Amanda’s Neighborhood

First things first. I got a haircut yesterday. As I was fixing myself post-bath, I noticed that my hair sucked balls and it's about time that I had it cut. So I did. I went to my favorite salon, sat for about an hour, and marveled at the ongoing magic.

...

This morning (around 2:30 AM), RJ and I decided that I ditch what remains of my work hours and go some place else. I packed my stuff and literally ran away. I finished some tasks and we decided to sleep. It was a long night. We had late dinner with two of our college friends and he had around 7 bottles of beer.

I woke up to the sound of his 5:45 AM alarm and then I woke him up. We had to go. He was taking me home this morning. He's going to help my dad with some errands for this new company my dad is putting up. We stopped by The Fort - which is now our favorite place to hang out - hoping to find a nice place to have breakfast. McDonald's was still closed. Coffee is mandatory in breakfasts and so is cold tea.

At the Belize Zoo they have raised an orphaned jaguar named Junior. He's 11 months old, and still very close to the zoo manager. In this video, we're all within a cage inside of Junior's enclosure, and Sharon Matola the founder of the zoo gets him to roll over for us. Afterwards, he climbed on top of the cage and gave kisses to all of us. Being licked by a jaguar tongue? Awesome.

There's a lot that I want to say, but I am choosing to keep my sweet fingers from typing what could possibly be a mistake.

Holy hell. I just had miniature heat surges.

I have not been reading books. I have not been watching a lot of TV. I haven't been myself lately. I no longer know what keeps me grounded. Or what I need to keep myself grounded.

I am a person who is easily "lamed out" by a lot of things. And people. However, I do know how to socialize and be polite. I do not attack people verbally when I am pissed off. Point: I am nice.

Another point: As fucked up and as common as it is - I do not know what the hell is going on with me.

That is all for tonight. I promise not to be a fucking puzzle the next time I write here.

I've decided to return to Vox. Maybe a bad idea, because I can hardly keep my blog updated.. But I'll make an effort to find something to write about. Because I like Vox. A lot. A few of you should also write more often (Katie! Jaime!).

So, what's going on with me?

I went back to Germany for three weeks at the end of June. It’s getting weirder every time. I still think of it as ‘home’, but I guess that has more to do with me being so far away than actual attachment to the country. Bill Bryson wrote, “Nothing makes you feel more like a native of your home country than being abroad” - and it’s so true. I’ll always be the German girl here. Over here, it’s a very big part of what defines me as a person. But as foreign as I am here, now it’s what I know and what I’m comfortable with. It’s a shock to come back to what you’re supposed to be so familiar with and have it feel so strange. It’s a very unsettling feeling indeed. I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that I’ll always be torn between both countries. And in the end, home is where the heart is.

I'm busy with school, but excited (and scared) to be a 'real' Graphic Designer soon. I graduate in December, which is less than 5 months away. Things are looking good though. I'm currently trying to pull together all the artwork I've done over the last 2 years.. And I shall post some of it here.

Enough for now, it's lunch time and I have some leftover Chicken Curry waiting for me.

PS: Vox makes my Firefox crash. DeviantArt makes my Firefox crash. WTF is wrong?

My amazing best friend Dasbecca pointed this out!

 

After we visited Fire Tree Ranch (dedicated to the futile attempt at producing genetically pure Barbados Black Belly sheep), Dr. T took us Big Rock Falls. I was completely unprepared. I had thought we were going to stop by our cabins first before making the trip, but as I've learned, plans don't really exist in Belize. So, in scrubs, no bathing suit, and slippery flip flops, I made the ridiculously steep climb down to the river. Most of the descent for me was spent in crab-soccer position. You have to remember crab soccer from elementary school - when you crawl around on your hands and feet but facing up (the next day those muscles reminded me that they do indeed still exist). Still, I made it, only suffering a bit of rawness on the palms of my hands.
    The effort was worth it. When we reached the river, to our right was a magnificent waterfall. It wasn't by any means the tallest, nor the widest, but it was beautiful. I handed Dr. T my Nikon, and he diligently took pictures of anything he considered impossible to get in trouble for. Responsibly, he ignored all of our more dangerous endeavors on the rocks. A few of the girls followed our van driver, and scaled the wall of rock enclosing the waterfall to dive into the pool beneath the it. Although I didn't have near enough the amount of gumption required to climb those rocks, I did make sure to swim right up to the falls and sit on the rocks where the water was falling. It was just something to be done, to be felt. Sitting on those rocks, you somehow felt insignificant, and lucky all the same. The water pounding down on you is just not something you get to experience everyday.