Aileen Maria

Some pictures from my trip to Aruba. The beaches are beautiful and the sand is really soft. There were a lot of little fishes in the water that were bold enough to approach us but they didnt come out in the pictures. A lot of people speak both Spanish and English as well as the official language, Dutch and their native language, Papimiento so it's easy to communicate. You could even see Venezuela from the island! It was a great experience and I recommend it as a vacation spot to everyone.

"Sometimes, the universe has already given you what you need. It's just up to you to recognize it."
Lauren in Dirty Girls On Top by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez 

I just finished reading "Dirty Girls on Top", the sequel to The Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez. Well the book made me laugh out loud and tear up just like the first book and my favorite character, Lauren cracked me up the most before she hits a very sad moment. The only thing thing that I started to get annoyed at was the way the characters stereotype people of other backgrounds but I guess that's the point right? They're supposed to be flawed like regular people. At first, I thought Rebecca's British husband was portrayed as an open minded perfectly calm gentleman while the characters continuously described Americans as narrow minded and I have known enough non-americans to learn that they also come in all varieties, narrow minded, unfriendly and the opposite of calm. But then there is some great character development when Lauren realizes that she has been misjudging her white american co-workers all along. She acknowledges that she was too busy putting up walls to look past their differences.

There is some steamy dating and disappointment with Lauren's love interest, which broke my heart as much as it did Lauren's because her boyfriend reminded me of mine, sans the drug dealing past. The wonderful thing about the Dirty Girls books is that you can probably relate to one thing about each character and shake your head at them when they make bad choices like you would with your real girlfriends. I relate to Elizabeth a lot because we are both from the coast of Colombia and poetic but I relate to Lauren even more because I am loud, sometimes very full of anger and not afraid to show my emotions. I also love how the women have been so much older than me since I started reading the books because they have always given me something to look forward to. Can you imagine if I was reading teen books only (cough cough Twilight) instead of Dirty Girls Social Club? I would be one of those pathetic girls my age that thought she was over the hill just because she's no longer in her teens. Not that I dont like reading teen books every now and then. I just think you need to have variety in there so you can stay young at heart AND look forward to growing up.

Some pictures from the last weekend of the play. We had a nice cast party with good food and cake too!

This is the view from where I spent my fourth of July. I was chillin inside an air conitioned apartment in Manhattan sippin champagne. OK I made up de champagne part but de rest is true.