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July 10, 1998

School

I'm still doing a lot of research. I think research is definitely my strength. So far, my research topics have been: stigma towards those with diseases; gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment; ethnic differences in coping with stress; ethnic differences in experience with and perception of racism; and the development of a scale to measure one's willingness to interact with a stigmatized person. If you are interested in any of these studies, drop me a line: Roxanne.

I'm pretty much ready to apply for internship this year. (I take my doctoral exams on August 28!) However, Art and I have decided to stick around for one extra year so he can get more experience at his new job. So, I'll be in town for two more school years. I'm hoping to use this time to submit some articles for publication and propose, run, and defend my dissertation. I'll keep you posted.
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Family

Art and I are still trying to have a baby. We start on the next round of fertility treatments soon. Keep you posted on that too. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

My parents finished building and moving into their beautiful new house last Fall. It is literally as amazing as the houses one sees in magazines. What I wouldn't give for the kitchen! We now have a beautiful place for family gatherings where we can swim and feel like we're on vacation. This is the first time I've been in a private home where I would rather stay than go to a hotel! (See pics of Mom's house and THE KITCHEN)

Darryl, Lashawn, and Jasmin are growing up. Darryl is 14, and taller than me. He is moving back to NY to live with my mom. Lashawn will be 12 in just a few days. Haven't seen her yet, but I'm hoping that she isn't taller than me also! I don't want to be the short one again. Jasmin is a very precocious four. She can be sooooo sassy! Lydia is in Texas and is still in the Army. Peter works in rural Pennsylvania at a residential treatment facility / boot camp for boys. He is expecting a daughter in November. If there are any extended family you would like news about, email me and ask:  Roxanne.

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July 8, 1998

I'm now 29!!!! Yippee....and still a child :-)

The Birthday Present

This morning, he calls me into the bedroom, and gives me my present. I open it up, and it's a 900 Mhz cordless phone with volume control on the handset. Now, this is something we needed, as our cordless has no volume and it's hard for me to hear. In addition, our cordless is old that the buttons don't dial consistently anymore. But, trust me when I say I did not want a cordless for my birthday. He said, "It was so cheap, only $50." I'm very disappointed, trying hard not to show it, and thinking, how could he get something so impersonal! Even if he didn't want to spend a lot of money, there are so many things I would have really appreciated that would have been neat. So, we go to eat breakfast, and he gives me another present, and guess what it was? Yep, the PP3. The night before, he called our friend and housemate, Tanya, had her meet him down the block, gave it to her to sneak into her apartment, and then brought the cordless phone home and hid it like it was the only one! I told him I owe him really big, and he kept laughing at the futile attempt I made to seem happy about the phone present.
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The Puerto Rican Vacation

The Last Day: (from an email written June 6)
I had the best day today. It is our last day in Puerto Rico - we fly home tomorrow. We finally made it to El Yunque - the rain forest here. We drove quite a few kilometers up the mountain. Then we looked around to decide where to hike. The trail guide said there were two ways to do it. The easy way was to drive up to the end of the road, then hike about 45 minutes to a lookout tower called El Britton, or, 1.5 hours to the peak of the mountain. The hard way was to take the trail from where we were parked, and hike approximately 2.5 hours to the summit. Art and I looked at each other and said, "Let's do it from here."  Never mind that it has been several years since my last real hike in the woods - these days I do more walking around town instead.

We started out, and the trail was beautiful. About five minutes or so, we came to a dam. The water cascaded over the dam to pretty waterfalls. As we continued up the trail, we saw the most marvelous ferns and bamboo stands. Some of the ferns had leaves taller than Art, and they grew only a few feet off the ground. The bamboo stands stretched far above our heads, maybe 30 feet or so, and had thick stems, some the circumference of my forearm. As we walked up the mountain, the true meaning of rain forest was apparent. In some places, it rained heavily, in others, we broke through the clouds into patches of warm sunlight. Luckily I wore my bathing suit, so I took off my T-shirt to keep it dry and hiked in shorts and my swim-suit. All along the way, there were little waterfalls with crystal clear water running over them. We say lots of flowers, including some beautiful orchids. We also saw plants that we could not identify, with the most curious shapes and fruits. Some looked like prehistoric ferns, and as we walked through the forest, I kept thinking it would be perfect as a set for the movie Jurassic Park.

The ground we walked on varied tremendously. At some points, we walked through bright orange mud. Many of the rocks we passed were an orange-red clay type rock. At other times, the path consisted of rocks that often shifted as you placed your feet. In a few places, the road was fine gravel - whenever we came to those patches, we were thankful not to have to think so clearly of where to put our feet. When it rained, the road sometimes became slippery, with little rivulets of water streaming through the rocks.

