Back in DC :p

I'm back in Washington DC after a grueling 24-hour journey through an unpowered airport, a stop by a friend in Miami, and then multiple planes, crappy food and a slight headache. I'm back on terra-firma, my academic stomping ground. Its interesting coming back. I had so much fun at home that DC almost feels unfamiliar, as if I haven't spent the better part of seven years here. My room looks like it normally does, a little rough around the edges, but everything works. I turn the A/C on and it hums a little too loudly, my internet connection is up and running and the sky looks like it normally does, a little too gray for my liking.

Trips to the states have taught me how to be calm. The first thing I learned about traveling to America as as student: They do not care where you come from. It doesn't matter if your flight is connecting in forty-five minutes, or if your father owns all the land in Tunisia. If you aren't American, you can be bullied, threatened and quite easily delayed. As an international student, I occassionally get put in "the room", which is a cramped space in the corner of the Immigrations Floor in the Miami airport. To verify my documents and my sutdent status, took over two and a half hours. Half a novel and a grumbling stomach later, I was sent on my merry way, not before the person attending to my case said "Damn" after asking me to take my hat off. I was exhausted and not amused. But I wasn't the most ill-treated person in that room. I saw a man with his family face disgrace when he asked one of the officers a question. All he received was a shrug and the statement "You aren't American." Then another officer, with a large gut, military buzz cut and a piggish-nose told them to sit down. Many times he walked around, threating people about their cell phone use, demanding they sit down. I almost laughed when he came near to me to reprimand a man trying to sneak a call. "I cart criminals for my job dude." He said in his i'm-a-bad-mofo voice. Either way, I ended up missing all the flights leaving for DC last night and ended up going into Miami to chill with a family friend. I believe this was meant to be. I stayed with my "aunt" (we call everyone Aunt in Jamaica) and she had an amazing house. At every turn I half-expected to see at MTV cribs crew lurking in the shadows, snapping footage. It was a beautiful house, with high ceilings, great tiling complete with "big room with flat screen TV". Being a pair of doctors in America really has its benefits. I was happy to spend the night there, because in some ways, going into that house gave me a glimpse into the future, when I too might walk into my nice Villa-esque house and laugh wiht my neighbours about how my prize horse has a case of the runs.

The hurricane seems to almost be a distant memory now as I write this. The night of the hurricane was challenging in some ways, with flooding issues in the house, a missing window and and an onslaught of mosquitoes. Even though I spent the entire day attending to all things house involved, at the end of the night I wrote six pages chronicling the entire saga, which is currently on my sister's laptop. Whenever I get access to that document i'll put some of it in this blog. I'm tired an hungry, but I feel like i've achieved a few interesting things recently. I planned to write a book while I was in Jamaica, and currently, I'm almost there. I've acheived "basic novel length" which is 50,000 words (50,091 to be exact), I made a few interesting contactws regarding doing some magazine writing and I've made some goals for the near future. School isn't even looking that bad. Two classes in particular i'm looking forward to are, Screenwriting and Cinematography. These classes and a few others will make me decide whether or not i'm interested in doing a masters in something related to film. I still feel a tad light-headed, so until I blog again, ciao.