*OLD* December 7th, 2005- 10 Days of Christmas about 8 Days Too Soon

So I have 10 days left until THE RETURN. Yes, I´m talking the Return of Epic Proportions. I´m talking trilogy THE RETURN. I´m talking RETURN OF THE JEDI AND RETURN OF THE KING RETURN TO THE FUTURE III (I streched that one but in spanish I´m golden) style. On a mental sidenote projected into cyberspace, I think we men can all agree that Aragorn is the ultimate man and one whom we should all strive to be (the wanderer with a reputation Strider, the valiant warrior, the faithful friend, the rightful King, the lover of an Elvish princess and/or Liv Tyler, long hair, scraggly beard, etcetera etcetera).
Moving right along, I´ve decided to use this number 10 in a montage of fun facts in a numerical order adhering to the obvious countdown beginning with ten and ending with one (feel free to meander off for several minutes in Monty Pythonesque discussion of whether eleven can be counted or two before three or after three etc.). Without further ado, because honestly there really couldn´t be much more mindless fluff before the countdown (unless you are of course Dave Eggers and your email is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and the mindless fluff is the 45 page long acknowledgements section! good book), here it is.

10. 10 days in Ecuador will follow shortly after my return. Consider it a "cooling down period" like when you run and win the New York Marathon...you don´t just stop at the ribboned finish line, you give it a few good staggers before you pass out on the ground. or at least i would. thus ecuador. oh, and a little sister who´s going there with me.

9. Number of pictures I took of sea lions while in Ushuaia. All of the same 9 sea lions. I just couldn´t figure out which one had the best lighting and as of now have yet to reduce it to a more normal number of sea lions pictures. What is a normal number that one should take?

8. I could say 8 photos and cheat my way out of this one, but I won´t. Instead I will make an allusion to number 11, which isn´t on this list. It was an eleven word "if statement" looking something like "If God is the supreme physician and healer of the broken-hearted," then the 8 word conclusion is "the contemplation of nature is a sovereign remedy." For the distelled sentence challenged, it reads:If God is the supreme physician and healer of the broken-hearted, the contemplation of nature is a sovereign remedy.

7. 7 months that I´ve been in South America. Now that´s getting a little ridiculous even for me.

6. Out of a list of 40, only 6 never replied to an email. One of them was me. i guess i never got sleepdeprived enough to think of writing myself. That gives me a batting average of 87.5 percent. That´s a B+ at Georgetown (3.3 GPA) but only a B at UGA (3.0 GPA). Grade inflation, anybody? Fortunately, my time here in Argentina is on a pass/fail basis which means I needed only 40 percent (4 out of 10 passes in BsAs). So once again, I´m golden. Oh, if you are one of six, and that includes me, and feel abashed or emboldened, you still have 10 days to write back...

5. By the time my South American adventure is over I will have visited 5 countries: Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Ecuador.

4. 4 months until the next baseball season. If you´re a true fan, you´d know it´s 117 days away. This year is going to be a good year. Go Braves!

3. 3 Turtledoves. Imagine the consequences. I mean, we all know that 2 turtledoves have been the norm for well over a century. What happens when you add the third wheel? Fights, Friends, Friction, Fowlfreeforall? I bet you could make a movie about it. THE NIGHTMARE OF THE 3RD NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS!!! (subtitled the Day the French Hens Disappeared)

2. I had a dream last night that I came home and couldn´t remember how I got there and learned that both my kidneys had failed so I had to be brought home. I´m not sure where the kidney failure idea entered my subconscience or why that caused temporary amnesia, but it has the number two and that´s good enough for me right now because I have been up for two hours plus a day and just wrote 9 pages in spanish in 2.5 hours about the russian mafia, remittances to latin america, central american gangs, bolivian foreign affair policy especially focusing on the chile aspect, and things of that nature.

1. You. because you are unique (or special as our moms like to say). and christina aguilera thinks you´re beautiful, no matter what they say.

Happy Day that starts with C and ends in S and is not Clinton Portis Day.

Josh Bull

ps the boy age 8 who accosted me in the subway and gave me the gem of wisdom on grey hair, hailed me again today. I approached him. He looked me up and down, then kicked me in the shin. Nothing more, nothing less. I´m still trying to think of the profound truth in this situation. Maybe it´s that instruction is sometimes painful or that we carry around the marks of our teachers for a long time. I dunno.