Southern exposure

It’s about the size of West Virginia, but “The Mountain State” it is not.\nConfused? I’m talking about Costa Rica, where I’ll be spending this semester. From all that I’ve heard about it, this little chunk of land has a pretty impressive record. There’s no standing army, a high literacy rate, a decent health care system and, of course, monkeys. In fact, even though it only constitutes one-tenth of 1 percent of the world’s landmass, it’s home to about 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity. \nFor the tree huggers of the world, Costa Rica is heaven. The environmental policies there, including debt-for-nature swaps and carbon sequestration programs, have been incredibly effective, and I mean 10 times more effective than, say, four Red Bulls are at wiring the average IU student on any given weekend. As you know, that’s a pretty substantial claim to make, but I’ll explain more over the course of the semester.\nSo, needless to say, I’m pretty excited. But as I pack up to leave, it occurs to me that I’m going to miss a lot about IU and, really, the entire country. I know there will be ups and downs, especially as far as cultural adjustments go, but here are the major ones I’ve come up with so far. \nPro: Nobody there cares about \nthe Patriots.\nCon: Nobody there cares about \nthe Colts.\nPro: I get to miss part of election season – there’s only so much one person can take!\nCon: I have to miss season four of “LOST” – there’s only so long a person can go without seeing random black mist jump out of the bushes at Jack and the gang. \nPro: I’m leaving my snow boots at home.\nCon: I’m at a loss on this one. My flip-flops haven’t seen the light of day in far too long! \nPro: Almost everyone there seems to be named Maria, so I really don’t have to work on memorizing names.\nCon: My name is definitely not Maria – is that going to be a problem?\nPro: It’ll be a great opportunity to get better at Spanish. \nCon: Wait, you mean people actually speak in the subjunctive!? I thought that was something our professors made up! This could be interesting ...\nSo, that’s pretty much my upcoming semester in a nutshell. Hopefully I’ll have lots of interesting stuff to report in the IDS, and if not, I guess you can always just complain to my editor about me.\nAnd if I’m boring you, feel free to go to idsnews.com, comment on a column and let me know if there’s something about Costa Rica or Central America that you’ve been dying to knowing about. Come on, there must be something! Besides monkeys, of course – there will be something about them, I promise, just as soon as we get to visit the rainforest. I hear they’re sneaky little buggers.\nSo I guess that’s it for now. Keep Bloomington awesome while I’m gone, OK? \nThanks. We’ll definitely be in touch.\n¡Hasta luego!