Taking a peek back into the past

I was talking to my sister yesterday and a bit today and just thinking back to my semester at Mauldin High in SC. I was a junior and was coming straight from being homeschooled my entire life, to the biggest pot head school around (or so people said)! But my older sister and brother both graduated from there so I was excited to go. And I had wanted to be in real school for soooo long so it was pretty exciting.

My whole semester there I never used my locker.
I tried a few times but never could quite figure out a combination lock and was too embarrassed fiddling around with it and didn't want to be late for class since it was on the first floor and all my classes were spread way far apart! I didn't bother. I walked around with a full backpack and stacks of textbooks in my hands. NERD! No WONDER i have back and shoulder problems!!!!!

I tried talking to people in different classes but never had friends to walk with to and from classes. It took me a full week to figure out where each class was and how to get to each place. "At this door, take a left. At this sign, turn right....walk down this hall, turn left..." I passed people in the breeze way every day and it was always so awkward because i recognized their face but never had met them, so I avoided their eyes.

I was made fun of by one kid in Chemistry because I told him about our massive van so he said I rode the short bus to school.

My "friend" who was my deskmate in Chem for half the semester tried pushing me out of my desk a few times. Thought it was hilarious. We got along for some reason. Maybe because he was a bando fat kid and i was a lost homeschooler. Weirdos click.

My other "friend" in history class had long black hair that he never washed and was a little too proud of the fact that it smelled like mouldy cheese. He talked to me.

I was not called Eva, but "Angel" at Mauldin because my journalism teacher couldn't pronounce Evangeline and would remember me as angel because i was so quiet. I never talked in that class especially. (Eva started when I moved to France and stuck in Congo). There are still people who know me only as Vange or Evangeline though.

I had a funny friend in Keyboarding who I really enjoyed sitting with but once he found out I was moving to Africa he never would stop trying to predict that I'd become a drug dealer and hoped i would send some his way.
To this day he would still ask me how my drug business is going.

In art, one of our teachers was fired because he'd yell at us and i think he cussed some kids out. It was the worst, most disbehaved class ever. I didn't learn any art.
I thought I made one friend in that class, but she was the girl that everyone was friends with who was half Asian, drop dead gorgeous, the tiniest girl in the world, always had a new outfit on every day (all aeropostale or AE or hollister clothes) or cutesy care bear cloud rainbow type shirts that were always pastel colors, matching ribbons in her hair (purple or pink usually), and! in always the same color as her shirt, she drew a heart on one cheek with a marker. She came that way to school every day. It took a while but i finally started sitting with her. She didn't really have friends in that class so she would talk to me just cuz it was convenient.

It took me a while, but I finally found a table to sit at in the cafeteria with my friend Lindsay. I don't know how we met since we didn't have any classes together, but we started going to the same youth group, and she would let me sit with her and we hung out out of school. She was my best friend at school I guess, but i only ever saw her at lunch.
Then through that youth group I met my friend Stephen and he was my other only good friend. I think he had been homeschooled as well:-) He was in my chem class so we were lab partners. I only saw him in Chem. and at tues. night youth group.

One day as I was walking across the cafeteria (more like POWER walking across cuz i didn't wanna be late for class), I stepped and slid on a pack of ketchup (but caught myself before falling)! A table of jocks saw me and laughed and I ran to the safety of the big hallway SO EMBARRASSED.

One time I walked into the girl's restroom and a "pretty girl" asked me "Do you even HAVE a butt??" I don't know why. She had never talked to me before, ... i didn't say hi to her or anything. I had just walked past her to go into a stall and that's what she asked me. It was weird but it made me embarrassed and self-conscious.

