What was once lost can never be found.

I´ve replaced my lost pen with one donated by the hostel I´m staying at. Too bad I can´t replace ipods as easily. Funny, when I had it on the trip, I never listened to it. Perhaps because I was too fascinated by the new landscape to want music intruding on my already busy thoughts. Now that I´ve had some time to get accustomed to the flora here, I have room for a soundtrack to accompany the remainder of my trip. But sadly, like all neglected companions, my ipod has left me for someone else.

I can´t help but wonder if all this loss is due to some karma debt I had racked up. It theoretically is just loss of material goods, but these material goods are a) expensive, and b) have a lot of personal value. Did I do something to anger God? Am I being punished somehow?

Since January, I´ve lost:
1) my mom´s diamond ring (still heartbroken about this one)
2) all my credit cards and ATM card
3) digital camera
4) ipod

Though, I like to think of 2, 3, and 4 as stolen as opposed to lost.

Since January, I´ve gained:
1) med school admission
2) a Philadelphia apartment lease (I move in 3 days after I get back!)
3) almost 10k in savings minus $300 for a new digicam and $300 for a new ipod
4) a snowboard
5) 10 pounds

2005 may quite possibly go down as the year of simultaneous loss and gain.

When I was in Quepos, I ran into a Kiwi whose name I can´t remember. He was telling me about the New Zealand aborigine people and how they´ve been hard to assimilate into the existing ecnomoy because they have a habit of wandering off on their own on a walkabout, without any sort of warning. And then show up nonchalantly a few months later. Culturally, this happens with enough pseudofrequency that it doesn´t go over too well with cubicles and employers. I think perhaps my own semi-yearly journeys are walkabouts as well. And I need them, just as the NZ aborigine needs them. I find strange comfort in being alone among strangers. Perhaps that´s why I liked NY so much. The crowds gave me space to think. To be leisurely with my own thoughts as I disappear into the hum. I could pretend not to hear someone over the rumbling of the subway.