Ay teacher, que aburrido.

My life is boring.

That is not to say that I am complaining. I am, all things considered, very happy with my current station in life. The things I miss about civilization are numerous but living without them is no more of a challenge than anything else I have known since my arrival in Costa Rica. My good hair days are wasted on kindergarteners and my high heels are gathering dust. My diet is back to rice and beans but I bought tortillas and cheddar cheese to WOW my family with breakfast burritos and quesadillas this week.

My students are as cute as they come. Their eyes are bright and they constantly surprise me, which makes going back easier every day. My 5th graders did brilliantly on their first exams. Several of them even got 100%.

They cheated.

I came to Costa Rica to try to start my path of changing the world. That delusion has long since escaped me. Most of my kids will never use English after they graduate High School. If they do, it will be to work in a tourist destination for meager tips. It is unlikely that any of them will go to college, though I am hopeful that a few will. Some of the girls will probably get pregnant before they turn 21. It would be a lot better for me to come here and teach Sex-Ed rather than English. At least then I know they would use it. One less starved Tico baby to worry about.

I miss the people that I left more every day. I have realized how much I love you and how much you mean to me. But I have also realized that you do not define me. I don’t know if I am different since I left, but I know that some things are not the same. The things that I used to find normal I now find mundane and unimportant. I often think about what my life would be like if I had stayed in LA. It would be more comfortable to be sure, but what else? Would I still be going out on enough bad dates to entertain my friends on our long drives home? Where would I be working? Would I like it? Would I have started taking the bus to work to combat high prices of gasoline? What would my apartment look like and who would I hang out with now that so many of my friends have graduated and moved back east. Maybe I would be focusing all of my energies into studying for the Foreign Service Exam, training for the next marathon and decorating my apartment in shades of orange. There is a high likelihood that I would have developed an unhealthy addiction to Spanish food and/or Los Feliz.

My Saturday nights would probably be spent at Seven Grand, rigging the Jukebox to play Otis Redding, Spoon and the Dandy Warhols while drinking Elder Fitzgerald’s and Jameson with the people I once thought I knew well. Saturday afternoons might find me watching Women’s water polo matches or playing Tennis like I did in the fall. I might have even done a fountain run victory lap, just because. I would have taken for granted just how wonderful it is to understand every word of every conversation that you have and the conveniences of cell phones.

My adoration for Southern California has increased exponentially since my arrival in Costa Rica. I wish that I could take all of my students to Disneyland so that they could have a glimpse into the bliss and joy of my youth. I miss concerts and seeing Them Terribles at Velvet Jones as much as I miss football season. As you all look forward to the summer I am entering so-called winter faced with daily downpours and minor landslides. It makes me miss swimming in Long Beach and all of the glories of my 22nd year, which is rapidly coming to a close.

On the other hand, there was a toucan outside of my classroom yesterday as I was planning my lessons, which is pretty cool no matter how you look at it. I have free time to read every day. I actually get to “listen” to music instead of just having it play in the background. I saw macaws in a tree as I was walking home the other day and my Spanish is almost good enough to call myself fluent. If only I could read as well as I can speak.

I guess what I am trying to say is that life is never perfect, and I know that now, but if I have learned anything this year, it is how to take life as it comes: one day at a time. You can’t worry too much about anything. On the scorching hot days that you want nothing more than a cold shower, you may find that there is no water. On days that you want to go for a run, there may be a sudden downpour that lasts the rest of the day. When all you want is to make a phone call, you may be stuck at a bus stop for hours, waiting to go the 9 kilometers to the nearest phone. But when it comes down to it, life is not so bad and complaining doesn’t do you any good because there is no one in a 10-mile radius who can speak English. So you learn to relish in the little things. Like your new system of communicating with the nearest World Teach volunteer, which involves sending notes through the other teachers at my school. Or in the pounds of Trail mix you have hidden under your bed. Maybe even in the fact that you got to watch Friends in English on TV the week before. It all seems worse than it is. That, to me, is the secret of Pura Vida.

I miss you. I love you. I can’t wait to see you. Thank you for reading.