I could probably think of countless more embarrassing moments and embarrassing things that made up my half a year at Mauldin. For some reason, I remember liking it though. No I didn't really have good friends, but i was SLOWLY making progress. That's why I was pretty disappointed when I found out we were moving to Africa. I had just discovered an AWESOME youth group on Tues. nights that wasn't part of my church but made up of kids from churches and schools all over and it was definitely one of the best things about my life in SC. The youth group was helping me meet more christians that went to Mauldin and it was just amazing how I was growing spiritually through that group. If it hadn't been for that youth group, though, I don't think my attitude about moving to the Congo would have been the same. It helped me realize I had to be open to where God was calling my family. It made me see that all things work together for good, and this could be/would be a very good thing if i tried to make it a good thing and accept it. At my 16th birthday that year i had 20 friends who showed up.... and at my goodbye party, i think about the same number or more showed up to celebrate. I don't know how I had so many friends being SO shy! but that youth group helped me meet a lot of them and brought me closer to them.

Now I didn't take you back to my high school days at Mauldin to get you to feel sorry for me. I actually told you all this to get you to laugh. I do the same, when I look back. I kept thinking of these funny stories, and couldn't believe how shy I was and the stuff I put up with.... I think it's really funny how different of a person I am now. And I'm thankful for that.

Looking back at other things, I see how much I have made it through.
There were some guys who moved out of my life,
Some friends who I thought I'd be close to forever,
Some places I thought I'd be forever,
Emotions I thought I'd feel forever,
and more.... but all of this shows me I am becoming stronger every year.
There's only one person on earth (not including family) who I haven't lost yet through all my moves and all the different experiences I've faced.
His name is Zaq. I have called him my best friend now since 2003. No matter how much we see each other, we always know that nothing will ever change between us. I still somehow feel really close to him and we don't email "novels" very much anymore (though we did that for years and now I miss it) ...We don't get to talk on the phone every week, but we still talk like nothing has changed. We both have changed a lot though. We've both grown up a lot. I didn't see him for 2 whole years, then I saw him for 2 days in summer '07, and now I haven't seen him since. I've made a goal to see him again before I turn 21 or by my 21st birthday. It has just been too long!! I can't believe how much time has passed since we've lived in the same place and went to the same homeschool group (where we met). I won't forget his crazy talents including baking delicious, beautiful, amazingly creative cakes, making outstanding truffles for Valentines Day, making crazy (but scarily realistic) prosthetics including gross pirate teeth and weird noses & chins, his ability to ACT and DIRECT, the way he threw parties with his family, the way he can take a picture or film a movie, him telling me he is very unsocial.... his DVD collection, his knowledge of every movie ever made, his crazy knowledge of actors and directors,...even producers, ... his love for horror movies,....his support for me and all his advice,.... I could go on and on. I miss my best friend. My sort of non-related brother who I hope I will always be able to stay in touch with.

so i'll crawl underneath my blanket

Today was a hard but good day. Woke up at 7 to go to the gym with Koto...showered, had devos, rode my bike to work at Deirdre's, played with her dogs, did some expenses and filing, copying, and stuff like that.... not difficult at all but then i came back, had my 3 classes in a row, got to my 3rd class and realized i had COMPLETELY forgotten to read for it! We have quizzes every day on the reading for that class so i really have no clue how i would forget to read. Pretty funny. I totally made up answers and i don't think ANY of them were right... sigh.... Why can't i be blessed with the gift of BSing? ;-)
It's also homecoming week so i've been dressing for points and today we had some blow up bouncy thingys outside -- like an obstacle course (almost a bounce house but better), a blow up wrestling ring "king of the mountain" type thingy, and another one with a bungy cord. I tried it all except king of the mountain. The obstacle course was great fun:-) And then we got ice cream sundaes and cheesecake. You gotta love the Gordon Student Association.

Oh and Chester's Place opened this week too!! (Gordon's alcoholic-free "Pub"/student hangout) Named after some very rich donor's cat. The Fowlers. They gave gordon lots of money so now we have a student hangout named after their cat. Wonderful. Shouldn't we have their cat roaming around the place then? Or at least in a cage? That would be nice. That would make it so much better. :-p It really has a "pub" feel though. It's all dark wood, hardwood floors, wooden booths (that are very hard to slide into because they're made for very skinny bodies), a small fireplace, big mantlepiece, wood ceiling,... i can't describe things very well tonight but yeah it'll be good to have.

