¨Actually, it was infected and a lady spent 5 delightful minutes squeezing creamy pus out of my infected bite-hole with the side of a pair of scissors.¨
-talking to my friend about my bug bite from the jungle-
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Today I spent about an hour inhaling and exhaling into a bottle. I squeezed the bottle with my hands and then would hold the air in with my mouth over the top and breathe through my nose. Then I´d slowly let the air out by letting some air escape from my mouth and do it again. I generally try to live up to frequent self-cultivation, I´m not really sure if inhaling and exhaling in a bottle is in anyway edifying. It did compell me to write this blogpost.
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Last night I took an overnight bus for 18 hours. There was a movie probably entitled ¨ghost rider¨ about how Nick Cage sells his soul to save his daddy and then has to work for the devil. When he goes to work Nick´s head turns into a flaming skull and his hands and motorcycle light on fire as well.
He had to fight the devil´s rebellious sons. I couldn´t leave, or turn my face away as I was stuck on a bus, so I fell asleep. Given the circumstances I feel it was the only fitting response to that kind of movie.
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Actually I didn´t sleep well b/c the fattish father of the pre-teen girl sitting next to me snored like an outboard motor. When the girl got on the bus she was crying because she didn´t want to go on vacation this weekend with her family, she wanted to stay at home in Lima with her friends. I can understand, life is hard when you´re a tween.
I must have felt some homesickness as well, because I dreamt I was at home or at some pretend land far-away home where there were friends from college, friends from home, family from home and kinda weird kids who weren´t really my friends, who I didn´t really talk to, but sort of remember from my elementary school. They were there too. Like I said, i didn´t sleep very well.
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I had ideas of surfing today. It´s too bad that I never made enough positive associations with physical activity when I was younger, ´cause now it´s hard to motivate myself to do anything physical. I´m not sure what time it is, but I think it´s too late to go surfing (I also don´t want to get sunburned). Sometimes I ask myself, if I was James Duesterberg and I was travelling for 10 months, would I stick to a work-out routine? I bet I would.
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While I was sitting on the beach today deliberating surfing a lady who from afar looked beautiful came and sat down near me. She was beatiful, but she was older, maybe 40 or so. I´m not sure how intentional her actions were,when she satdown next to me but I decided then that youth is more beautiful than facial or body structure. Carpe Diem Y´all.
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I just lost my room key. Surprise Surprise.
A guy just lent me his pocket knife to help me sharpen my pen. He´s an old guy from Switzerland with flat, short hair and a HUGE beard, like ZZ-Top. He´s been travelling for 4 years and has taken lots of cargo ships around the world.
I just found my key.
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When I was in Lima I hung out with an American who waits tables in Florida. He said he made $150 a night minimum and on weekends made around $400 a night. Assuming he worked from around 6 PM to 11 PM that´s $80 per hour for taking orders, bringing plates etc. I thought about when I´m older if I had a $400 bill at a table, how much would I tip? $40? $80? The question made me anxious.
Then I thought, why can´t it be a cultural norm to give BIG tips to teachers instead of waiters? I think it´d do more for society than helping this guy blow 3 grand in Peru (He was a nice guy though).
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Today and yesterday and the day before yesterday I ate ceviche. Unlike Mexican ceviche, Peruvian ceviche has big CHUNKS of fish and other squirmy sea creatures like squid and octopi and clams all cut up and dressed with lime juice. The idea is that the lime enzymes ¨cook¨ the fish pieces, but where I just ate the ceviche it took 15 minutes prepare. The people had to cut the fish and pour the lime over it fresh and now my stomach hurts. Actually I had to stop writing this blogpost to run to the bathroom of my hostel - I barely made it!
take care of yourselves you guys.
