In which I become a bed bug chew toy, and make a much-awaited-but-not-like-you-thought announcement

First things first: Actually…that will come at the end. Fun things first:
When the girls decided to do my laundry for me, they also decided to make my bed for me. So they took the sheets off so they could put them back on really nice, I guess, since they were on loosely because I have twin size sheets on a single size bed. It has never bothered me. Then again I don’t iron them before I put them on the bed either, as they do. But apparently during this process a bug was found. And when it was squished it had blood in it. Yes, there were bedbugs. BUT. There were two mattresses. The top one had been on the bed, the bottom one I added from a room of spare mattresses, apparently I picked a bad one because this one is the cause of the 3-ish new bites I’ve ended up with each morning. I always thought it was just mosquitoes because it’s always been on exposed areas like my arms and feet, which are sticking out of the sheets. So once again they laughed at me and we got rid of the bad mattress and replaced it with one that had been sunned enough to make bugs go away the other day. If only that was the end of the story. That night, I went to sleep on the couch about an hour into trying to fall asleep because I was SO itchy. Part of it was my head, I’m sure...but I also had some new bites in the morning. So all the mattresses from that room were taken out, and everyone in there went into a different bed in a different room, with a different mattress. Problem solved, right? No. the next morning I woke up with more bites. That night I couldn’t fall asleep because of the itching, oh yeah, and I found 2 bed bugs crawling around..one not on the bed, one under my sheets. So I went to sleep on the couch, and resolved to boil my sheets and pillow and pajamas to kill any possible bugs that may have been left. So I did. Also, the rooms and beds and basically the whole house were sprayed with pesticides. That night, I found another bug crawling around. And interrupted one in the middle of biting my arm. While I was still AWAKE. So…I went to sleep on the couch again. This morning we took the mattress and the bed out of the room and put them and my sheets in the sun, and sprayed this room again. Hopefully all this, along with my fervent prayers, will prevent any further bites. It’s not typical bed bug bite though…it’s just a lot of them on my feet and hands, with a few on my arms and calves, and one on my side. They supposedly typically bite in clusters on the torso, but mine are all single, random ones on the extremities. I’d doubt it was bed bugs if I hadn’t seen and killed several of them that look exactly like they’re supposed to.

On a lighter note, I went to my first Kenyan wedding on Saturday. It started at 10:30, so naturally we started our 1.5 hour trip at 11:00. Somehow we managed to miss very little of the ceremony. When we arrived the groom’s mom was in the middle of a very, very long speech (doubled in length by the translation from Swahili to English). Followed by an extremely detailed account of the groom’s life’s important moments, the bride’s life’s important moments, and the important moments in their relationship, including the exact date which they got their government-mandated-before-you-get-married HIV test. Then there was a quite good and quite funny sermon from the pastor, as well as a “I’m only going to talk for 1 minute because we’re running out of time” “greeting” by his wife, which turned into another very long yet also very good and very funny sermon. FINALLY we got to the vows, which would have been very traditional what-you’d-expect-at-an-American-wedding except that the pastor, being funny like he is, was ad libbing and adding a lot of stuff in…making them say “I love you, you know I love you, I love you” 5 or 6 times in the middle, etc. Also, the putting-on of the rings isn’t a “just slip it on their finger” like we do, they veeeery slowly work it down the finger so there’s lots of time for pictures and video. James started singing this song as he was doing it “you are important to me, I need you to survive”, it was quite adorable. So theeeeen they signed the license, had communion, and were announced to the crowd. Hooray! THEN literally every pastor in attendance (there were several) was asked to stand up and greet everyone, some elderly women that James often treats were brought up to say how wonderful of a person he is, etc etc etc. It was just hysterical to me how everyone who began speaking mentioned being quick because we were in a rush to be out of there on time, but they forgot about that as soon as they got into what they were saying. SO it was QUITE a long ceremony, but eventually we made it to the reception, a group of tents on the grounds of a school in Nairobi. There was a special tent for the pastors to sit at, where they were served food instead of standing on the line and bringing it back to their chairs like the rest of the guests. Lucky for me I was travelling with a pastor so I got to it in the special people section…though I got up to get my own plate anyways, because I had a special request to NOT eat my weight in rice/potatoes/beans. :-D

There are many other fun, funny, interesting things from this week but it’s getting LATE and I need to get to this, so the rest of the fun stuff will come soon.

Ready!? You’re not going to like this news.

I mean, really, really not gonna like it.

Unless you’re sadistic, or you know God’s inner thoughts, that is.

I’m serious. It’s bad.

Do you know what it is yet?

You probably do.

Yes, that.

The unimaginable.

It’s happened.

(Drumroll)


I didn’t get into Buffalo either.

