Had my interview with the Universidad de Costa Rica today about officially/legally donating my cuerpo (body) to science when I croak. The entire program was explained to me during a 30-minute Zoom call. My dear friends  — and honorary Costa Rica “hermanos” — Jon and Francisco sat in remotely on the call, serving as my local contacts and witnesses.

 

I sent in virtual copies of the completed and witnessed donation document plus my passport and Jon’s and Francisco’s cedulas for the head of the department to look over and confirm that everything is in order and properly completed.  When I get the approval on those, I will need to send in the original document and copies of the cedulas and passport via correo special delivery to an address that I will be given.  I expect that to happen within the week.

 

The donation process is 100% free and there are zero costs involved

 

YAY! My body will be used as a teaching  tool for medics and other disciplines.   It’s all good! 

 

According to the rules, I can’t die of COVID or any other infectious disease, major trauma, suicide or homicide. If I do, they won’t be able to accept my body.  In any of those events, I’ll just get planted here in a natural burial, which costs about $2K as of this writing. But with any luck at all, I will be able to go to UCR and not into the ground.

 

Walked 8364 steps today

 

Took some more pictures along Calle Esteban Salas on this glorious day:

 

 

 

MAKING GOOD PROGRESS READING STORIES IN SPANISH

 

I’m more than halfway through a Spanish language story book.  I can understand a good 85 to 90% of what’s going on without resorting to looking up words.  Reading stories in Spanish is the way to go, now that I have a solid knowledge of most of the verbs and nouns.

 

HELPING SPANISH STUDENTS WITH ENGLISH

 

One day this week and one day next week Jon and I will be in Sarchi’ volunteering to chat with Ticos who have been learning English for one and three years.  We’ll meet the advanced class this week.  The instructor sent me the list of questions to ask them — job interview based — so I can familiarize myself with them. They’re pretty standard.  Each of the students will have the questions with them and will hand them to me to ask, and I’m supposed to let the instructor know how well they do at answering them in English.  He also asked me if I could come up with some general, non-work related questions (kind of like ice breakers at a party) and I said yes, and sent him about ten ideas, all of which he loved and said he will print out for me and other volunteers to use in these and future classes, I came up with some great ones, he said.

 

Here are a few of them:

 

“If you could choose a mentor — living or dead — to help you in some personal or professional area of expertise that you want to improve, who would it be, what would the topic of your conversation be, and why?”

 

“Tell me about a time when you diligently pursued and achieved a difficult goal. (Listen to answer.) Looking back on it and knowing what you know now, can you think of anything you might have done differently to achieve this goal sooner or with less stress or effort?”

 

“Who are some of your personal and/or professional role models? Why?  Which of their attributes do you also possess?  (Don’t be modest here!)”

 

“If you had unlimited resources and power, in what ways would you use them?”

 

“Do you have a pet– or have you had any pets in the past — that you would love to tell me about?”

 

“If you could be any other human being for an entire day, who  would you choose to be, and why?”

 

“Which animal or animals, domesticated or wild, appear to you to have the most FUN being alive?  Why?”

 

“What do you think, or hope, happens to people after they die?”

 

“How much money/free time/independence/collaboration/feedback/assistance would you like to have to remain — or to become — a fully engaged, well-rounded contributor within the profession you’re pursuing?”

 

“Who, in your life, do you think is most proud of you right now? In what ways do they express how they feel about your accomplishments?”

 

Can you think of any other captivating questions to ask students?  Let me know as soon as possible, please!