Oh man. This was such a slacker week! Yesterday I accidentally slept through my first class!! I woke up to my suite mate timidly saying "Eva? Oh sorry! Did i wake you?" and i looked at my phone and it was 11:15!! My class was at 9:45. OOPS! First class of the year I've slept through! But it has to happen at least once a year i think. I dunno i guess i've just been extremely tired. .. .

EVERYONE IS SICK! 3 of my friends (one of them is my roommate so that's not good) at least! So I'm taking my Vitamin C and garlic hoping not to catch anything. Koto has bronchitis! Ah! This would be the WRONG weekend to get sick because KATE IS COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!! She and Andy are driving down from Maine tomorrow.... meeting us at Rainforest Cafe where 18 of us are going to be having a little BIRTHDAY DINNER for Koto and Charlotte:-) i can't wait!! It'll be so fun! And Kate'll be here til SUnday night or monday morning so I'm so happy. Haven't seen her since MAY!

I'm really scattered right now so I'm gonna keep flying randomly through my life/week. I've gone 2 or 3 weeks in a row now with Koto going to the gym at 7:15am MWF. It's been SO great to workout so early. It's such a nice way to start the day. Yeah it's HECK waking up but once i am up it's happy. And then I get back to my room and shower and read my Bible...sometimes I have time to journal too. So that's been extreeemely nice.
I have a LOT coming up next week work-wise. Not looking forward to it at all but it will be Quad break next weekend which means i'll be dropping 2 classes!!! My 2 lit classes will be done but then of course i'm picking up sociology so it'll only feel like i'm dropping 1. Anyway though, I studied/worked for 4 hours straight tonight because i have 2 papers, 3 exams, and a big presentation all next week beginning Monday. YUCK. Environmental Science is kicking my butt and we have our 2nd exam on monday! not happy. the rest of the stuff like my presentation and paper for Nobel Lit should be good. It's kinda a fun project we're doing.... and then my other paper is just a "journal..." and the lit exams should be easy. So i'm not TOO worried. It's just science that I worry about I guess.
Why is Gordon so hard???

I picked the songs this week for Catacombs with Colby and we're singing some great stuff. I got to pick the "theme" too ... based on what's goin on in my life and what God's been showing me and telling me. Oh and we have a violinist now too! Which is AWESOME!!! So I can't wait til Sun. night. :-)

Okay Enough Random Rambling For Now!
I'm gonna try to get some sleep after watching the most recent episode of Pushing Daisies. The cutest show ever, but probably very bad for me to be watching these days. It just makes me sad.

life begins again!

I'm back at Gordon!!
Actually, I've been here for a while. Half a month!
I moved in early to do Orientation staff stuff... so I had a week of training, then moved in freshmen, had my own "Crew" of freshies, and went into boston with them, met up with them lots, hung out,..... etc....
It was a lot. VERY crazy and I probably will never do that again! There's a lot more to say but I won't right now.

Classes started on the 27, and I'm doing 18 credits again. So far, I'm surviving okay. I am a little worried that I'm trying to do too much though. Besides classes, I will be starting up work again (for Deirdre, the high school consultant) on Tues./Thurs. mornings. I have chapel 3 mornings a week and I'm supposed to go to at least 2 of those 3.

I told Becky I'm gonna try to do dance ministry with her... it's basically dance team, but we do more ballet/lyrical/modern style dancing than the dance TEAM.

I am trying out SWIM TEAM until Oct. 6 (Oct. 6 is the day we have to COMMIT...give it a yes or no and start training 6 days/week!)... so for now I'm doing 3 days a week (with the team..."captain's practices") and 2 mornings a week (just with my roommate). It's pretty intense. I have no idea yet if i'll actually be able to or want to do it when it actually starts up for real.

