfer to another university which means dealing with two financial offices instead of one, and applying for scholarships. It has been an uphill climb but I am finally seeing the top of the mountain.

With this I leave you, for the last time, with a song YES from a Musical! and again from Hamilton!
This songs speaks about George Washington asking Alexander to write his Farewell Address and the line that speaks out to me the most is "We're going to teach them how to say goodbye."

So this is me, saying goodbye to you One Last Time.

Goodbye ladies, gents and celestial beings. Until we meet again.

The One Where I Volunteer As Tribute

Hunger Games joke aside, I did volunteer to be a part of the staff for the 8th Annual Student Research and Writing Conference. This was simultaneously something new AND not new to me as my junior and senior year of High School consisted of volunteering in a club at my school that organized activities for underprivileged children. And yet it was my first time seeing the other side of one of these conferences and seeing how quickly things can go wrong and how quickly it can be fixed by the creativity of our brilliant  professors and their bright volunteers. I couldn't volunteer as much time as I actually wanted because I had a LOT of assignments to finish (and begin) and an exam to study for plus my classes obviously but what little time I was there was awesome. My friend Natalia was volunteering at the same hours I was so I stuck close to her and we got assigned with another girl to the registration table. It was a fun 3 hours between finding metaphors for our grumbling stomachs, singing along to the clarinet players practicing outside and me geeking out when I got a text from amazon saying the book I ordered was arriving a couple of days earlier than I anticipated. Of course my geeking out was mostly because it's the libretto for Hamilton with annotations from Lin Manuel Miranda and the story behind the creation of the musical. It still brings an imaginary tear to my eye when I think about it, it HUGE by the way; no wonder Lin described it as a Tome you can buy it  here 
if you share my obsession with Hamilton and yes, I am listening to the soundtrack right now.

I mean come on! Look at it! Its gorgeous!

BUT BACK TO THE POINT

We spent our time listening to music while we told people the instructions about the registration and evaluation papers and handed out pamphlets. Before we knew it it was 10:30am and we all had to leave to our respective engagements, but we did come back at 1pm for our classmates presentation.

It was amazing.

 I mean I thought we had seen everything in class already but I don't know why, seeing a representative of each group collaborating to make this one great presentation made it all come together in a way that made me appreciate Jung's intellect during his travels in a new way. Yes my classmates were nervous but they did and AMAZING job and kudos to them for having the guts to get up on that stage. I commend you for your bravery. I hope to one day have that bravery and not succumb to a panic attack at the thought of it.

With this I bid you adieu ladies, gents and celestial beings and I leave you with a message that goes with the song whose lyrics are pictured in the collage above and I shall link in this post:

If you ever feel like things are not going your way, like everyone is miles ahead of you be it academically, emotionally, mentally or economically: take your time, and Wait for It, your moment will come. It took me two years to come to terms with the fact that I have to leave behind people I love to be able to get what I want, and now while my friends are halfway through their Bachelors Degree I am about to start basically from scratch because I finally found what I was meant to do and that's why this song brings tears to my eyes when I hear it.

The One Where I Pretend To Be A Tourist

Okay for starters its very hard to pretend to be a tourist when you have a hard time sticking to one language for an extended period of time. I went to Old San Juan on Wednesday, taking advantage of the fact that my cousin was visiting from Miami and her son only speaks English so I had all the excuse to not talk in Spanish while in public. But for some reason I found myself slipping between English, Spanish and Italian for pete's sake I'm not even FLUENT in Italian.

We went to San Felipe Castle or as we know it best, El Morro. Believe it or not for a Puerto Rico native (and proud) I had never been to the inside of El Morro ( I apologize to any offended Boricuas) and let me tell you it was not hard at all to be awed at everything, I mean come on LOOK AT THAT:

While taking the tour my cousin and me started having fun with my assignment, I started to pretend to have a british accent and when I accidentally slipped into Scottish we started giggling like idiots but it was so much fun.  At one moment I stepped away from my family and went down this really steep staircases and the steps were HUGE I got winded just thinking about going back up them again but the view was worth it.

When we finally left the castle and were walking back to the car so we could go eat we stopped to get a Piragua (snowcone) and when it was my turn to tell the gentleman what syrup flavor I wanted my brain sorta short circuited between Frambuesa and Raspberry and when I did finally speak and say Frambuesa it came out with such an American accent that my cousin paused to look at me in shock and I just burst out laughing when we finally walked back to the family when she just looked at me with a What the heck was that face. After the snowcones we went to Pirolo to eat and the waiters were very welcoming and nice especially when they heard us speaking english.

Overall it was a very pleasant experience, some people were very nice to us while some sneered at us even if we were in one of the most famous tourist spots in Puerto Rico and its not strange to see or hear other people speaking another language. I think it was more because of the fact that occasionally me and my cousin burst into random songs from Broadway Musicals than because we were "tourists". We didn't have any bad experiences (though I suspect the piragua guy charged us more for them because they were $3!) and everyone was nice very nice.

And with this I leave you with my latest obsession (and the cause of more than one weird look when we burst into song in San Juan), its from the Broadway Musical Hamilton: An American Musical written by our very own Puerto Rican, Lin Manuel Miranda (so proud) and its all kinds of amazing and it is very emotionally painful to know that I might never get to see this musical (more importantly with HIM as Hamilton) but I hope the rumors of a Live Recording are true. Please, if you have the time (and motivation) please listen to the soundtrack, its amazing (pls).

ANYWAYS, goodbye ladies, gents, and celestial beings, heres your song:

Also BONUS! Please appreciate actual cinnamon roll (too pure for this world) Lin Manuel Miranda freestyling on Jimmy Fallon: