I drew this happy bee for Happy, Be!
PrettiGeek Kaitlin Williams is being featured as a “Happiness Muse” on the incredible happiness-based blog Happy, Be!
Go check out my happiness tips and goofy photos and a detailed account of how I wound up in Costa Rica! You know you want to read it! : )
You remember the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, right? It was pretty much the greatest game my 2nd grade self had ever witnessed. In the last few years, I was fortunate enough to find this game at a garage sale and continue to enjoy its wonders. One of the best things about the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis (aside from customizing the Zoombinis themselves) was the music!
So here is an awesome remix punctuated with Zoombini music and sound effects.
Yeah. You’re welcome. : )
Sometimes it’s the strange little things that make all the difference when you’re living abroad. You’ll get used to it all over time, but to an observer such as myself, I find these little things make for some of the best stoies about living abroad.
This is an authentic Costa Rican shower. I have one just like this. They’re sometimes called Suicide Showers. Why? Because they are electirc.
“WHAAAAAAT!?!?”
Yep. With year round temperatures averaging in the low 70s to high 80s (at least in San Jose. It’s much warmer on the coasts), Costa Ricans live primarily without hot water. Instead, when they’re looking for a warm shower, they use their electric shower head.
The shower head heats the water as it sprays out, so the trick is to keep the water low. Sure, you lose water pressure, but you can get your water just as warm as any shower Stateside. Which is a true luxury, by the way. For my month-long stint living on the Pacific coast in Costa Rica. I had absolutely no hot water. Just looking at these Suicide Showerheads takes some getting used to. A lot of them have duct tape wrapped around the wires. Continue reading
Hey, pretti-geeklings! It’s been awhile, I know, but I’m still here. I thought today I would relay a little story to you. Daily life in Costa Rica, is, on the whole, not much different from daily life anywhere in the world. San Jose is full of people just trying to get from A to B, trying to work, trying not to work, trying to feed their families and live their lives. I’m sometimes struck by the normalcy of it all. I spend days utterly oblivious to the fact that I’m in FUCKING COSTA RICA! But everytime I look at the mountains, I remember. I love the mountains.
SO anyway, I am getting used to the hustle and bustle in San Jose, but it’s still difficult at times. Although I do have my degree in Spanish, I reeeeeeally don’t know how much I deserved it. My Spanish is only so so. And the bus schedule is HARD. I commute about half an hour to my job, and to do that I take 2 different buses. I can’t take the same buses back, for some reason though. The whole San Jose local bus schedule is kind of a mystery to me, and they don’t have it up online. You pretty much just have to learn by trial and (grievous) error, which happened to me just last week.
On Tuesday of last week, I experienced a breakthrough. I took all the right buses. I made it home in record speed. Tuesday FTW! So Wednesday after work, I was not only mentally exhausted, but cocky to boot. I was a bus-taking badass. I can take buses like a motherfucking superhero! Anyway, I always take the Santa Teresa bus, and that Wednesday was no different. I vaguely recall the bus driver saying something to me in Spanish, but I chose not to pay attention. My commute is my “space out” time.
Sooooo when the bus turned in a completely different direction than it normally goes, I thought, “Hmm…that’s odd.” Lots of buses in San Jose go to the same places, but they can take millions of different routes to get to those places. It was only when the bus made a drastic turn in a definite wrong direction that I started to panic. Continue reading
So, hi PrettiGeeks and newcomers. Today I am going to write about my life in Costa Rica. Because I’m finally getting it together. So what’s “Pura Vida”? Pura Vida means “pure life” in Spanish, and it is the Costa Rican motto. In fact, if you ask someone how they are, “Pura Vida” is a common response. Costa Rica embodies the idea of pura vida. Everyone is so laid back. (I think it must be the warmth haha).
I’m laying on my stomach on my bed in my Costa Rican bedroom as Iwrite this. If you were here with me, you wouldn’t notice anything truly different from a typical American home–except fo the lack of closet (I have lots of shelves). Kitten Ezra is bounding across my room after a paper ball, and it has just stopped raining. San Jose is a little colder than coastal areas, and the chill pervades the whole room, thanks to the breeze from the window. I’m glad to have my fleece jacket.
I’ve been living in Costa Rica for 10 days, and it has been extraordinarily eventful. I was fortunate enough to secure an apartment via Craigslist before I got here. And I was even more fortunate to find that my new roommate was as PrettiGeeky as I am! Anais and I have a lot of randomness in common, such as our love of many hilarious youtube videos and our penchant for going on spontaneous walking adventures.
So, what am I doing here? I’m not entirely sure. Living, traveling, working on Spanish (this is a definite), “broadening my horizons” as they say. I guess I’m doing it all. I have a job writing for a website–not teaching, as I had originally planned to do.
You’ll notice that this blog post has no pictures. Yeah. I broke my camera before I left for Costa Rica, so I am currently camera-less. Eventually I’ll buy a cheap digital camera, but for now, you’ll have to use your IMAGINAAAAATION!
