it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire
two weeks ago I was preparing lunch, and being the cooking whiz that i am (note my sarcasm), i was simultaneously cooking spaghetti, heating up soup, and frying a steak. i must not have known my own super strength because when I put the steak in the smoking hot oil (the goal was to flambé it), the oil splattered like crazy and practically flambéd my wrist instead of the meat. whoops. i burned the FUCK out of my wrist and the base of my thumb -- 2nd degree. could have been worse, i suppose, but OUCH!! david walked into the kitchen and found me crying like a baby ... and still cooking. i, being an idiot, decided the damage was already done to my wrist, so why screw with lunch too? i finished the steak and then tended to the burn. note to self: don't be so stupid. anyways, two weeks, several yards of gauze and a few pain pills later, it's healing nicely. it still looks rather ghastly but it'll heal up without much scarring, i think. sheeeesh.
meanwhile, things have been heating up here lately in terms of work -- business has been busy, david's been über-stressed with several other work-related projects that he's gotten roped into doing, and my tourism classes have been alternately boring, interesting and stressful. vaughn is here in lima!! it is so lovely to have him around. also, my rovery MARISSA is going to visit me!!! YAAAAAY!!! i'm so excited to see her and show her around my home here!
the people-watcher in me has been thinking lately about college student culture. in the states, in my experience, "going to college" often means "going AWAY to college". you fly the coop, you move out of your parents' home, you go get completely immersed in studying and socializing. even if you're not living on campus, you are likely to be sharing an apartment with friends. after that, it's usually expected, however unrealistically, that you'll soon be supporting yourself, launching whatever fabulous career you were supposedly trained for. there's a lot of pressure, from society, professors, parents, and students themselves to get ahead as quickly as possible. if you aren't self-sufficient or going places with your career, you might be looked down on.
in lima, I see a different sort of culture for college students. one, colleges here have no dorms. you don't live on campus. you generally stay at home with your parents, even long after graduating college. why move out when it's so much simpler to stay at home? it's just the way things go. that means there's less pressure to become self-sufficient in that same way, less pressure to hurry up and figure out your career and get it off the ground. this is cool, that college students seem to have more of a support system in place for them. they can take their time figuring things out. it's normal for people to take breaks in the middle and finish getting their diploma later. the flip side is a lack of privacy. you are living under your parents' roof, you are dependent on them, and that can be stressful for young adult couples. on a different note, there's less pressure to party like crazy, since the drinking age is 18. it's just not a big deal to go out or buy a drink, any teenager can buy a beer. then again, without dorms to mess around in, ya gotta go SOMEWHERE, so all the bars in the city are chock full of hipster college students looking for a place to kick back.
i don't know if this is an interesting topic to anyone else. but i would like to keep thinking about "adolescence" and/or "becoming an adult" and how it differs from place to place depending on what the rules are for that rite of passage (in this case, going to college).
meanwhile, things have been heating up here lately in terms of work -- business has been busy, david's been über-stressed with several other work-related projects that he's gotten roped into doing, and my tourism classes have been alternately boring, interesting and stressful. vaughn is here in lima!! it is so lovely to have him around. also, my rovery MARISSA is going to visit me!!! YAAAAAY!!! i'm so excited to see her and show her around my home here!
the people-watcher in me has been thinking lately about college student culture. in the states, in my experience, "going to college" often means "going AWAY to college". you fly the coop, you move out of your parents' home, you go get completely immersed in studying and socializing. even if you're not living on campus, you are likely to be sharing an apartment with friends. after that, it's usually expected, however unrealistically, that you'll soon be supporting yourself, launching whatever fabulous career you were supposedly trained for. there's a lot of pressure, from society, professors, parents, and students themselves to get ahead as quickly as possible. if you aren't self-sufficient or going places with your career, you might be looked down on.
in lima, I see a different sort of culture for college students. one, colleges here have no dorms. you don't live on campus. you generally stay at home with your parents, even long after graduating college. why move out when it's so much simpler to stay at home? it's just the way things go. that means there's less pressure to become self-sufficient in that same way, less pressure to hurry up and figure out your career and get it off the ground. this is cool, that college students seem to have more of a support system in place for them. they can take their time figuring things out. it's normal for people to take breaks in the middle and finish getting their diploma later. the flip side is a lack of privacy. you are living under your parents' roof, you are dependent on them, and that can be stressful for young adult couples. on a different note, there's less pressure to party like crazy, since the drinking age is 18. it's just not a big deal to go out or buy a drink, any teenager can buy a beer. then again, without dorms to mess around in, ya gotta go SOMEWHERE, so all the bars in the city are chock full of hipster college students looking for a place to kick back.
i don't know if this is an interesting topic to anyone else. but i would like to keep thinking about "adolescence" and/or "becoming an adult" and how it differs from place to place depending on what the rules are for that rite of passage (in this case, going to college).