Mom, I'm Staying, and there is NO Stopping Me!

EPA!!!!!
(the team's new catch phrase)
I love the rain forrest!

The ecological growth and beauty of earth allowed me to experience a greater feeling towards life. There is no explaining the evolution that I underwent this weekend. I’ve grown to a higher level by witnessing first hand one of the world’s most beautiful ecosystems -- that of the rain forest. The coexistence of man and nature within such a delicate environment, amazes me and makes me want to tear down the corporate US and tell those aristocrats to learn to be human beings again and not be ridiculous over this worthless item called cash.

Not to be anti-climatic and fearful as many people may be, I wanted to take a deeper step towards human excellence and become closer to nature. To do so, I left the comfort of my bed in the cabin and slept outside on the hardwood deck. Everything that I witnessed was so marvelous that I doubt that most of you would ever be able to understand! As the sun rose the first day that I slept outside, I witnessed the sky as if it were on fire. There was a lightening storm going on at that time and the site is something that only the very lucky would ever be able to witness. I was locked out of the room so I wasn’t able to get any video or pictures of the dazzling site, but I will always have the memories!

Right about now, most of you think I’m crazy for even thinking of sleeping outside. Well, I am, but that is beside the point! The sights, the smells, the sounds; I’ll be able to hold that for years to come! I also believe it was much safer out there than in my room. The bugs did not bother me as badly, the snoring of some of my fellow male comrades wasn’t there, and plus, I didn’t have bats messing with me in the middle of the night like they did!

If you know me well enough, then you know that I can not speak Spanish even if my life depended on it! That made the communication factor of this trip a little tough, yet I was able to make a lifelong friend even with the odds against me! ¡Victor! He is one of the hardest working people that I’ve met yet he is so down to earth. We both helped each other struggle with one another’s language just so that those barriers wouldn’t stop us from communicating in some sort of fashion! I’d love to come back somewhere on down the road and have a true conversation with him in both of our native dialects. I think we’re both most likely to work at it.

Speaking of work, rebuilding a ravaged football (soccer for all of you Gringos back in the States) field in the blazing heat was exceptionally tough! Collectively, as a team, for lack of better words, we kicked ass!

I’ve learned a gigantic lesson from my experience in Costa Rica; bite your tongue! Unneeded drama can be solved all by sucking it up and taking one for the team and not saying a word. This then allows for moments as a team to completely overshadow insignificant dilemmas that may be created by specific team members. The greatest example of this would be all of the swimming we did, whether it was in the waterfalls or in the Pacific Ocean.

I have decided that I am going to try and play football (soccer you fools) once I get to college; all because I have found it to be one of the most exciting and fulfilling sports ever! I already loved the game to begin with, but playing it is such a better experience. I am going to have to train very hard even though defensively, I am pretty darn good. However, I need to work on my headers, my dribbling, and stamina, which means I’ll probably play intramurals my first year and try to be a walk-on in my second. I play extremely aggressively, only because I learned from those on the field facing me; meaning the Ticos! Oliver is tall, he scored 2 goals. However, Rodrigo dominated the two games by scoring 500 goals. He is commonly referred to as “That Guy.” He is an outstanding player and would probably play better then anyone on the US’s World Cup team. I won’t dare give the final score because it just shows how horrible US soccer is!

There is way too much to talk about!

At the beach, there were some over-ambitious monkeys and lizards that scared the baduzle out of a couple of the girls, which includes Mr. Filipiak. The day before at the volcano trip, I asked Oliver permission to listen to my Mp3 player to experience this beautiful work of nature corresponding with masterpieces made by man. The wind, the rain, the leaves, the birds; all of the movement I saw and felt, gave me inspiration to drive myself to become closer to what life is actually supposed be. Whether it was the lack of the proper words to this, people saw me doing something that was the exact opposite of my intention. What’s done is done and cannot change, now or forever.

Finding a higher meaning to life was the greatest goal that I hoped to accomplish from this trip and that is the same sentiment everyone I discussed the trip with who did not go felt. I wanted to find my center and reach one step closer towards human excellence; I wanted to build bridges and form multiple new relationships. I believe that I have reached these goals as well many unforeseen goals that I gained along the experience. I’d like to thank everyone who helped in the whole entire experience and now it’s back to Pittsburgh at 2 PM!

---Alexander Bobbs