Are there geeks in Costa Rica? I think so. Anais and I certainly are. As for the rest, it’s too early to tell. I’ll continue to blog about my adventures as they occur. But for now, I am exhausted and have a long day of writing web content and riding buses tomorrow.
Ciao, readers! Pura Vida!
While Michelle and I are both sportsfans, and you can be sure both of us will be watching the game (if I can find a good Americanized sports bar in Costa Rica), we are also HUGE animal fans! So in honor of today’s super bowl, we present adorability in the form of Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl!
You can catch this year’s Puppy Bowl (and its darling Kitty Half-time Show) on the Animal Planet Channel! Happy Super Bowl, everyone!
Filed under iGeek
Here at PrettiGeeky we have healthy appreciation of candy. Being girls with hormones helps maintain that. And as always, our interests in the obscure and the nerdy often collide with our overly-active sweet teeth. When your cravings are both sweet AND geeky, a Hershey bar just won’t cut it. Fortunately for you, PrettiGeeky has compiled a list of candies that will sate your sweet tooth and nourish your neurons all at once!
These awesome gummy Starship Enterprises are sure to tickle any Trekkie’s fancy! Enjoy juicy blasts of fruity flavor as you endeavor to keep peace in the galaxy.
With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, geeks across the globe are agonizing over what to give their geeky lovers or friends. These adorably nerdy conversation hearts are a good option, although I found myself mentally writing better versions. Where are “Text Me” and “Facebook Me”? What about “Love Bytes”?
Well, at least this is literally food for thought.
The original meaning of the word “Geek” referred to a bizarre carnival performer, oftentimes one who bit the heads off live animals (usually a chicken). Contemplate the true meaning of your geekdom as you throw back these bite-sized little Geeks made by thinkgeek.com.
These colorful little candies are even caffeinated! I’m not sure you could say the same about the chicken blood.
This gorgeous and delicious-looking white chocolate keyboard was first created by muratsuyur of deviantART. Unfortunately, it isn’t really chocolate. It’s just as photoshopped image. But, damn, what a great idea! Can you spell Y-U-M?
According to the lore of the Elder Gods, the tentacled Cthulhu lies dead and dreaming beneath the ocean, awaiting a time of awakening. Whenever that time comes, one can be assured, he will be clean and minty. No dragon breath for this Dark Lord! His dream of inciting the apocalypse includes him looking fresh as a daisy.
Borrow a little of his good-breath staying power with these Cthulhu mints. Goodness knows, your blind dates will be far more interesting if you consult your Necronomicon and pray to the Elder Gods beforehand.
Remember that time I posted all of those awesome Zelda N64 remixes? Well, now it’s time for some pocket monster action! I found some interesting trends in remixed Pokemon music–there seem to be quite a few more “heavy metal” remixes than I anticipated. Also, there were way more remixes of the cartoon theme song than the video game music, but I did get some of both! There’s even a little Pokemon Snap remix, so take a listen!
This one features the pokemon song in different languages!
Here’s some heavy metal coming at cha! This is actually my favorite of the three.
Oh, snap!
Oh, pokemon, you’re my best friend in a world we must defend. Doesn’t this music just make you want to surrender now, or possibly prepare to fight? (Meowth! That’s right!)
In any case, I’ve become a remix junky. I plan to search for many more. Also, if you know of any badass remixes or have any requests for future remix posts, post them in the comment section! : )
Nothing like a trip abroad to make you feel like Odysseus. The process of taking an animal abroad is like pulling teeth without anesthesia : painful, messy and lacking a contact buzz. I spent hours googling things like “International travel with cat” and “Bringing a pet to Costa Rica.” None of the websites I looked at had ALL of the information I needed, so I am posting the story of my experiences for other pet-loving travelers out there.
I am just going to relate my story here. I’m sure there are multiple accounts of pets traveling abroad online, and that other countries have different requirements and regulations. This is just my story, and it starts with her:
She's prettigeeky too!
This is my baby kitty Ezra, and she’s pushing 9 months old. (Yes, I know “Ezra” is a boy’s name. When I first adopted her, I was told she was a boy.) She is a rambunctious little thing, but a very good traveler. And now she’ll have a stamp in her passport. Continue reading
Hi, readers! Kaitlin, here! I am 49.999999724% of the PrettiGeeky writing staff.
Anyway, I am writing this post because I am moving to San Jose, Costa Rica. This Sunday. Yeeep.
So…does this mean I am quitting the blog? Um. NO! You can expect continued posts from me in true geekgirl fashion. I will also be blogging about the pura vida (pure life) in Costa Rica. There will be some travel blogging, there will be some laughter. Hopefully there will be many pictures!
For now, here’s a pretty picture I took on a boat when I was there a month ago.
Preeeeeeeetti!
Yep. This is TOTALLY where I’m going! (Although San Jose is not on the beach).
I’m hopefully going to be either teaching English or blogging/doing Internet Marketing. Also, I’m bringing my kitten, which has been an extraodinarily harrying process, and we haven’t even left yet! That will most certainly warrant an in-depth how-to blog post once I am in the balmy, palmy climes of Costa Rica.
So, expect more travel posts as time wears on, and maybe even some pictures of my brand new life abroad!
