As I am writing this, I am sitting in hotel in La Fortuna, Costa Rica. I left yesterday with a group from school at about 5 PM to catch a 1 AM flight from LAX to San Jose. The bus ride up was anything but peaceful. Somebody had the bright idea of staging a ¨dance party¨ in the rear of the bus, where I was attempting to read. We arrived at LAX at 8:30 PM, thirty entire minutes ahead of schedule. Getting 45 people´s bags checked and the people through security took over an hour. We finally reached the gate at 10:30, well ahead of the 12:00 boarding time.
This was my second red eye flight ever and it was worse than I remembered. I made an effort not to sleep or ingest caffiene while waiting for the flight but this did not help. I fell asleep while waiting for the plane to take off but was rudely awakened about 3 seconds before actual take off. I spent the rest of the flight not being able to sleep for more than 30 or 40 minutes at a time.
We landed in San Jose at about 8:30 were out of the airport within a few hours. We met up with the tourguides and boarded a bus headed for La Fortuna. Having only been out of the country twice before, and never to a country that did not border the United States, I was not sure what to expect. I had almost no preconcieved notions about Costa Rica and this was very helpful, considering I was not dissappointed about being wrong.
The first of many stops was made at a small candy stand in the fog. This is were we got our first experiences with local food: fried plantains and corn (type) rings. About an hour later, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant to have a big meal consisting of rice, beef, chicken, and fish (among other things). Another hour on the bus led us to ¨Hotel Fortuna¨ in La Fortuna.
After a small siesta, we were ready to explore the town and head out to local hot springs. For dinner, we a meal similar (but not as big) at the hotel. Tomorrow should be promising… swimming under a waterfall, zip line ride through a forest and a night hike around an active volcano are all currently on the books. I´m sorry I do not have pictures on the Internet, but I will post them as soon as I get home.
Note: This post is probably full of errors, I have not had the proper time to edit it and I am typing on a keyboard mapped for Costa Rica.
There was an item posted on Slashdot today about Google Pages releasing its first public beta. If I recall correctly, I have had an account on this service since the day it was announced, over a month ago (or around there). Does this mean that I was part of a super secret google test crew? Probably not. Apparently I am not the only one that is confused by the recent reporting on the “first” public beta.
This is one more sign that Slashdot is losing it’s luster. On a site like digg, this would have been caught early and never even made it to the front page. Unlike slashdot, everybody can be an editor on digg and can vote on articles they think are worthy of everybody’s attention.
Technorati Tags: digg, slashdot
As a graduation requirement in the state of California, each High School student is required to pass a rigorous mental challenge known in the academic community as the “California High School Exit Examination”. This assessment tests a students ability to use skills essential to graduate high school. The English portion of this test consists mainly of reading passages and answering questions but also has an essay portion with a prompt so secret that it cannot be read aloud by anybody (including the person administering the test). On the other hand, the math section is a little more difficult, covering such complicated concepts as figuring out the area of a rectangle and how to read venn diagrams.
During the last few days I was given the opportunity to try out this beast of an exam. Yesterday was the English section. I was not feeling too great considering I was sick all day monday but still managed to give it my best effort. My essay ended up being about “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” but it could have been on almost anything. Today was the mathematics section and my only thoughts were, “If this is all I need to know for high school, then what have I been doing taking math for the last 4 years?”
Technorati Tags: education, highschool, life, school
A new study finds that fake friendliness shown by flight attendants, sales people, waiters and others who work with the public for extended periods of time might be detrimental to health. Moral of the story: Don’t be fake, you could die.
Technorati Tags: health
I believe it is time for a major overhaul of this blog. First off, it needs a new and original design. If you have any ideas, feel free to contact me. Also, I need to post more, a lot more. This blog has been neglected while my del.icio.us has been going crazy with all of the links I have posted. Not much else to write at the moment.