phew.

happy may and all that. it seems a bit surreal to be in may already.

anyways, back from vacation. back in the states. and, no matter how much i fight it, back to the ol' american way.

it happens every time i come back from mexico. while i'm there i hang out with the national people; i help them out, have a good chat or play games (read: get beat in soccer).

sometime, usually after i meet a few new friends, i become daftly confused.

for these people emit a radiance of contentment and satisfaction that one cannot mistake for anything else. they either don't know what they don't have, or simply don't care. each little kid is so happy just to be playing with a nerf football that he doesn't realize it's pink. let another have 3 crayons to borrow to color with and you've never seen a bigger smile. and, this troubled me greatly, i had one boy beg me for my pen.

we were leaving, and he saw that i had a pen in my hand. he wouldn't leave me alone. yeah, it was a regular pen. plastic filled with ink.
-shudder-
i kept telling him "una momento," and scantering off to say goodbye to someone else.

he caught me soon after starting the van. he knocked on the window. he asked again. i gave him my pen.

so, these last few days haven't been difficult, but i'm still trying to get through all this haze. we have it so good here, people. and we don't even know it.