One more night of drinking tap water

Yup. I'm currently enjoying free high-speed internet at the Hilton in Houston, Texas. As predicted, having two stops that are only half an hour each didn't work out as smoothly as my travel agent anticipated. It works out for me, I guess, to ease me into the warm temperatures (although this AC is ridiculous and I can't figure out how to turn it down) and have some time by myself before I leap into Guatemala.

My flight from Ottawa to Cleveland made it just on time for me to run across the airport with the sweetest couple of guys. They spoke in this jumble of English, Spanish and French that I completely understood. It was awesome. They were off to Mexico. I was totally unconscious for the flight to Houston, waking up now and again when the pilot would say things about not being able to land. We landed 15 minutes before my next flight was leaving and I had a seat at the back of the plane. As passed on by Andrew Rizk, the Houston Airport is freaking huge and I had to go really far to get to the flight from Houtson to Guatemala. Needless to say, the plane had left by the time I made it there. At least two other passengers from the Cleveland flight missed their transfer for the Guatemala City flight as well.

After a lot of haggling with 3 different tellers at the Continental Customer Service desk, I managed to get a hotel and food vouchers. One of the tellers wanted me to take the next flight to Guatemala City, which would mean an overnight stay in the Guatemala City airport. I bugged them to let me stay in Houston overnight instead since my Spanish is terrible and I would not be comfortable sleeping/trying to stay awake in the Guatemala City airport. "My mother would kill me."

So after a less-tearful-than-I-expected good-bye with my parents, Bren and Jeffrey, I spent most of my day sleeping and eating. Tonight? Emailing people, watching TV and more eating is the plan. I left my gym stuff and bathing suit in my checked luggage, so I don't have anything else to do, really. I think I'm pretty much in the middle of nowhere so there isn't really anywhere for me to go or anything to do.

Right now I feel very calm about the whole thing. A bit nervous, a bit sad, a bit excited. Generally, I'm not feeling too much of anything.

Back in O-Town

This last month has been an absolute blur. Many duty shifts, working, studying here and there, hanging out with friends and trying to get everything done that needed to get done was exhausting. I still haven't recovered from all of that yet; hopefully by the weekend I'll feel rested.

After checking out over 60 students, with the help of Jeffrey, I packed up all of my belongings. Francis, Jaclyn, random friend of Francis, Tiana, Dave, Eric, Francis's parents, Adam and probably more people helped get all of my crap to Francis's place. My shoes went missing in the process, somehow, which really sucks. Still can't find them and I was going to be bringing those as my work shoes. Darn. I have a ton of stuff after living in a house last year with Tiana and a decent sized bachelor last summer. I didn't move back to Ottawa at all, so all of the things that filled those homes were stored somehow over the last school year. Needless to say, there's over 2 large van loads of stuff. The patience of everyone involved in moving, which included Ania, Brendan and Mom by Sunday, is much appreciated. Especially considering I was grumpy and drained, I can't believe how well everyone came together for me. Complete strangers and families of friends were so generous in helping me, a random girl with a ton of stuff who they don't even know. Francis's family and Ania's mom ROCK --thanks so much for letting me store some of my stuff until we can haul it back to O-Town!

We ended off our incredible 3 years pre-placement with an "Epic Party" at Francis's place on Saturday. People from first to fifth year, UofT staff to Ryerson students, parents and friends piled into the Massé residence. It was an unforgettable evening in so many ways. Throughout the night were tearful good-byes but I definitely smiled and laughed way more than I cried. There weren't many pictures of the night because everyone was having too good of a time to remember to document any of it, haha. I doubt many of us will be forgetting it, though.

Sunday night, Brendan and Mom -fresh from a hockey tournament- picked me and Jeffrey up from the Massé place. We were back in Ottawa by 11pm and it was off to bed before a long day on Monday.

Monday, May 5: dentist, waited 20 minutes at the police station for a police check and gave up, eye doctor, waited 2 hours at the police station for a police check and gave up. Mom got my malaria pills, which I started. They're dry pills and suck to take.

Tuesday, May 6: waited 10 minutes at the police station and got my police check!, scanned/photocopied/printed a million forms at Mom's office, told OHIP I'll be gone.

Tonight I'll be hanging out with Devon, my first friend in elementary school. We haven't seen each other in a couple of years and I can't wait!

Left to do? Mom and I are shopping til we drop at MEC tomorrow. Most of my shopping needs to be done at Shoppers and I'm still waiting on a few prescriptions. I need to mail some receipts in to Toronto and mail my police check to CUSO. Jeffrey's teaching me a bunch of accounting, Excel and SWOT analysis stuff. I'll be catching up with friends and family before I'm off. And I need to cram some Spanish while I'm at it. It's going to be a busy final 8-9 days!

It hit me

I thought it would take getting a departure date for it to hit me, but it was actually purchasing my deltamethrin treated mosquito net that did it. I feel like I've almost been in a daze for the last 22 hours since I bought it. I feel like crying and laughing at the same time. Tiana took a picture of me at the bar last night with the "I just realized I'm moving to the rainforest for 8-9 months, what the heck?!" look on my face.