Initial reaction? “I knew it, I’ve been dreading it all day, for some reason”. In the afternoon, I just felt this strong compulsion to pray for my one last application. I fought the urge to pray for an acceptance in favor of praying for God’s will to happen, whatever it was, and to give me the strength to be OK with it. SO when I got a cell phone call from my mom, I knew what it was gonna say, since she doesn’t call unless it’s important. There’s an online application status check that she’d been religiously checking, and it said “non-accepted”. You know…I still haven’t gotten an email from them saying so though.

Anyway. So I was, obviously, and still am, quite, quite, QUITE disappointed…This is something I’ve been looking forward to and EXPECTING for a long time. Not just because I hate the idea of rejection/failure/TELLING EVERYONE I’VE EVER MET ABOUT SAID REJECTION/FAILURE(!!!!!) but because I was really EXCITED about going! I miss the college atmosphere, I miss my life having a weekly schedule, I even miss STUDYING and TAKING NOTES, and I was so excited to get to learn all that stuff I’ve been wanting to learn for forever! And then to have that just drop out of possibility for another year…I’ve never in my ENTIRE life spent a moment where I didn’t know what the next step was. I always had a perfect plan of what I was going to do for the next year, next 4 years, next 12 years…and there I was left with NO CLUE what to do until I could re-apply, since of COURSE I’m going to re-apply.

So for a couple days I’ve been becoming OK with the idea, and asking God to show me what on earth else I’m supposed to do with my time. I’ve considered several different things, and then today I spoke with Buffalo’s admissions director to ask for advice on what I should do to improve my application. He said my extracurriculars and being in Africa and patient experience are great, but my grades could use a boost (Seriously…I TOLD you people I didn’t do as well as I wanted to in college and I could tell by some people’s faces they thought I was playing it down. But I was serious. Physics, Orgo, chem…..they were not kind to my GPA. Unfortunately Bio classes weren’t the only sciences I had to take or I would have been golden). So he had this suggestion that I have spent the literally last 7 hours researching and thinking it’s a brilliant idea- a masters!
Because if I do a more advanced degree, in science, and do well (and if I get a masters in a bio-related (aka not physics) science, that will make my grades much happier, to go with my apparently “impressive” MCAT score. And you will NEVER know what any of those numbers actually are, so guess all you want, you can stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails if you want, I’ll just tell you a lie. :-P
Anyway, so I spent the whole 7 hours, like I said, looking into programs and I didn’t even know they existed before today but it turns out there are many one-year programs (some masters, some post-bacc) that are made for people about-to-go-to-med-school who want to strengthen their application or just get a masters first, or other ones for people who decided to be premed at the last minute and need to get the prerequisites in. Mom and I have talked to several people on the phone today, who seem to be impressed with my grades-as-told-by-Jayne (let’s hope she had the numbers right :-P) and think I’ll for sure get into those programs.
So if THIS works out, I will get to take some pretty AWESOME sounding classes, including a few that are the same classes the first year med students are taking at that same institution, some biochem (love), cell bio(wahoo!), histology (almost better than ice cream) and the love of my life, anatomy (as in, with a real-live (I mean, dead) cadaver.
And then when I get to med school I’ll be smarter than everyone else cuz I went to Africa AND took a bunch of extra graduate-level biology courses. :-P
They start at the end of August and miraculously have application deadlines in May or June or even July. Probably because they attract the “I’m-a-failure-at-life-and-didn’t-get-in-to-med-school” crowd. :-P

So that is the current state of things. It sort of is really, really terrible, because the goal of my entire life up to this point has been GET IN TO MEDICAL SCHOOL…and then I didn’t do that. But I’m making the best of it I guess, finding the silver lining and what not, trying not to think about what I don’t want to think about, etc etc.

So here’s what you can ALL do for me, as a favor.
If there is even an ounce of feeling sorry for me in your whole brain, throw it away. Or at least don’t let me see it. :-P I hate feeling pitied more than anything in the world almost, so DON’T DO IT. Just accept it and move on with life, like ME!

Also, I joke about what a huge disappointment I am to myself and the world at large, etc etc, but I’m really okay. I had spent a lot of time bracing myself for this moment, and learning how to be OK with it and trust that God STILL knows what he’s doing whether I get it or not. Every step of the way something new happens and I, silly little human, ASSUME I know where he’s going from there (AKA, “there must be a reason He wants me in Buffalo!”) , and there’s another bend in the road I didn’t see coming. Anyway.

Sorry that was so long…in case you hadn’t noticed these blog posts are entirely just a stream of consciousness, with little-to-no proofreading and far-too-many dashes. I don’t know if I repeat myself or jump around or what, but you’re getting a very uncharacteristic look into my brain. Feel privileged.

Well the bugs have been eating me out of sleep the past few nights, and it’s past midnight and I’m waking up at 7, so I’m going to bed now. Good night, sleep tight, and PRAY FOR ME that the bedbugs don’t bite!