I got home yesterday from a 4 day trip to Tortuguero with my 8th graders. Holy shit was it amazing. Seriously. Some of the coolest stuff I've ever done, and I feel like I've done some pretty cool stuff.

Every night we had to go on patrol on the beach, first patrol was 8pm-12am, and second was 12am-4am. Believe it or not the 12-4 shift was way easier than 8-12 because you could get in a few hours of sleep beforehand. So we would walk in the PITCH BLACK (can't use lights since it scares the turtles, we could only use red light while working with the turtle since they can't see red) on the beach looking for turtles. When we would see turtle tracks we would feel them to see if they were up tracks or down tracks. If they were up we'd go check to see if the turtle was there. If it was there we would measure it, check it for barnacles, and tag it. It was so freaking COOL! I mean these turtles were BIG, biggest we measured was 120cm! And they felt so cool and breathed real loud and stuff. Being up close to them was awesome, they were so prehistoric. I could totally imagine dinosaurs, ya know? Man sea turtles are some cool animals. The barnacles were pretty damn sweet too. They opened and closed like little alien mouths.

We also got to count eggs. During the 12-4 shift we found a turtle who was about to lay eggs. So one of the kids in the group put her hand underneath the turtle and caught the eggs and counted them as the turtle laid. Then we marked the nest so they could excavate later. SO COOL. (how many times have I used the word "cool" so far? Not enough to describe how amazing it was!)

And good god the clear, beautiful sky! We saw constellations, shooting stars, a satellite. It was so damn beautiful.

The kids were pretty well behaved. They were really bad at cleaning up after themselves. They all have maids (and over protective mothers) who cleanup for them, so they never have to do shit. Like this one kid broke a glass mug, then just picked up another one and left. He left the broken glass on the floor. I was like umm.. you need to clean that up! So weird.

The kids had a freaking blast though. I really think it changes their lives. They'll always remember that experience. When we were at school today they came to class and were like "can we talk about our trip??!" About half the class is already talking about going back to do it again. Which is awesome.

Speaking of over protective mothers, when we got back the moms were all weeping and this one mom ran up and did like a jumping hug on her kid. Like they had just returned from years at war. It was 4 days. I mean really.

Anyways.

I'm bummed because my volunteer tomato plant which has like 14 giant tomatoes on it is rotting! I don't know what to do! (Help, Rach!) The tomatoes never ripened, they're just rotting now. I was so excited about those tomatoes!

My cousin is getting married in November. He's actually my mom's cousin, but close enough. He's freaking awesome and I really want to go. They even MAILED me an invitation. The coolest part- I GOT IT! But they're having it in this random-ass little town where the closest airport is ONE HOUR away. I mean wtf? She lives in NYC and he lives in Boston. They couldn't have done it there? And the hotel they reserved rooms in is $150/night!! There's no way I can afford a plane ticket, car rental and hotel room. I might try to work something out with my mom picking me up or something, but we'll have to see. I tried to find cheaper hotels but since this town is so little there's not many options. Honestly, one of the reasons I wanted to go to the wedding was to go to Boston which is a really awesome city. But now that they're having in 3 hours away from Boston and there is not enough time for me to visit Boston... Plus there's no way my SO can go. Unfortunately. So we'll see.

Back to turtles- so I was talking to the other two teachers and evidently there's another turtle thing in Pacuare. And the cool thing about it is they work with leatherbacks. I've never seen a leatherback and I want to so bad! I mean I thought those green turtles were big, leatherbacks are twice the size! They're freaking enormous! So the plan is for the teachers (me and the other lady) to go to Pacuare for the training session. But it's in March. Which is supposedly when I'm back in the USA. I'm almost wanting to stay half next year just to be able to go to see leatherbacks for free. Would that make me a bad person? We have to see what happens with the visa. But when we get it we have 6 months to use it... after all my complaining about how long the visa is taking am I really thinking about trying to extend it to stay another half year just to see leatherbacks?...!? I don't know. But they're so damn cool!!!!

Speaking of visa stuff- I wrote my congressman and sent in all the papers back in August. Haven't heard anything so I called up today just to make sure they got everything. They were closing but they said they'd check for me and email me back. See most people call USCIS and talk to them, but the wait time is always *at least* an hour. Most of the time it's between 2 and 3 hours. And waiting on skype for 2-3 hours is not how I want to pass my time. So I'm hoping by checking in with the congressman staff I'll get the info I want without the 3 hours on hold.

TwoThree- thank you for addicting my SO to Breaking Bad. It actually makes me sort of nervous watching it. Like I really like that Pinkman guy and he's always in all this shit and it makes me nervous! My SO loves it. All he wants to do now is watch Breaking Bad

Random TMI stuff-



Well I'm going to wrap things up now. I don't remember if I had more random shit to say, but I want to call my mom and I got to get my SO in an hour so

PEACE OUT