Party Rock Anthem

USM party... Let me give you some deets. Think of a frat house from college. Then throw in some middle aged men, some 20 somethings, some 30 somethings, several young, skankily clad Nigerian women... And then add alcohol. Yea... that's what it was like. I mean, don't get me wrong. It was plenty of fun to people watch and such. But seeing old... like visibly old white dudes getting up on young Nigerian women... kind of skeezy. Ok, really skeezy. Well no matter, it was still fun. Throw in some Jack and Coke, Sam Adams, Heineken, etc. Everyone's having a grand ol' time. It was a little weird getting drunk in front of my boss though. It's not something I'm totally comfortable with... so I definitely behaved. I don't know what's standard protocol in the expat world, but it definitely seems like there's a fuzzy line between not allowing work and social lives crossing. Anyway, I made friends with the Ms. They seem like good people to be buddy-buddy with if anything ever goes south. These boys look sooo young. Baby-faced... faces as smooth as a baby's bum. It's kind of adorable... also kind of weird. But no matter, they are still really nice. They even gave us a lift home, which technically I don't think they were supposed to do since they were still under midnight curfew and it was past midnight. But regardless, I'm grateful. I'm excited to go to the ball they are hosting next month. I bought a ticket to it- the ticket is not a piece of paper. No, it's a thing of metal that could probably break a window if I threw it. Probably the best souvenir for an event I've ever seen. A ticket AND a momento. Can't wait to get dressed up and party a bit more in a few weeks.

Happy Africa

I love Africa. Maybe this is too big of a blanket statement. But I do. I step outside, take a deep breath, and Ahhhhh there's the smell. That distinct Africa smell. I can't explain what it is. But I love it. Even at my lowest points when I'm here, I still love it. Deep inside.

That being said, Hello! I write from a different continent in a different time zone. I have nothing special to report. I haven't started work yet so really there's nothing unique to say.

All I have to say is this: you are not allowed to complain about being here until you have been here at least a month. You have to embrace the situation and understand that this is not Amurica. Things work differently here and yes, things do not always work the way you wish or want. But this is the way things work here. And yes, maybe you didn't sign up to live in a hut in Africa. But you have to understand that your life is 1000x better than many of those around you and you may not have as many amenities as you would back at home at your disposable. Welcome To Africa. Accept it/ suck it up or please leave.

Keep All Hands and Feet Inside The Moving Vehicle... Or the Country

I just finished an almost 2 week training to prep me for my upcoming move. I can tell you a few things about this trip:

• I'm ending it with a major head cold. It's awesome. Not.
• When there's a bomb, there's often a secondary bomb. Tertiary bomb. And so on. I guess bad people like that sort of thing. Blowing up people and buildings and such.
• WMDs. Bad. Bad. Bad. Enough said.
• If you're ever taken as a hostage... there are several options. Kind of like Mad Libs. Fill in your own blanks.
• If you ever notice someone/people following you, don't confront them and ask them why they are following you.
• I made some awesome friends. Winning!
• That random West African country I'm going to? Lots of scary things are said about that place.

In conclusion, I'm way more pumped about leaving than I was 2 weeks ago. Which seems to be counterintuitive but when have I ever been logical? FOUR DAYS LEFT!

Give me the BC

Best birth control ever - have teenage children in the house. For a month. And have them play piano and do Chinese homework on top of regular school homework. We'll see how much you want kids after that. Attitudes running wild. NO THANK YOU.

I thought babies and toddlers in their terrible 2s were bad. Noooooooooooooooo. Teenagers. Crazy, hormonal, psychotic, attitude filled, back-talking, wild creatures.

So tie those tubes, pop those pills, pull and pray, do it in the back door, put on the latex raincoat. Just please please please- NO BABIES.

I ramble after eating PIE

One of my favorite things ever:
    The perfect fall day. Cool enough to wear jeans but still warm enough to wear a short sleeve shirt. A slight wind. Driving with the windows down in 35-45mph speed limit areas. Smelling fresh, crisp autumn air. And feeling the wind whipping through my hair. I love fall. I love places with all 4 seasons.

