Omar On The Go

Day 51 Very simple post.  Remember the story of my first trip to Puerto Rico?  The one I told ChatGPT to write about?  Well, when I went back home, I started checking some photo albums, and well, I got some a few pictures of that trip.  I will, as best as I can, write about the pictures and try to remember, as best as possible how I felt then, and how I feel now about those pictures. Without further ado, below the pics: This was probably one of the last days at the Guajataca Boy Scout camp.  I've been trying to find myself in this picture to no avail but probably I felt shy as fuck, back then I was really bad at making friends or feeling comfortable among people I did not know and on top of that, imagine me being the only one who did not have a boy scout uniform, well, for someone who had really big issues fitting in, that didn't help much.  That said, I did enjoy my time in Puerto Rico doing weird stuff I've never done before, and it was just the first of ...

Day 44 Languages, a sort of hobby for me.  Learning languages has not always been something I wanted to do, but as I saw myself surrounded by so many different people and cultures, I kind of took an interest in them.   Growing up in the Dominican Republic has, like everywhere else, its ups and downs.  In a city like Santo Domingo, which is the biggest and most important city of the country, the expats are almost non-existent, it would be very rare to meet someone who was not Dominican up to the point where if you were not from there, your nickname would be your country of origin.  Is a fairly common thing for us to do, and please note that we don't mean disrespect or any kind of ill sentiment, is just how we are and try to make things easier for us. While I lived there, for all the people I met, very few were not Dominican.  In school we had Liu, el chino or the Chinese, while technically he was actually Taiwanese, Irayda, a Peruvian Dominican, Werner who w...

Day 24 Feeling a bit tired to write something but a friend gave me the great idea to use ChatGPT to write today's post and go from there.  I went into the SW, gave it a few directions and bam, read below: My second trip outside the Dominican Republic was a week-long Boy Scout camp at Guajataca in Puerto Rico. My father, who had the idea to go, had arranged for my brother and I to attend, even though we were not Boy Scouts. It was the summer of 1994, and I was only 9 years old. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. It was the first time I had ever been on a plane and the first time I had ever been away from my family for more than a few days. The camp was located in the middle of the jungle, but to our surprise, we didn't have to hike to get to the campsite. Instead, we arrived by bus. I had never seen anything like it before and I was in awe of the beauty around me. The sleeping arrangements were in a communal dormitory, but my brother and I didn't have any linens...

Day 11 On a fairly uneventful day, sometimes is hard to think of a topic to write about I did get a couple of suggestions, but just like yesterday I will continue with the hobbies. One big passion of mine nowadays is travel and that was particularly triggered by a job I had but I'll leave that story for another day.  Today I want to focus on my first memories of travelling abroad and thankfully I am able to remember most of it since the opportunities were few and far between. My first travel outside the Dominican Republic was to Miami, FL in 1993.  I was 8 years old, and I bet my ass that the ones pushing for the trip were mostly two of my older brothers, I never complain and won't complain now because well, I got to go to Disney World then. In Miami I do have an aunt and her family, and we stayed with them, but please start the count: My aunt, her then husband and 4 cousins, my mom, my 3 brothers, 2 other cousins (were all traveling together) and me.  We were at 13 peopl...

I can already hear the song by reading the title 😆 Vacations are over and today I had to go back to the office, not the most thrilling thing for me to do since I prefer remote work a 100% of the time but well, at least I get to work from home twice a week and my commute is not bad, I even get to have lunch at home. Talking with my coworkers about our week off I realized that even though I was off from Dec 23rd until Jan 2nd, I have not done anything I originally planned to do during the holidays.  Initially my plans were to just stay home and rest for 10 straight days, no traveling and no major activities besides going to the gym, these plans were scrapped as soon as I invited my nephew for the Christmas holidays. He arrived on Christmas Eve, and ever since that day, I have not stopped doing stuff and being busy.  I may have been off from work, but I have been doing everything but rest and relax. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining but I just made the realization that I a...