We hiked, and hiked, and hiked. Along the way we had a few moments of excitement. Near the top, we came across some teens who were standing at the side of the trail, with one male off the trail in some bushes. We stopped to ask what they were doing, and lo and behold, they had found some raspberries. Art jumped down also to pick some. It should be noted that in most places, off the trail meant pretty much straight down. This was no exception. There were no berries left, and Art wandered slightly down to search for more. As he moved, he slid! He only slid a few feet, luckily being stopped by some trees. But what a moment!  Later on, as we were very near the top, we came across two men from Italy we had seen earlier. The trail branched at this point, and they were on the path that did not look like true trail. They were perched on some rocks. We climbed the rocks, and found we were scaling some rocks, with no handholds and poor footing, that had a sheer cliff on one end going hundreds of feet straight down. At the other, there were some trees to break one's fall. Art is afraid of perilous heights - he can climb mountains and trees, but not if there is a significant danger of falling. He was petrified! But, it was so exhilarating. I climbed all the way up, on my hands and knees in places, and stood up. As far as I could see, there were mountains and clouds below us! A strong cool wind blew, much cooler than the temperatures below the mountains. It truly felt like I was on top of the world.

We finally made it to the top, but it was somewhat disappointing. We felt awesome, because it has been a while since I climbed to such an elevation. But, the day was very cloudy, and we were above the clouds, so there was no view. We were told that on a clear day, one can see 3/4 of the island, all the way past the harbor, on 3 sides. The wind whipped past us, and I was chilled in my swimsuit. At the same time, every time the clouds shifted, one could see some of the view, stretching for miles. Near the top there are a lot of radio type towers. Art tried to find out what they were for. We were told in Spanish that they were microwave repeaters, but we are not sure if the word microwave is a correct translation.

Eventually we headed back down, and we decided to take the road. We went down almost an hour, then hiked a little way up to El Britton Tower lookout. That was awesome. You walk through the woods, when out of the blue, there is a stone tower that is about 3 stories high. From the top of the tower, you could see so far. The clouds had cleared, and it was indescribable. At this tower, a sign said the elevation was 3,080 feet.

After, we continued down, and down, and down. This was the most painful part - we forgot how much one's knees hurt hiking downhill. And, as we were following the road, we were afraid that we had somehow taken the wrong one and would not be able to get to the parking lot unless we hiked way down the mountain. Art was awesome and helped me walk down - by this time, my legs were shaking with exhaustion. When we finally came to the road we recognized, we stopped to drink. A family we had met at the top offered us a ride the rest of the way down. It turned out we were only about 20 minutes walk away from the car.

To end our day, we drove five minutes or so to Luquillo Beach. This beach is neat - there are literally no waves. I am not sure why this is so - I found out on the net that there is a coral reef protecting the beach, but I never knew this could prevent waves. Anyway, we drove there, and dove into the water, playing around for about an hour. We came out of the water as the sun set. As we washed off and dressed, we saw the sun fall into the ocean.  What a beautiful end to a beautiful day.
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THE VACATION SO FAR: (from an email written June 2nd)
Well, when we got here, we mapped out some things to do. We really haven't done as much as we planned though. The first day, we unpacked, napped, and walked around town. On Wednesday, we drove to Old San Juan. It is the oldest city in the United States, I think. There are forts, castles, and old buildings and the entire city is walled in. In fact, the whole city is old - no new buildings in Old San Juan. All the buildings are painted different colors, and have narrow doors. Some of the balconies are so covered with flowering plants that it is hard to tell there is a balcony there at all! We rented a tandem bike that first day to go around. It was so scary! I rode in the back, and you can't really control the bike - you just balance. Since I am not a good biker, it felt so wobbly - it kept tilting left and right and I was afraid it would topple over. Then, I tried riding in front. That was even worse because I couldn't control it. The whole town is very hilly and I was afraid of falling or hitting a car in the narrow streets. We ended up going back and getting single bikes, which we rode to the forts and around town a little.

We spent the next day at the beach, and on Thursday went snorkeling. I have gone snorkeling at least twice before, and have also been on boats. But, believe it or not, I got seasick! I don't know why.  It wasn't very terrible - I think it must have been because someone close to us was smoking and that made me feel nauseous. From there, I couldn't get seem to get better. We put lots of lotion on Art, but we forgot to do his legs. So, we go in the water, and we snorkel around, which was a blast. Cancun had much better reefs for snorkeling, but Puerto Rico wasn't bad at all. The rocking of the ocean made me nauseous, so I came back on the boat early, but it wasn't too bad. Art is a fish! He swam way out to another boat that was anchored far from shore away from everyone else, then swam back. I kept hearing the theme music from Jaws in my head while he was gone. At the end of the day, Art discovered that he had a pretty bad sunburn on his calves! Every other part of him had been underwater or covered in lotion, except his calves. For a couple of days, we had to keep him sprayed with Solarcaine since it was so painful.  We spent Saturday recovering from snorkeling and sleeping around the hotel - a pretty nice relaxing day.