One thing I don't love: Teenagers. To a point where I almost don't want to have kids for the sole fact that I never want to reach the puberty years with them.

Favorite book at the moment: Emperor of Maladies. It's great. It also turns out that I own a lot of books. They are all sitting sadly in boxes in the garage right now. Someday babies, you will have homes on a floor to ceiling bookcase. Preferably in a library with many many many other books. And I will have a library ladder to climb to reach the ones on top. A girl can only hope.

I also have a serious obsession with Gilmore Girls right now. No idea why. Maybe because I want to have a similar mother-daughter relationship with my kid someday. Sans the daughter hooking up with a married dude. Sans the insanely rich, overbearing parents. Sans the crazy baby daddy drama. In my perfect world, I'll have a perfect marriage with perfect children who never reach puberty. Or somehow skip over it to become gracious and amazing adults who will keep me company in my old, senile age.

I like snail mail. I think it's fun to send snail mail. I think it's great to receive. I wish people would use it more often. I also hope the government doesn't completely run out of money and cancel the USPS all together.

Best thing ever? Free pie day at Baker's Square. It's delightful, rainbows, sunshine, and happiness all squished into one triangle piece of pie. What??? I like pie!

I miss the boyfriend. Sad, pathetic, but true. So sue me for saying it. Yes, I may be turning into one of those giant puddles of mush. What happened to the hardcore me? Don't worry, I still don't think I need a man for anything. Except maybe one thing... Kind of like that thing...

Anywho, I also like printing out pictures to look at. You know? We have all these technological things now, including computers to look at digital pictures on. But I still find it satisfying and wonderful to have concrete pieces of nice paper to flip through when looking at photos. What can I say, I kind of still miss the old film cameras where you had no idea what kind of pictures you were taking til AFTER you got the pictures processed. I don't think my younger sisters even know what that looks like! Sigh, feeling old now. So I'm dragging my old butt off to watch some more Gilmore Girls. Cheers!

3M and the J Word

3Ms = Movies, Music, Moleskins

The benefit to having younger sisters is I can watch an obnoxious number of Disney and other animated movies with them and not feel too immature. My favorites include:

• The Lion King
• Tangled
• Beauty and the Beast
• Aladdin
• Mulan
• Finding Nemo
• The Incredibles
• Monsters, Inc
• Rataouille

I love to shop. When I'm in West Africa, I will miss shopping. Well, shopping the way they do it here. I know it's materialistic and such. But sometimes it is just fun to shop. Therapeutic really.

I don't usually think I'm a very jealous person. But recently that may not be so much the case. Long distance makes me a little nutty. I mean, in the end, how do you really know how much you can trust someone? You can trust them, but long distance sucks. And there is more than 1 example in my life of long distance plus cheating.  So in the end, how do you avoid it? Do you become a hermit and never socialize with other people? What if you meet someone that you click with, even when you didn't want to? Then do you tell your significant other about everyone you met? "I met this really cool guy/girl today. He/she was super adorable and worldy or whatever. Etc etc etc." OR "I knew this really cool guy/girl from before and he/she's nice, awesome, cute, what have you."

New like: Bossa nova music- I like it.

Moleskin notebooks, day planners are great. All Moleskin products are great.

Post Beacon Hill Time

I'm back from Boston. Surgery went well! I was all different levels of stressed, but it's done and everything can start going back to normal.

On Wednesday, we met his parents at the hospital. Now surgery is stressful enough, but adding divorced parents into the mix makes me a bit more stressed. I spent the whole time talking my face off, while internally, freaking out. I'm filling the empty silence with any story I can think of, as I completely panic internally. Probably one of the longest days of my life. Akin to the night I spent in the hospital sophomore year when I wasn't allowed to move an inch. I spent the week getting minimal sleep. Especially in the beginning. I was the one who would wake him up and throw drugs down his throat every 4 hours. Boyfriend's recovering. Yay. God help me if something else like this happens again. My heart and body can't handle it.

Now I'm back in Wisconsin and am in desperate need of sleep. So I'm going back to bed. Cheers!

