I’m sure everyone in the world has now heard of the Twilight series and movie coming out (16 hours!), but that won’t stop me from taking a few minutes to totally freak out about the fact that I will be seeing the movie at midnight (12:01 to be exact)!!!!!!!!!  I am so excited, probably far more excited than someone my age should get over a movie based on teen vampire romance books.  I suppose if you knew how deep-rooted my Twilight obsession goes, you’d understand.

A friend of my mother’s works at a puplishing house (Little, Brown and Co., I think) and for my birthday back in 2003 or 2004 she gave me this brand new book she thought I’d like. It was basically the furthest thing from the sort of book I liked but I read it and became obsessed.  Unlike all the new fans, I had to wait years for the sequels to come along.  After New Moon I became disgustingly obsessed… we’re talking like stalking the Stephenie Meyer website on an hourly basis.  Then when I heard there was a movie in the talks I subscribed to every gossip and news outlet possible for hopes of any news, frequented imdb message boards, and pathetically enough joined am exclusive “Twilight Only” chat (which I spent far too much free time on).  I’m fairly positive that if you took all the time I invested into all things Twilight it would be a good couple months.  I convinced all of my friends to read the books, and they all became equally obsessed.  So much so that we actually dressed up (and won the costume contest) at two of the book releases. 

So I think what I was getting at, before I was distracted, was that you should all read and then see Twilight!

I’m sure you are all wondering where I have been, all one of you who reads this (Hi Mom!).  Well the answer is that I have been in The Gambia… hence the lack of postings.  This might seem un-imaginable, but I didn’t have internet connection (or a phone, tv, etc, ZOMG, no whey!) and spent almost all of my free time wandering around the beach with my siblings or lending a hand in the clinic.  The first time my phone rang when I got back I nearly died of a panic attack because I hadn’t used one in so long.  I am now back to feeling obligated to keep in touch with everyone through email, phone calls, texting, webcams, letters, etc. and I’ve never realised how much work it is!  I valued talking to friends and family so much more when I had to either wait up until the clinic phone was free (apparently my business is further down in importance compared to drug shipments and lab results) or travel into town to use a phone, and even then with dodgy reception, just to get the newest gossip and happenings.  

Pathetically enough, though, even though it seems (to me at least) that I’ve been gone forever, I have absolutely nothing new to share.  My cousin just gave birth to twins (but refused to name them my suggested Seamus and Sinead), my dog lost 4 pounds (the diet is working!), and I am closer to folding on my refusal to having knee surgery.  Otherwise all is the same… it’s become rainy (everyday) and cold here, which means I can break out the scarfs, my favourite time of year.

I spent the last bit of my summer holiday visiting my sister in Thailand.  She’s over there as part of an internship with a Teachers Without Borders kind of deal.  She is teaching the locals english, health, and maths.  When she was six, my sister was told to write a page for a school assignment with the prompt “What do you want to do when you grow up?” and she only wrote down three words, “Save the World”.  When her teacher sent the page home with a note attached stating Andri didn’t do the assignment properly my mum laughed, framed the page, and sent a note back saying she could find no fault with Andri’s response.   Fast forward 13 years, and that is exactly what she’s doing; saving the world in her own small little way.  I was so freakishly proud watching, at age 19, working harder and making more of a difference than some people twice her age.  She is back now, to finish University, and there is no doubt in my mind that if she wants to, she will save the world. 

This picture was taken from the beach a hop-skip-and-jump from where I stayed.  Everything there was so gorgeous and had that un-touched feel.  It was almost creepy how quiet it was as well.  I actually had trouble sleeping it was so peachful.

This past weekend was Bumbershoot in Seattle and this year they went totally out. I had the most amazing weekend EVER!  The only down side was that my feet and legs are still recovering from walking and standing for 10 hours straight. 

I saw: Beck, Band Of Horses, Saul Williams, !!!, Nada Surf, Barcelona, The Walkmen, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, The Black Keys, Stone Temple Pilots, The Whigs, The Offspring, Death Cab For Cutie, Minus The Bear, Flobots, and Jakob Dylan. 

It was amazing.  Beat last year by a mile.  The only ridiculous thing was paying for parking.  I practically had to sign over my first born to park in a lot.  And I suck at parallel-ing so there was no hope for a meter. 

I also ate corn on the cob for the first time in my life.  It was delicious and I have become a huge fan!

My parents still have the house in Queen Anne (a section of Seattle) that we lived in to use as a place to stay when visiting friends, family, going to medical conferences, etc.  I’m sure when deciding to keep it, they didn’t have any idea that I would take over, move in, and make it my own home.  But I did.  Now Diesel (my geriatric black lab) and I are rulers of the house, a really old 5-bedroom that creaks and doesn’t appear to have any sort of proper smoke detectors.  Despite being Queen of the House I still sleep in my old bedroom, complete with princess-themed bedding and a lot of Lion King paraphernalia.  At first I was planning a slight re-decoration, but everytime I try and take something down or throw something out I end up sitting and recalling a dozen fond memories. 

One down-side to living alone, I discovered, is that I can’t cook.  Or bake. I have eaten Teriyaki Plus Take-Out for six nights straight.  I’m sure at this point I have enough Sodium in me to preserve a small whale, if that even makes any sort of sense.  Tonight I am going to brave the grocery store and buy out their stock on Ramen, oven-dinners, and cheesy-box.  If I don’t post in in 4-6 weeks, I probably starved to death.

