happy new year!

I haven't really written up a long blog entry or anything, but I just thought I'd check in and say hi! It's 2009!

I rang in the new year on the beach in Cabarete, which is a beautiful beach. We had good weather & good people there. All in all, a good way to start a new year. (Also: hola to Pedro's girlfriend Ashley.)

Since then, I've mostly been trying to get used to being in my site again, since I spent almost all of December not being here. I'm working on re-conquering my Dominican Social Anxiety Disorder, which manifests with me not wanting to leave my house ever because I'll have to speak Spanish to someone. I started with baby steps, like going to the colmado and getting a new botellon of water, then worked my way up to paying my electricity bill, going to the Internet center, and going to the school to try to teach English class (but no one came). Today, Dios wiling, I'm going to swing by my host family's house.

Also, I might do some laundry, which doesn't require me to speak Spanish but it is something that I don't really want to do.

In other news: I'm working on uploading photos, but the Internet has been pretty slow.