Tonight I had my first audition for Catacombs band. Catacombs is a Sunday night worship service, and ever since last year I've been wanting to be up on stage singing with them.... last year I only made call-backs, so I'm hoping for better this time around! If i get IN, they practice one day in the week and 2 hours on sunday before performing.

Tomorrow night I audition for CHAPEL WORSHIP band! If I don't get into Catacombs I really wanna do this, so I'm hoping for the best. I don't really know which one is better for me or if I am supposed to even do either one. But I'm praying a lot about all this.... all these opportunities,... and trying to not commit to TOO much! I do have lots of homework obviously these days.

I think if I get into one of the worship bands then I will say no to Gospel Choir this semester even though it was really fun. The thing is that it fell apart 2nd semester and barely existed. Gospel choir basically consisted of me and my 2 best friends. We were the only ones dedicated enough for it. This year apparently they had 30 sign up, and they emailed me to ask me to come back. I guess if I don't get into one of the bands I will do it. It isn't THAT big of a time commitment and it's fun as long as lots of people are in it and serious about it!

I have no idea how I'll do all this, but God is strong and so far it sort of looks like everything will work out. Will I have a life? No..... will i ever have free time?? Probably not. :-) We will see how this goes.

The audition tonight I felt like went awesome.... so I'm hoping tomorrow night goes the same!

I'm excited about my classes this semester/quarter.... I have Journalism I, Public Speaking, Nobel Lit: Poetry and Drama, Western Lit: Homer-Shakespeare, Sociology (doesn't start til 2nd quarter), and Environmental Science (the only one i'm not liking at all). Pretty intense schedule but once this quarter is done, both of my lit classes will be finished!!!

By the way-- the big news is that my family found a place in Pasadena, CA and are living there while they're on furlough!! I'm so happy for them and so excited to get to visit at Christmas!!

OKAY-I need to run to bed but I just thought I should update a little!

moving along

First semester done and gone! Wow, that was extreeeeemely fast. I don't think time has ever passed faster! Except maybe when i lived in france... but that's obvious b/c FR was just too amazing. This semester was awesome. I feel like I have pretty much gotten used to college and as long as I work ahead, I'll do great! The past 2 weeks somehow I got ahead in H/w so when exam time came (and i only had 2 written ones), I was pretty free to hang around and didn't stress AT ALL! My 2 written exams were in French (surprisingly not too hard) and Old Testament (also not bad!) .. then i had like 3 papers due for my other 3 classes. --And those were short, easy papers I wrote ahead, so it really was easy when exam time came! I felt bad for those people who had like 4 exams and couldn't start studying because they had papers to write or things to read etc... i think next semester will be much harder with western civ. (history), NEW testament (and i have one of the hardest teachers apparently), Psychology, and Comm., and then the freshmen required class again called "Christianity, Character, & Culture." ...but hopefully it won't be TOO bad for me! I won't have any classes on Tuesdays and only one at 8am on thursdays!!!! pretty stoked about that-- but those will have to be my work days since MWF are gonna be pretty jam-packed.
What keeps me going is having some AWESOME friends, near and far! I just love Gordon. It snowed a lot before I came here and we went sledding on cafeteria trays! It's just fun .... even though it gets cold, you stay inside or bundle up a lot and drink lots of hot chocolate or lattes.... it's lovely!

So I am in Kin now!! Back in Congo...."Home." it was funny telling people I was "just going to Africa" for winter break. And there's a song by Kenny Chesney called "All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan" ... i think i may just get that while i'm here! Planning on doing LOTS of swimming and tennis;-) My flight here was very interesting .... probably one of the worst flights I've ever taken -- it was so long and draining. Surprisingly, I'm not at all jet-lagged, I think I got enough sleep on the plane.
Alrighty, here goes a long detailed story about my flight, whether you wanted it or not!
On Friday morning, I went to the airport at 3:30 am -- my friend Corrie drove me because she lives 20 mins away from the airport, and I had gone to stay at her house on Wed. after my last exam.