Quick Trip

I moved back to Wisconsin less than 2 weeks ago. But now I'm heading back to Boston for a quick trip. My boyfriend is getting surgery. Let's not get into the details or else I may have a nervous breakdown. But let's just say it's not just appendicitis. I'm stressed out, scared, worried... you could list just about any other adjective with those same ideas. But anyway that's a slight update. Just send a prayer or a thought tomorrow that everything goes smoothly for him. And my sanity.

Some other thoughts-

I finally got a Kindle. Gift from the boyfriend- he's too sweet. I DO still love the feel of a book. Holding it in my hands. Turning the pages. However, I do understand the logic to the electronic version of a book. I've bought a few books so far and downloaded tons of free books. Let's see how fast I can fill up my Kindle. Tehehe

Moving to Africa again is rather stressful. I wish I had put all my Uganda stuff all together when I got home... turns out I'm not that smart. I have to hunt down my Africa pants again, etc etc etc.

My computer has been getting excessively hot recently. It's kind of annoying. I think there's something wrong with it but I don't really want to take it into Geek Squad. I will have to soon... sigh...

Life changer

I just accepted a fellowship position in West Africa. I cannot believe 1) I got offered a position, 2) I'm moving, 3) I'M GOING TO BE WORKING/LIVING IN WEST AFRICA for the next year. I am so excited and yet so panicked. The place I'm going isn't exactly the nicest places in the world to work- take for example the latest news of bombings just yesterday. Part of me is jumping for joy. This is a job. In public health. With a government institution. This year of international experience will add even more to my resume. It is INTERNATIONAL experience, living abroad, dealing with the hardships, etc. And then there's the stupid side of me that goes: OMG what did I just commit myself to?!

But yes, I have a job. I'm moving to Africa again. The words: "It's not a hardship, it's an adventure" have not echoed through my head louder.

Job Searching

It's like beating a dead horse. Or actually it's what I called beating a dead cat. Why I say cat, you ask? I have no idea. I DID see a dead bird on the street today. Which is probably why I thought of a cat, since cats like to attack birds... yes, don't worry, I haven't totally lost my mind yet. I don't think.

This is what I do:
Over and over. Look up jobs. Tweek cover letter. Submit resume. Rinse. Repeat. Until you want to commit suicide. Then rinse and repeat again.

... I need a job...

In other news, I have a boyfriend. He's great. I'll spare you the morbid, gross details, but he's way too sweet for me. I'm all scary and messed up. He's all happy with hugs or at least when it comes to dealing with me. I have problems... 

Also, here's the thing. If you're going to cheat on your boyfriend (not saying I AM, just general advice), HAVE SEX. If you're going to cheat emotionally, that's just boring and stupid. If you're GOING to cheat, just go all out. It's easier for everyone. You don't have do the whole talk about how you didn't do anything but yet you had feelings for some other boy. Blah blah blah.

But if you're going to cheat, always remember: karma has a nasty way of sneaking back up and biting you in the rear end. Really really hard.

That's all.

Gym

I'm trying to focus on going to the gym more often, getting in shape and such. I have signed up to run the 5k that is the day before the Boston Marathon. I may not be able to run a marathon, but I may be able to survive a 5k. Though, this now means I have to work out.

Today I was at the gym and I'm on a stationary bike, happily biking along. This man sits down next to me and BAM! I was hit with one of the worst wafts of BO I have ever smelled. And I've been in a full matatu in the middle of Uganda, people! So here's the lesson. You may sweat a lot at the gym. I encourage it. But please, PLEASE, I beg of you, slap on some deodorant. Lots of it. Before you start working out. Thank you.  Your fellow gym members and I thank you.

Do the stressed, pouty dance

So... it's another late night here in Boston. I manage to procrastinate just enough on the right things that lead me to stress, panic, and start chewing on my own hair. Last spring, I pulled an all-nighter. This spring, I do late nights, not enough sleep... on a rather regular basis. Healthy? I think not. But now let me do my stressed, pouty dance. (Why it's pouty? Who knows. I just feel like pouting, sulking, what have you. Let's just chalk up the pouting to: I'm tired and shouldn't have procrastinated so long.) Btw my boyfriend is sweet and delivered pretzels, Diet Coke, and Chex Mix to me as I freaked, whined, and pouted. I wonder why he puts up with my insanity, cuz it must be like dating a 4 year old sometimes.