I'm so sad that I won't see almost everyone I now know and care about for at least 9 months. I won't see Tiana, who I now see probably 9 days out of 10, for like 16 months! Really bummed about missing Jeffrey -especially not being able to talk on the phone for ridiculous lengths of time for free! It's nuts. Fortunately, my mom and cousin Shawna (who I almost never see in Canada oddly enough but is my evil twin) will be visiting.

Updates?

• Health coverage is APPROVED! No issues at all, which is amazing considering I have asthma, chest pain and a million food intolerances. Woot!


• Police check is a bit of a messy situation, however. Which is ironic considering I've had no problems with the law and tons of stupid health crap. You can only do your police check in the city where your permanent address is. Which is in Ottawa. So I really screwed things up when I picked Wii over my police check in March. Fortunately, if you pay an extra fee, they'll give it to you that day provided you've lived in the city for the last 5 years. Hopefully they consider me living there for the last 5 years!! It's going to be so last minute since I won't be going back to Ottawa until May 4!


• CUSO forms were couriered over yesterday. So Claudia should be booking my flight really soon! Fingers crossed for a date within the next week.


• Still no passport.


• Hiking boots are in! But in the States so I won't actually get them until April 23. Here's hoping they fit.

I still have some forms to give in to the school. I wrote the first version of my long packing list in a Starbucks last night. I'm really trying to aim for a suitcase and a big hiking bag. One of those is just going to be bathroom stuff (shampoo, conditioner, prescriptions, sunscreen, repellent, etc) by the looks of it!

Turns out an international licence isn't any good since it's so unprofessional looking (taped in passport pictures!) and says that it's only valid with an Ontario licence to accompany it. So I'm going to have to apply for a new licence while I'm in Guatemala, by the looks of it, and just have a version with no picture along with my regular licence. Oye.

Spanish is moving along! It's hard with exams for us to meet as a group now. Doing activities and things on my own and Jeffrey harasses me every time he talks to me to work on Spanish. Which is actually really helpful.

Ottawa: wasting time, getting yellow fever and birthdays!

Well, my whole plan of getting my passport renewed, driver's licence renewed and police check definitely didn't happen when I went back to Ottawa last weekend.

I checked to make sure that I was 16 when I got my passport so I knew to bring my renewal application form. WRONG! I was 16 when it was issued but I was 15 when I applied. My cheap 15 year old self got a child's passport. So after parking in the Market and paying for parking after nearly 30 minutes of driving around downtown, running across downtown to the far end of Sparks Street and running through the door 2 minutes before they closed, I was sent away. UGH. I totally understand but was super frustrated.

Stop #2 on my super productive Ottawa trip was to get my driver's licence renewed. It expires on November 25, 2008. After getting totally lost and ending up at Hog's Back (don't ask me how), I managed to find the office at Merivale. Turns out you can't renew your driver's licence more than 6 months before it expires. "So that's, like, May 25!" Um, yeah, you know when I said I leave MID-May? Grrr.

So my two big errands were a bust. Fortunately, Tiana had the great idea of getting my international driver's licence. That doesn't expire for a year, so I have to get on that soon. The police check just didn't happen because I was having a good time hanging out at home with Jeffrey and Brendan, so I really don't have an excuse for that one...

Nancy noticed last Thursday that I had a rash where my yellow fever shot was. I didn't think much of it, but then on Friday started getting symptoms. There's a 1 in 200 000 chance of getting yellow fever from the vaccine and the nurse said I would know if I got a rash. Well, surprise! When I got off the bus to Ottawa on Friday, I was super dizzy. I actually called Jeffrey (55 cents a minute!) to tell him to call my mother if I didn't call him back in half an hour because something was wrong with my brain. I made it home fine but every time I stood or walked, it felt like the ground was moving. It was messed. I also had a headache constantly from Thursday until Sunday. I had muscle pain in my arms and jaw. Plus some other symptoms that aren't so fun...The Telehealth nurse who didn't know anything about yellow fever told me to see a doctor on Sunday. Instead, I emailed Dr. Wise, the travel doctor that's our contact for placement, who responded: "it will go away! don't worry". The dose in the vaccine shouldn't be enough to cause any serious symptoms but that hasn't stopped me from joking about bleeding out of my eyes. Yum.

Jeffrey has requested I don't die before he visits for Easter this weekend, so I suppose I should accommodate his request.


My little cousin Gerald turns 7 today and Brendan turns 15 (!!!!) on Wednesday, so we had their birthday parties on Saturday. Unfortunately, everyone couldn't be there (hockey and Florida), but it was good times. I stole some of Jeffrey and Daddy's ice cream cake and ate delicious salmon. (While everyone else ate pork...so sad.)





Daddy bought a Wii which was a blast all weekend. Jeffrey made me watch him play for over 70 minutes to become an expert at tennis...I spent the majority of my weekend parked on the couch (or standing in front of the TV) with Jeffrey and Bren. We also went out and watched "Be Kind Rewind", which wasn't as bad at the first 30 minutes make it out to be. Although Jack Black really lost a lot of credibility as an actor for me. Very sad. All in all, this means that I got no school work done (although I was very productive on the bus) and 0 Spanish studied. Woops.

On that note, I'll be spending this St Patty's Day doing readings, Spanish studying and rounds since I'm on duty*

*for those of you who don't know, I'm a residence advisor at UofT Scarborough. So I'll be walking around dealing with drunk people all night and answering phone calls for noise complaints and lockouts. Whoohoo!