So we got to the airport at 4:00 and didn't expect anyone to be there, but ... we were wrong. In the intl. flight line, there were like 30 ppl in front of me and more and more (Mostly Asians, lol) kept coming in. i waited for 45 mins in line, and then went through SECURITY, which was even worse, 30mins waiting time... so then by the time I got to my gate I only had to wait like 5mins before boarding. I flew to Wash. DC, and slept nearly the whole time... At the DC airport, my flight was leaving at 9:30 and I got to the gate at like 8:45 ... I checked in and the people said that Christiana (my sister meeting me) hadn't checked in yet..that was weird because her flight from Nashville was coming in at 11pm on Thursday night ... so she was supposed to be there the night before.... kinda worried me. WHERE COULD SHE BE? So I went and got a little Starbucks -- muffin & cocoa because it would be the last time to do that for a month... haha i'm pathetic. When I got back to the gate, there was my sister, thank goodness!!!! So then I sat down with her, ready for story time. haha
Her flight had been cancelled to DC last night, and the only way to get up to DC was to take a flight to Baltimore (she had to buy a new ticket), and then these people our uncle knew picked her up and drove her in the morning to the airport in DC. It was a messy, long, involved story, so I won't get into all of it, but she was quite flustered!! Her luggage had also broken open on the way from Nashville to Baltimore so she had to go to walmart and buy a new trunk!! it was just crazy. But we met up and got on our flight to Ethiopia. Christiana had a really big rolling "carry-on" so we pushed as hard as we could to squeeze it into the overhead bin... buuuuut we couldn't do it, even with a guy's help. So i told her to just check it below. Right after the flight I was thinking that they would put it on the ramp that goes into the airport right outside the plane so we could get it in Ethiopia and get on our flight to Kinshasa. I didn't think about the fact that we were on Ethiopian airlines and they might check it and you would have to pick it up in baggage claim in Ethiopia!!! ... Anywho, wasn't worried about that at the time. SO we boarded and we didnt have seats together but my seat was in the very front of economy so i was like, "well whoever's sitting with you won't mind switching and going to sit where i'm supposed to sit b/c it's closer to the front!" Or so i thought. I sat down by Christiana and when the guy who had that seat came, i told him the deal and he was like, "well let me go check it out." he came back and said that someone was sitting in my seat, so he made me move. I went back up front and the flight attendant asked me if i minded sitting in the middle exit row (this was a big plane -- 3 rows across) ... i was like "of course not!! yay for leg room!!" and settled in. -- In between a lady in her upper 40's and an Ethiopian, also middle aged. The Ethiopian couldn't keep still and kept getting out of her seat and talking to flight attendants in her language... which was fine but this cute girl that was sitting behind us who was friends with the Ethiopian kept coming up and sitting by me. While i was watching the movie she kept wanting me to change the channel or find it on her tv (we had our own little screens) and kept turning up my volume til it was making my ears bleed. lol ... she was adorable, but loud behind me! and whenever i tried to lie my seat back she would go "HEY -- I'm not going to sleep! Move your chair!" but i got away with it for a little bit at least.... I slept a while, watched movies for a while, slept,... read a tiny bit, just did anything i could to pass time. Longest flight of my life. We stopped over in Rome after 8 hrs to refuel and i was so bummed they wouldn't let us off the plane. We had to sit there for like 2 hrs, saw some Italian trash guys get on the plane to collect trash, and heard them speaking some italian....:-) i had to pretty much stay in my seat the whole time. miserable. We were served 3 or 4 meals and they were just horrible. worst airplane food ever. it was like fake, and made me feel sick so i didn't want to eat anything. My stomach kept hurting on and off, and the food they kept bringing out was disgusting. Finally we got off the ground again and flew for 7 or 8 more hours to Ethiopia. I tried to sleep a lot, and watched another movie, but the only good movie was No Reservations which i loved!
Finally we got to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It looked exactly like the Kenyan airport -- looked pretty new, but very empty and big. The first thing i realized was our flight was an hour late so we had 10 mins before our flight to Kin was supposed board!!! I got out of the plane and waited for C. Then i realized we had to find her bag because it wasn't sitting on the "gangplank" outside the plane! oh noes!! It was going to baggage claim! So as soon as C got outta the plane, we ran down to baggage claim, which was on the OTHER side of customs. What were we going to do? we didn't need to go to customs b/c we weren't staying-plus there was a long line!! We talked to a guy who worked there and were like "we need to get a bag and get on a connecting flight but we shouldn't have to go through customs!" he tried to be helpful and was like "Oh, fine! Just pass through!" Just pass through? Does that mean go through the line and talk to the customs officials or... just "pass through" like in between the counters and just run through and ignore the ppl in line and behind the counter? wouldn't we get stopped?? WELL ... We ran for it because we had a flight to catch!!

