I must confess something that will be no secret to those near and dear to me: this January, the first month of the year 2012, has been without a doubt, one of the best months of my life. I wish I could say I am just exaggerating, but the fact is that I have no complaints. First, the year started watching the New Year's fireworks display at the Magic Kingdom with some of my best friends and their family, and despite it being horribly crowded, it was completely worth it. Then I got sick, but quickly recovered. Not so lucky was my grandmother, who faced a drop in her hemoglobin levels and had to be submitted to blood transfusion treatment in order to recover. Due to this distressing occurrence, I took it upon myself to make sure that I could find some time to go visit Puerto Rico, so I could see her, hopefully before anything got worse. Throughout the month, however, work was smooth sailing. I was being trained to work Parade, Disney Channel Rocks and Fantasmic! Then I was trained to coordinate the Beauty and the Beast show. And then, I was shadowing a fellow coordinator in his DCR duties. A week later, I had one of the best training experiences of my life: I was chosen to be a part of the Y.E.S. program (otherwise known as the Disney Youth Education Series) and learned how to teach a physics class that applied the thrill of riding such attractions as Space Mountain, Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean to a group of kids. My fellow trainees were admittedly awesome and made the whole process so much funner than I could have ever anticipated. As an added bonus, our last day of training was highlighted by a visit from Obama, our president, to the park, in which he talked about tourism and international visas, and I was there on that day, even if I didn't get to actually see him in person. Throughout the course of the Y.E.S. training, I was determined to do something regarding the issue of visiting my family, and after pulling a few strings here and there, and getting lucky with nabbing some incredibly cheap flights, I spent a lovely five-day visit to my first home, my family, my friends, and more importantly: my grandmother.

I arrived in Puerto Rico on time, which is odd for a Spirit flight and my dad came to pick me up. He was ecstatic about a CD I made him that contained 138 of the best tropical songs from the 90's. I think this is going to be his favorite CD of all time. Before we got home, we stopped at Video Avenue because it was having a clearance sale. There was not much; all I could find was 'FRIGHT NIGHT' and 'THE WIZ'. We watched FRIGHT that night and my family loved it. They always like vampire movies and stuff like that, especially if it's done in a humorous way. my grandmother was at the house, so I talked to her for a little bit. Unfortunately, she had been developing Alzheimer's for over a year now and could barely remember who I was. Afterwards, one of my best friends, Juny, came to pick me up and we went to a party at a friend's apartment in Rio Piedras that went from awkward to fun in no time: food, drinks and Wii dancing games, of course! I met some interesting new people, including Abimahel (guitar player), Jonathan (aspiring fashion designer) and Aurora (flawlessness personified). The next day, I watched THE WIZ with my brother and then my friend Harold came to pick me up to go to Ocean Park Beach, my first time ever at this particular hotspot. Hours later, he took me to Plaza las Americas where I met up with the original gang: Rangy, Sam, Ivy and Kristian. We ate at Macaroni Grill and then watched THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. The following days Juny, Rangy, my brother Gaby and my dad took turns taking me to all kinds of places, including Burger King for lunch, Costco, to check if they had any good movies on sale, the movie theater to watch BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in 3-D, San Juan, and Pinones, a region in Loiza chock-full of traditional food kiosks. I return to Orlando tomorrow and even though the month still has a whole week left in it, I can't help but feel that this has been a truly amazing month (and year) thus far!

Soundtrack of the trip: Mago de Oz - Hoy te Toca Ser Feliz, Kina Grannis - In your Arms, Adele - the live songs from the Royal Albert Hall, Man or Muppet - from 'The Muppets', Florence + The Machine - No Light, No Light and Shake it Out