Yes, I suck at blogging. This has been made apparent as over the last month I've posted exactly twice.

In other news, I'm done. We're finished. This life-changing semester has come to an end, and it feels more than slightly surreal. I emerged physically unscathed from the dark, dank, fetid, drippy tunnel that was my workload laid on me by CIEE-Santiago Service Learning, but otherwise utterly stimulated and mind-expanded, emotionally and intellectually.

My service project, which I had begun to write off as a total fluke, an ego-fluffer for your typical privileged white college student who believes he can really "make a difference", was received most warmly by Acción Callejera, which makes me think it wasn't such a fluke after all. Also, the fact that I came to be recognized and loved and asked after in El Fracatán had made the experience altogether more worthwhile.

And now, to celebrate my birthday (and the birthdays of two of my closest friends), me he ido a jugar pa la playa. Like what every other tourist comes to the D.R. to do. But I almost feel like I've earned it. Except that's a horrible way to think.

This place has taught me certain vital lessons. The one I pull out of my head most easily is the lesson of patience. We in the US of A (and Europe) are so conditioned to things moving smoothly, going just as we like them to, and we all seem to have forgotten that it's completely impossible to have control over our environment. Therefore we get physically uncomfortable when things don't run smoothly, when things don't go exactly the way we want them to. On the contrary, living in a country for four months where literally NOTHING runs smoothly has taught me (with a roundhouse punch in the face, or whatever that means) that we don't have control over jack shit. The only thing we can control is how we react to our environment and all the curveballs it will throw at us.

Also, I've learned that my pasty, freckled, fair skin renders me incompatible with a tropical climate. I am much better, biologically suited to cool, grey, overcast, chilly places, and plan to spend the vast majority of my future in such places.

I'm sure I've also learned some more profound lessons, that I just can't be bothered to put in writing at the moment.

Al fin y al cabo, I've left part of my soul here in the Dominican Republic. And I'm not expecting it back any time soon, if ever.