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!