We also went to dinner at this really neat Spanish restaurant. It was tucked away in a somewhat run-down neighborhood. We had been told that street had lots of food restaurants, but when we drove/walked around we didn't see many. In fact, the neighborhood looked kind of scary, and some man said something to us about Americans in Spanish that was too fast for Art to understand. We saw the restaurant and decided to go in and check it out. When we walked in, we discovered it was a really fancy restaurant. The waiters and busboys were all in tuxedos, and Art and I were wearing shorts and casual clothes. Oops. Our waiter was from Spain, and is interested in starting his own business in Puerto Rico, or maybe in the Dominican Republic. He has tried several times, but has failed for different reasons. He is a baker, and has also trained in business administration. I love meeting people and hearing their life story. He said that when his father became sick in Spain, he returned there and brought with him a DJ from Puerto Rico. They started a business that was doing well but the DJ died in a car accident. So, now he is back here trying to start a restaurant. The food was awesome at this restaurant. I never imagined Spanish food was that creative. We had fish turnovers in a red pepper sauce, codfish soup with leeks, halibut with a tangy sweet tamarind sauce, oxtail stew with rice and beans, and a yummy desert of caramelized bananas on top of cream filled phyllo dough on three sauces - bananas, strawberry, and a green one we couldn't place.  Yummmmmmm. Overall though, it appears that Puerto Rican food is not spicy at all! I was surprised - I guess Mexican food is, but not Puerto Rican. Art loves it though, and so do I, so it could be a nice tasty ethnic food we eat without arguing.

Sunday we went to the Cavernas de Rio de Camuy. It is a cave system that holds the 3rd largest underground river in the world. The Rio de Camuy was a muddy brown - really looked like thick mud when we could see it. But, in some places, you could hear it rushing really fast -  I think down where we can't see it is where it is more like a river.  Walking around outside the caves, was neat. At one point, there were stairs going down to one of the entrances. You weren't allowed to go in that entrance, but we walked down the over 200 steps then back up. At the bottom, you gazed up and felt like you were at end of a huge green tunnel.

The cave is supposed to have over 10,000 bats, and they showed us tons of guano painting the walls. The cave had tons of stalactites and stalagmites. You looked up, and it looked like someone made one of those stucco ceilings, but let the paint drip too much. It really was inspiring. We also drank water from the cave. There is one part they call the fountain of youth. The water comes off the wall in a little waterfall. It was yummy - tasted like tap water! It was pretty awe-inspiring being in the caves. It is somewhat dark, like a chapel. The ceilings are huge - you could fit a 17 story building completely inside one of the caves! The people on tour with you stretch out before you in a long line. They look so small and puny, compared to everything else. I was struck by the realization that we are truly small and insignificant - that time and nature has a way of lasting forever, and we are just little blips. Kind of makes you take perspective for a moment.

I've seen the sunrise from the hotel and we've seen the sunset, but not from the same view. The sunrise is magnificent. We can see a long curve of ocean from the window of our hotel to the left. You can see all the way to one tip of the island. There are palm trees lining the beach, and you can see people swimming. The ocean is lots of colors. It is a light color - almost sky blue, where it is shallow. As it goes further out, it is teal and aquamarine. Where the reefs and coral are, it is a dark blue-gray. It is really neat. The sun rises right above the ocean and the palm trees, at the tip of the island. I can lay in bed and see it. To our left is the airport. We can see planes taxiing down the runway as they take off, then they disappear behind the palms for a bit, and come soaring up from the ground at one end of the ocean. It is so cool. The planes are a little loud, but you quickly block them out.

Yesterday and Saturday we went to a local mall. We were going to see a movie yesterday, but we did not want to wait so long. It is really strange - in the mall, people stare at me all the time. I am not imagining it - Art noticed also. I turned around and stared back at people, and they kept staring at me! I am totally nonplused about why this is. It only happened in the mall area - nowhere else! Enough to make a person paranoid. Everyone else has been wonderfully nice.

We are determined to go hiking in the rain forest still. Today we drove around to a really poor part of the island. It was described on the Internet as the center of the island's African culture. When we went, we couldn't find a lot in the towns, but along the roads were tons of shacks where people sold food and crafts. I want to go back and look more closely. There were also tons of little beaches where only the local people go. We saw one beautiful woman who was very pregnant - she was wearing a bikini and getting ready to head on the beach! We also want to go to those beaches - they look less polluted. Our hotel beaches are not polluted with litter, rather, there are lots of jet skis and it smells too much of exhaust sometimes. We came back home and Art crashed, poor baby. When he awakens, we will continue to have our Ping-Pong tournament. Sad to say, he has beaten me 5 games out of 5, but most of them have been within 4 points. I am sure tonight will be the night! We have given up on scuba diving :-( But, we decided to take lessons for sure before our next vacation. Art is worried about how safe it will be if we go out on one of these packages, especially since the person who was going to take us kept changing some info.
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