18 (or nourishment.)

MUSIC.
For the first few weeks I could only listen to Why?'s Elephant Eyelash. Really, that's all I could do to settle my nerves and transition from home to here. I also only used my iPod for long busrides or falling asleep. Sparrows, Swarm and Sing, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, nothing too loud, nothing too emotional.
In the past couple of weeks I started branching out a bit more. Last week was M83, The Clash, The Smiths, Laura, and Lemuria. This week I've moved to poppunk with Title Fight, First To Leave, Fairweather, and Rufio.
Music, in general, is a big staple. It keeps me from thinking too much about things that don't matter and getting too overwhelmed. So I rely on it when I'm not in the company of my crew.

LITERATURE.
I'm making great time with my 52 Books, 52 Weeks. I'm on my tenth book. Here's what I've read so far this year:
1. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
2. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
3. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
4. Suite Française, Irène Némirovsky
5. Water For Elephants, Sara Gruen
6. The History of Costa Rica, I. Molina & S. Palmer
7. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
8. Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
9. In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan

Right now I'm reading Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, which rounds out my first ten books for the first two months of 2008.

FOOD.
My mom feeds me two to three plates per meal. It's all whole food. I know exactly what I'm eating and have a relatively good idea from where it comes. The big staples are rice and beans, tortillas, chayote, coffee, fried plantains, papaya, mango, pineapple. For breakfast I've started eating eggs and tomatoes, which is pretty much the closest thing to Tamale House migas I'll ever get outside of Tamale House. Sometimes cereal, sometimes pancakes. But the big thing is it's all real food. Which sounds stupid, I guess, but so much time is spent making food, eating food, being around food that isn't processed or preserved. It means a great deal to me and really makes me appreciate nutrition and cooking tenfold than I did before, which was a lot more already than most of society.

FRIENDS.
I have my staples. I have my family here, with whom I spend most of my meals and time outside the institute. I have my colleagues, who are quite possibly the best people I could have in my classes and with whom I can share this experience. I have my professors, who love us and care for our well-beings inside and outside the classroom and give us more guidance than we can ever really thank them for. And then, there are the few anchors still attached by technology, the constant constants known as my parents, Kate, Alex, and Ohio Max. They keep me balanced and connected and stable and grounded...just enough to not absolutely hate the idea of returning to the United States in two months.



...wait, only two months? really?