... Got to the baggage claim carousel and no bags were out yet (obviously ... u know how long it normally takes... and we were in AFRICA!) .. i was like "umm... C??? what are we gonna do??? We have to find someone and tell them to just send our bag onto Kin>" and she was like "yahhh ... oh noooo i'm sooo sorrrry!!" i was like "no it's not your fault but we better hurry! our plane leaves in 5mins!!!!!!" it actually was going to leave in like 5. We were so scared. i didn't want to spend a night in E!... we found some ppl standing around and they were NO HELP at all. I prayed for an angel. I didn't know what else we could do. Right then someone paged us in french. "Madames Evangeline et Christiana...ajfkjakjdfka jfkjakfj akfj ajfkd jakdjf kajkd fjakl. Merci." they repeated it 3 or 4 times! I found her (she had run off to find an "info desk" or something ... but there was nothing ANYwhere...) and was like "that's us!! we just have to run!!" and she was like "What?? they did?" i don't know how she hadn't heard our names .. i heard them clear as day. but yeah so we ran upstairs and saw a sign that said "Connecting flights" (thank God for english!) and a man was looking at us (there were only 3 ppl in sight... it was really deserted), Pointing to these 2 other guys who were like "this way!!" and they looked like we should be in a hurry. So we rushed over and followed the people's pointing... got to a security line and we started walking through without putting our bags down. Of course they stopped us cuz our bags had to be x-rayed... then this lady showed up and was like "Are you Evangeline and Christiana? Follow me!" and she was walking really fast, we rushed and told her about our bag and gave her the claim ticket which she took and said she would tell someone and figure it out. So we got on the plane... i think we were the last ones on. We sat on rows across from each other, so that was nice. 5mins later the lady that saved our life came back and handed us the bag ticket and said it had been checked on to congo! So, sighs of relief... then the plane door closed and we just sat there. For what seemed like 3 hours.. but i think it was just 1. I'm not sure what we were waiting for! THey never explained. I sat next to 2 Congolese girls who loved talking and bumping me. while i was sleeping the girl poked me and made me get up so she could get to the bathroom, but other than that it was okay. it seemed like a really long flight but i think it was 4hrs. I watched a bit of Home Alone -- In FRENCH b/c they didn't have it in eng. (it was hilarious!)... and some Everybody loves Ray, which was really dumb. tried sleeping .. they served another awful meal. i still felt pretty miserable. i think i ate 4 bites and threw it out.

