1. A really good laugh, the kind that makes your sides hurt, tears fall and just the thought of it will get you going all over again. An inside joke can help too because it makes you feel connected.
2. Sometimes a good run can do it, but playing soccer will always work. Having the ball at your feet and doing a perfect give and go, or making a slot run towards the goal and hitting a great one-touch shot, doesn't get too much better than that.
3. Trying something or going somewhere new...whether it is learning how to cook something new or figuring out how to get a new place, there is something about discovering you can accomplish something that reminds you how great it is to be alive.
So those are the three things that really do it for me. Think a bit about yours and try to make sure and do at least one of them once a week, or else what's the point? Being with my friends/family/Brenton is also right up there, but it usually leads to one of the three above! Anyway, the reason I'm thinking of this is that today I had the pleasure of doing all three!
1. I guess this isn't a normal kind of inside joke since it is mostly a joke with myself, but my parents are kinda in on it too. There had been a blue car parked on the side of the road, always clogging up traffic on the way to my house, from the time I got here in January until about 2 weeks ago. Everyday this darn blue car wold be sitting there, I was so confused as to why it would NEVER move, what is the point in having a car if it just sits there right? Well about two weeks ago it vanished, gone, just like that. Today it was back and it just made me smile and all seemed right in the world. We'll see if it is back permanently or not!
2. I got to play soccer today!! A friend of a friend got me in touch with one of her friends who plays soccer every Sunday in Port of Spain, I know it is a twisted loop. But I found my way to them and got to play tonight. There were a couple other girls there, which was really nice and they guys weren't crazy macho...they actually passed to us. I was worried since I hadn't played for so long, but it all came back and I surprisingly made some good plays. I can't wait to head back!
3. Trinidad, much like Illinois has two parts. North and South. To the Chicago folk, anything south of I-80 is considered Southern Illinois (to us Central Illinois people, we know there are 3 parts because we should never be confused with the Southerners!). But in Trinidad anything south of the Eastern Main Road is South, and no one seems to mind that. I have yet to venture to South (yes they use it as "I live in South" not "I live in the South") and today I set out into the unknown. Two girls from the University came with me, they are both here for the semester from Canada. We found the taxi stand and after some price negotiating got going. It was about 30 min to San Fernando, the biggest town in South, where we found out way to the Brown Maxi. New color, pretty much the same deal. The driver dropped us right at the entrance of Pitch Lake...which was our reason for heading south in the first place. Trinidad is the sole producer of asphalt, which is the refined product of Pitch. There are sulfur lakes inside a huge black pit that you can actually bathe in. They dig up the pitch and take it the next door refinery. A five foot deep hole, probably that wide as well, will fill back up with pitch in about a week. How cool is that! They have never found the bottom and from estimates, the pitch in the lake will last 400 years at current production rates. It amazes me. Here are some picture...although they kinda just look like pictures of a parking lot!
Above is them excavating Pitch, Pitch in solid form and tar form, me in the sulfur water and the three of us in the middle of the lake.
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