Texas and more

Flying into El Paso on Sunday afternoon was an interesting experience. I spent most of the plane ride reading a book (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo- highly recommend) and didn't look out the window too much. When the pilot announced that we were starting our descent, I opened my window covering and took a look. I froze. Quite possibly due to the amount of LOST I had been watching the day before (and that my flight had been abnormally bumpy and loud), I started to have crazy crazy science fiction inspired thoughts, caused by the fact that it literally looked like we were flying over Mars. We were over what in actuality must be the west Texas desert and then started to see mountains and I had never ever seen anything like it before. Here is a picture of what I saw (this was not taken by me, but I found it on Google Images :)



Needless to say I faced a bit of culture shock when I got here, but in a good way I think. Part of the reason why I was so excited about this job was because I have not seen too much of our great nation and I wanted to broaden my horizons. Remember what I said about everything looking like Maryland? I'm eating my words right now. That being said, I have really enjoyed my time in El Paso and have a lot more of an interest in what is going on in Mexico because you can see it right across the street. Literally it is right there. Juarez, currently Mexico's most dangerous city, borders El Paso and a lot of El Paso's citizens and UTEP students have family there. It is very sad that they no longer feel safe visiting their relatives that live only a few minutes away.

In other news, as I approach the two month mark of being on the road, I have noticed something starting to happen. Though I don't feel homesick in the traditional sense of the word, I have started to dramatically cling to anything that connects me to home. For example, the first night I was here the Cowboys played the Redskins. I have never ever been a NFL fan and though my Dad has always like the Skins I never really took interest. However, the family that I am staying with had the game on (they were cheering on the Redskins too, by the way) and I suddenly felt a very vested interest in the outcome of the game. My passion for sports is typically reserved for Terps Men's basketball and any American team in the Olympics (I love when they chant U-S-A!) but I big time felt it Sunday, only because it gave me some sense of familiarity. It was interesting to me how much I suddenly cared about the game and the team and it made me realize how much I am looking forward to being home for a week next month.

Hope all is well with everyone!

PS- Looking back on this post, it makes me seem a little like someone who is slowly becoming delusional. Let's cross our fingers that its not a side effect of the job. Fellow TLCs, ya with me?