The flight attendants were the worst. Really bad service. Even on the flight from DC to ethiopia they seemed in a big hurry to serve the food and give you drinks. Even if you were asleep they would nudge you and rip out your tray so they could throw food at you. And you know when you have to put your seat back upright when you're landing? I saw a congolese man with his head covered in a blanket and he had his seatback, so a flight attendant came to him and ripped the blanket off his head, pushed the botton, and jerked his seat forward while she shouted "put your seats up!" ... it was hilarious but also pretty sad. Such a different culture I guess. They were all Africans... very different! :-) well... we finally landed in Kin.

We got through customs fine, -- didn't have to wait very long -- they didn't even bother asking for our invitation letters ... well on the other side of Customs, I didn't see our protocol man right away, and i was like "well he'll find me... dad told me his name..." so when a guy standing there saw me and asked who was picking me up i said "Mukila Paul" (pretty confidently). And the guy nodded and told this woman to call him! She had his number.... i was like "Oh good yeah this is def the one guy dad wanted to pick us up because everyone knows our protocol man!" well the lady showed me and C a place to sit down away from the chaos and called Paul. She let him talk to me and i was like "i am walt shepard's daughter ... u know him ? ... well i am at the airport..." struggling finding words in french to say to him! and he's like "oui oui, I am coming!" in english. So i was like "YAY ... he knows me he's the guy!" because i was a little nervous i had said the wrong name. My dad had emailed me on wed and told me his name, and i had wrote a note in my phone -- so i looked at my phone. The name was "Papa Maninga." Totally different, but i was thinking ... "hmm ... congolese do have lots of names. it must be the same guy!" so i asked the lady for her phone to call dad. She seemed like a very nice lady and willingly let me use her phone. Dad was like "nooooooooo!!! maninga! i told u in the email!" so i told the lady to quickly call him back and tell him not to come. Right then before i hung up with my dad, Maninga looked at me and smiled. I was like Oh noooooooo.....slash, "so good to see you!!" but i was like "WHAT HAVE I DONE????? poor paul is coming" P.Maninga told me to sit down again and we gave him our baggage claim tickets. we sat for a LONG time just waiting for the carousel to start turning and sending out our luggage. When they started, i went over and stood with M to look for our bags. After a LOOOONG wait, i finally found my 2 bags and one of christiana's ... then finally another one of C's came out, but then we waited and waited and the last bag came out, and it was NOT C's carry on that we had had trouble with in Ethiopia. So we took the bags we had out to the car, and while we walked to M's truck, the lady that let me borrow her phone came up to us and Papa said that she claimed i owed her $5 for a new phone card b/c i used her phone. I go "but i used it for one minute!!" and he goes "tell her thati n french>" so i did, and she widened her eyes in disbelief. Another woman out of no where was like "Une minute??" also in disbelief. I go "OUI!!!" and she imitated me "OUI!!" in an awful voice. Good grief woman!! i didn't give her money... and wasn't about to! but i think Maninga had to give her a few francs to get her to leave us away. She started banging on my window. I wasn't tired until we had landed in Kin. The chaos of the airport was SOOOO bad.... i was sweating so much and getting pushed around a lot. And had made such a dumb mistake. Mukila Paul did show up at the airport, found me, and shook my hand and i had to apologize to him. He talked to Maninga and was wanting an explanation why he wasn't taking me (in the past he had taken dad and my sister to the airport and stuff a while ago) ... maninga explained to him and paul was like "what's walt's number??" so he called my dad! ah i was so embarrassed. he came all the way to the airport for nothing! and then my dad was a little distressed about it..
but urgh . . .. so then we drove home, and it was the longest ride of my life. For half the time Maninga was trying to give us a tour guide in english since C had never been here. .. .but then C fell asleep so then it was me & him and he kept getting phone calls . . . and i didn't feel like talking. there was SO much traffic! i think we got home around 4 after landing at 1. So maybe i exaggerated how long everything took but i really do feel like it was the longest day of my life. So yeah that made it SOOOO GREAT to finally get home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I ran inside and hugged everyone. Surprised i didn't melt down and cry. what a wonderful 2 days!
Moral of this story or lesson to be learned?? Don't fly Ethiopian AA if you can help it!!!
But mannn... is it good to be HOME!!! We haven't heard anything about C's luggage but... I've talked to lots of people who recently flew in here and they all lost their luggage but got it back in 2 days. So maybe we will too -- i think it's just because it's christmas. And being Africa might have a little to do with it as well! hehe...
I swam some laps today & ran a teeny bit... I plan on trying to do that every morning at 9. It feels so odd being back here... but it's a GOOD odd. I don't feel like I ever left because so much is the same! We live in a different house -- my parents have a place on the American School campus now, and though it's much smaller than our old house, it's in a more convenient area -- good community, better electricity (meaning it goes off less) and water, etc... and i think it might be cheaper or the same price. Plus, what could be better than having a big pool w/ 2 diving boards and a volleyball & tennis court plus a running path all around you?

