Woosterite

So my camera sucks, and I haven't taken any pictures from Ohio, and only sparing pictures in Puerto Rico. Despite the lack of visuals, I've had some pretty vivid experiences in the past couple of weeks.

1. Visited Puerto Rico for my first time. Lots of reggaeton music on a packed radio dial. Seriously, the dial in San Juan was jammed 106.2, 106.4, 106.6, 106.8, etc. We visited the Bacardi distillery and drank for free after we walked around Old San Juan. On the way over to Rincon on the west coast we experienced the full brunt of PR driving. Vigilant, purposeful and aware. But, no one was mean, like in NYC. Simply getting where they need to, without much fuss. Once we established ourselves in Rincon, we bought groceries and cooked those for the rest of the trip. HUGE MONEY SAVER. Hit up some beautiful beaches, toured the 3rd largest cave system in the world (Rio Camuy Caves), explored a jungle waterfall in El Yunque and kayaked in a biolumenescent bay near Fajardo. All said and done, the trip was powerful and self-improving. I learned some Spanish, and have been trying to keep up with it on the mainland with some books and interactions with the South American students here at OARDC.

2. Moved out of Dave and Jane's and into Scott's in Wooster, OH. My coworker, Sarah help me move down, then she helped her friend move back to Michigan from Wooster. It worked out so well! I was completely moved in in under 30 min, and set up my lab office pretty quickly too. I hate dilly-dallying when traveling. I've been exploring the town and surrounding area with Scott. We found a drive-in theater out in the boonies, and met a guy at the Beach City Dam who reminded me of my old scoutmaster. He was a big beetle shaped guy with his wife and they let us use their mounted rifle scope to spy on a nesting bald eagle, then they led us to a sweet wetland to snoop around. We spotted a baby fox on the way. At the dam the big carp were in the shallows making all sorts of commotion. By the way, the title of this post is the preferred nomenclature for a resident of Wooster, OH.

3. Said goodbye to Merl. I'm emotionally drained from our extended time together and floating on my back staring at the night universe thinking whyyyyyyy????? why evvvveeerrrryyytthhhiiiinnnggg? And I don't want a rescue ship. I want land, dammit. I want a foreign shore to relearn life. In a way, Ohio is exactly that, but I feel kind of frantic in the ways that I am meeting people here. I'm trying hard to be friendly and to put my best foot forward, but there's a bad mark on my permanent record that I haven't made up for inside myself yet.