I’m the sort of person that solves the problem of their car making odd noises by turning up the music.  My car, Lazarus — because he often dies and comes back to life, has been making odd sorts of sounds when I brake, and for about a month I ignored it by turning up my music.  But alas I must take it to the shop.  And now, along with a mechanic bill, I’m sure I’ve a slight hearing loss. 

In a totally different direction… I’ve found that in working with kids, I am very rarely understood.  Between my accent and my vocabulary there are three common responses to questions i ask: the giggle, the blank stare, and the “you talk funny”.  For instance, yesterday I was talking to Asa and this is exactly how our conversation went. 

Asa: “How many melons left?”

Me: “Three (only it comes out as Tree because my accent)”

Asa: “Where?”

Me: “No, there are Tree melons left”

Asa: “Well what’s the difference between tree melons and these melons”

Me: “Tree.  You know… one, two, tree”

Asa: Blank Stare

Me  (in my best American accent that always comes out ten octaves lower than my voice and very Southern sounding): “TH-uh-REEEEE”

Asa: “I just don’t GET you”

Me: scoffing and muttering “pssh Americans” under my breath. 

I’m working on it.  The kids give me American words of the day.  For having spent a decent chunk of my childhood in (or at least around) America(ns) I thought I had it down… apparently I was well wrong.

It has just been decided.  Pride and Prejudice (the new one) wins the award for MOST annoying DVD Root Menu song loop.

I’ve been spending the past week or so (I’ve lost all track of time) travelin round mainly to keep from getting too stir-crazy.  I’m not used to being stuck in one place for long doing the same thing every day. 

I did open my mail today, finally.  It’s been sitting around waiting for me to collect it, and the very first thing I opened was my acceptence into the St. Joseph Clinic Medical Missionary programme.  I’ll mainly be doing lab-type work or simple procedure prep; similar to my duties in my parents’ clinics.  I felt as though it was time to try something away from my parents and see how well I work without the cushion of knowing my parents own the place and that they’d always have my back.  It’s kind of scary, really, knowing that more rests on my shoulders.  My parents are fiercely proud, however, so that helps. 

I’ll be leaving sometime around December and staying until Summer, if things go smoothly.  I don’t know how foreign affairs and government documents and the such work, but I know that right now a lot is depending on what sort of visa I am able to obtain. 

Wish my luck on getting my visa, I feel as though this is just the sort of oppurtunity I’ve been looking for and I am so excited.

This past couple weeks have seen me completely sleep deprived, stuck in traffic for hours a day, sunburnt, stressed, and a couple hundred dollars poorer in gas money.  It’s also been one of the most amazing weeks ever.  I’ve been shadowing an old collegue of my parents’ as part of my training at Children’s Hospital in Seattle.  It’s so odd walking down the hall and having people know me without knowing them.  I’ve been hugged, bombarded with questions, and told MANY stories of funny things i did when visiting work with my parents as a small child.  I recognise a lot of faces and names as contacts my parents keep for any sort of medical advancements and trials that they can get sent to their clinics for cheap; it is very odd walking down the same halls as my parents 10 years ago chatting with the same people about much the same thing.  As of this afternoon I completed my first round of Aquatherapy with Ben, a little boy who has to relearn how to walk after treatment for a bone cancer.  It was so difficult to see this tiny little boy trying so hard to do something everyone else takes for granted whilst feeling nothing but pain the whole time.  I felt guilty for being the one telling him how he only had a little further to go, and how easy it was, and how good it’ll feel later on as i stood next to him perfectly stable and without pain. After that session when I was dried and changed I wandered around the hospital a while and explored all the differences between it and the small clinics of my childhood.  Our clinics were always so filled with such natural sounds as people chatting, people crying, orders being shouted and feet shuffling along the worn floors.  Children’s wasn’t like that… there was a constant beeping from machines, alarms going off, pages buzzing, overhead systems calling doctors, tvs, radios.  I had never realised how loud everything is compared to the clinics, it did make me homesick in a way. I know a lot of people couldn’t imagine what life would be like without tvs, radios, phones, and pagers but I honestly think I prefer it that way.

I will never not wear sunscreen ever again.  I am so incredibly red that I’ve been getting sympathetic stares and the occasional motherly “you shoulda worn sunblock” look.  Moving, eating, sleeping, talking, thinking… everything hurts!  I very well might have bought out Rite Aid’s whole stock SPF 50 and Aloe Vera.  What’s worse is that the kids at work only got darker and darker… damn my Irish genes. 

 

It has been exactly 210 days and 14 hours since I have last seen my sister/my wombmate/my best friend.  In exactly 10 hours and 37 minutes, however, she will be stepping off the plane at the Seattle aeroport and I am giddy with excitement.  These past few months she has been living and working in an orphanage in Thailand, where she taught English and helped translate for the local medical missionaries stationed there.  I’ve been so freakishly proud of her and the work she has been doing, but after spending our whole lives side-by-side it was so odd not being able to call her up with a funny story or random gossip.  She’ll only be in Seattle a week, though, before she is off to join up with my parents…. so I’m sure this week will be jammed full of us talking full speed without breaths and trying to fit in everything we haven’t been able to tell eachother the past 210 days.

In other news: I went to my two year old cousin’s dance recital expecting a few minutes of small children bouncing around instead sat through 2 hours of every single class in the school… starting with the toddlers and ending with advanced pointe.  I must say that I think Bailey was the cutest and most talented dancer there… not that I’m biased or anything. 

My very first Hot Yoga class is tomorrow.  I very well may die… we’ll see.  Also, I was accepted into the Children’s Hospital volunteer programme, so I’ll be doing aqua-therapy for kids with neuro-muscular disorders and such, I’ll post more about that when I start.