SO -- merry Christmas, one and ALL ... I hope you have a GREAT Christmas and NEW YEARS! Happy Holidays, love you all!! Time to hang out with my family again!:-p

red carpet day...and other stuff this week

Thursday was an interesting day. I broke down by the end of it from all my frustration, but there really wasn't MUCH to get frustrated by! It was just life. I almost got left at school again (i get forgotten quite a lot) and that just added to my ...what should i call it anger? annoyance? stress? Whatever it was, it was not worth getting mad about! Turned out my family was still planning on picking me up because they had to get mom anyway (i didn't know she was on campus) and we went to the Cabalka's to wait for her while she finished doing whatever she was doing! I think one of the things that happened at school was everyone dumped the prom decoration planning thing on me. So I had to go through the prom catalog and pick out decorations, then friday mehreen wanted to change all my ideas, and so i wanted to just pass the responsibility to her since she loves decorating and since she has all the strong opinions... but no, she wants me to take care of it. lol. Friday was actually fun though! We had a spirit day (to kick off spirit WEEK coming up tomorrow!)...which i will rename Red Carpet Madness. I let my friend Liz borrow my dress from last year, and i wore a dress i've had for a few years (see photo), curled my hair (woke up at 5:30 am), ...i think i was a little crazy to do all that. But we had an assembly and during the assembly, we had a fashion walk off competition between the 4 teams of the school! That was loads of fun. I walked with Wasim and Lisa, and our team ended up tying for 1st! I hate ties ... but that's ok. We are the Pirates team, and we always have to win!! :-p So the day was a bit crazy. I only stayed in the dress until 3rd period. The heels were a bit much!
Friday night was even more fun... we had a youth game night here, and dad surprised us and got the karaoke mic fixed! Well actually the Magic Mic works to PLAY music, but the mic itself doesn't work which means it won't score you any more (:-() buuut we just have to plug in a normal mic into the system and Voila! You can karaoke like normal! We tried playing Cranium, we ate food, and then we sang for a long time. The funniest and best Karaoke-er was Todd of course, but the funniest part of the night was when this girl finally got up there to sing and just as she was gonna sing her first note, the power went out! Okay it was SAD, not funny. No, it was funny. Really funny! But poor girl. It was time for everyone to go home anyway. God's got such a sense of humor... and He really has perfect timing, because the power was on for the whole rest of the party, and didn't stay off for too long! We also had coke floats and Fanta floats!! (Sarah & I had to make a lot of ice cream for everyone...i think we had 25 ppl) Good times...
Yesterday I kinda forgot about St. Patrick's Day... meaning I didn't wear green and didn't do a thing. Just wore my pajamas and relaxed the entire day! It was great. I had a lot of homework so i didn't relax the WHOLE day, i actually did do some work, but i didn't go to choir because I kinda have a cold and i needed to study for 2 tests....
What is up with tests every monday all of a sudden? I really hate this... Teachers don't understand!
I am so tired. That probably explains why this blog is crazy. So goodnight to all! 4 of the 5 "Camels..." sharing lunch @ school!