sheachristineprueger: polaroids and digitals, impractical purse

As I slightly mentioned before, my priorities changed over the summer. Playing the never ending career game of chutes and ladders was at the last of my to-do' list, and 'doing whatever I wanted' and 'just living' made it to the top. Central America fit into this idea. However, constant reminders of the rigged board game kept piling into my inbox. Polaroids. Polaroids don't mean what they use to, what it means is a bunch of digital shots -- no makeup, bikini, all angles. These digital shots are a nightmare. If for some reason I didn't think I was self-conscious or vain, the digitals are a slap in the face, made by my very own personal ego. And this time, I had to have 'the guy' take them. He couldn't have spent his life farther away from the world I have been entangled with, so it was weird to start 'posing' for him, and I found myself saying 'well, do I look O.K.?', 'are you sure?'. But these shots are the shots that confirm contracts with agencies, they show what you look like on any given day. So we took them. And as always with the Asian market, they weren't 'clear' enough, or 'close enough', or the 'lighting was too bright' or 'too dim', so we took them again (as nothing is ever perfect, but somehow my job lives and breaths on an ideal of perfection), and again. Until finally, they were 'passable'.

We made it out of NYC just before the fake hurricane hit. We were reading the news, prepping ourselves for martial law declared on all of our dear friends, until the hurricane didn't happen and everything went back to normal. But other than that storyline, and a few emails and Skype sessions with dear friends, we were disconnected from the world we had just been immersed in. We used dial up internet, or sometimes no internet, and didn't have phones, except for one shared landline. Everything was relaxed, but we knew that at some point, I would get the email from my manager that said, 'O.K., here is when you need to be at the airport'. All thanks to the digital polaroids. Digital polariods!

I decided from the very beginning that I really wanted to go to Honduras. Mainly, I just thought it sounded cool (seriously). People go to Puerto Rico, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. all the time, but I don't know many people who take trips to Honduras. I was also intrigued by the Mayan ruins, and decided Honduras was the place I wanted to see them. 'The guy' agreed, so while he complained that my bag was 'in no way okay for this sort of traveling', we headed to Copan, Honduras.