I'm taking this biostatistic computer programming class. Learn biostats while you learn how to speak computer-speak. OMG. The best thing ever. NOT. I am the Asian that is incompetent when it comes to technology. I missed the boat on that gene... Thanks parents.

Oh right, I sprained my ankle last Monday. Now you might ask: how'd you do that? Well, you see, it's a funny story:

• I'm walking home (I made a quick trip home to see my mom- sorry I didn't see any of my Midwest lovers, but I spent my time with the fam) from the airport, pulling my luggage behind me. I'm thinking: I'm hungry, I need to work out this week, I'm REALLY going to start working out regularly. Then BAM. I'm on the ground. Rolled the ankle. I'm in so much pain I can't catch my breath. I sit down on the concrete sidewalk. Whimper. Cry. No one's around to see me. I can see my apartment building door like 20 feet away. Then a guy in a wheelchair rolls up. "Are you okay? Do you need me to get help?" I manage a I'm okay, I'm okay. He goes: I would help you myself... but I can't. I don't know about you but now looking back, I giggle a little. The one person who sees me is the one person who can't physically help me. Anyway, eventually he rolls away and I grit my teeth and hobble to my apartment. I then proceed to 1) call my mom and cry, 2) sit on the floor until my boyfriend arrives to help me, 3) stare at my other leg which is bleeding excessively from the knee. So yes, I'm the most graceful creature out there.
• And if you're concerned about me (which you probably aren't but that's okay, I understand): I'm doing better these days but I still have a bit of a hobble.

I have discovered the wonders of Sephora. It's fun. It's like a playground. I can't afford anything but looking and touching is still wonderful. It's drawing me in. It has put its spell on me. Too bad I'm still disabled and don't know how to put makeup on like all the pretty girls do.

Jobs. I need to find a job after graduation. Sigh. What if I can't find one and become a homeless person? Will you let me live with you?

Baby shoes are the cutest things ever. Teeny! But also the most impractical things. Actually baby socks are probably the most impractical. Shoes are next. Because: a baby is in the stroller. Kicks off sock or shoe. Has now lost one! There is no longer a pair. All that money you just spent on a pair of shoes. Gone. Just a thought.

I have nothing more to say at the moment since it is closing in on 3:30am and I desperately need sleep in order to make words become coherent sentences tomorrow in class. So I will close with this: I want to go back to Uganda because the weather here in New England is just not not not NOT okay.

Happy Valentine's Day

Alright people. It's Valentine's Day. I just spent the night celebrating/bonding with my roommate and the dog. I have a few things to share with you. (Please be warned: I've shared 1.5 bottles of red vino. I may be a little... whatever.)

• Pageants seem kinda fun! At least watching them is. Training for them is probably a whole other story...
• Roommates are awesome. End of story.
• The Midwest is still the frickin' best.
• Lady Gaga is a tad crazy but we still love her. Her in the egg = Kinder Surprise. Though you cannot eat the egg (it was not made of choco) and you cannot play with Gaga... at least I don't think so...
• My boyfriend is sweet and wonderful and way too good to me. He needs to find a new girlfriend. Or another one. Maybe I'll try the polygamous relationship thing... HELLO MORMONISM
• School is overrated. FML. I do school all the time. I have no friends. This is freakishly depressing.
• Valentine's Day is a tad overrated but please do remember to tell those you love that you love them.

Happy Hallmark Day of Love! 

A New Year

Hellooooooo out there. I know I've been MIA for a while. Blame the adjustment back to the US. Currently it's blizzarding in the good ol' New England area and all I want is to fly back to Uganda. Immediately. Snow is not cool. I'm rocking the hot pink winter boots, but I'm still freezing. What I really want is one of those huge black full body sleeping bag jackets, but something tells me if I got one, I'd be disowned by several people.

This new year brings a new place to live, new roommate with her dog, and new boyfriend. Will write more soon. :)