Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Off to San Pedro!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Off to San Pedro!

I woke up early to study, finish my paper, and completely pack up for my trip to San Pedro. The bus was leaving at 10 pm and I had class until 8:30 so I didn’t have much time in between. Unfortunately when I looked in the mirror, my eyes were completely swollen again! I was really upset because I’d expected them to be back to normal but when I think I know why they got bad again. My theory is that the cortisone shot I’d had Monday morning had basically run its course and I didn’t have any more in my system to keep the swelling down. When Olga saw me she sent me to bed and brought me warm tea bags to place on my eyes. That didn’t really help so then she brought me cotton balls soaked in milk that had been in the freezer for a few minutes. That felt great so for the next hour or so I studied and she brought me frozen milk cotton balls to place on my eyes. I don’t know if it really helped the swelling, but it stopped itching a little. Luckily my face wasn’t as red and I put on a little makeup to try to hide it, even though I doubt it did anything. So once again I went to class attempting to hide away from the world with my big sunglasses and hair covering my face.

My Education test went pretty well. It was actually exactly the same as one of the review guides the professor had posted online, so I finished pretty quickly and felt confident that I’d done better than last time.

Side note: while the professor was passing out the tests, I took off my sunglasses and when she saw my face, she gasped and asked me what had happened. I told her it was litre and she asked me if I felt alright. I was honest and said I didn’t feel great and she offered to let me take the test later. But I knew I just needed to get it over with, so I thanked her and said no. Afterwards when I turned in the test she wished me the best of luck and gave me a concerned smile.

After Education I had lunch with Christian and once again he didn’t do much to make me feel better. I know it wasn’t on purpose, but I’ve realized that sometimes complete honesty isn’t always what people want/need to hear! I went to my Biblia class and found out that despite the fact that the professor had given me an extension on my essay, everyone got an extension because the TA hadn’t given back the last one yet. And I thought I was special.

Finally I went to my Poverty class and we had a discussion session about our essays and our experiences volunteering up till now. It was great hearing everyone else’s frustrations, joys etc. and we all agreed on many things:
1. Its hard to start volunteering in an organization if they don’t give you explicit things to do.
2. The biggest challenge is the language barrier. ARGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH….
3. A lot of times we feel worthless.
4. Despite 1-3, its been a great experience so far.

After class I rushed home, where Olga was waiting for me with dinner hot on the table and my stuff piled and ready to go. She was great help and I got all pack and headed out with plenty of time. She had bought me snacks for the bus and a new handkerchief that I could put water on and lay over my eyes to help the pain.

We all met at the bus station a little before 10:00 and we finally got to meet Calli’s brother CJ who’d come to visit. There were 8 of us and we kind of took over the bus noise wise, but we had fun. I tried to get a little work done before I went to sleep and around midnight I turned off the light and joined the rest of the bus trying to get some sleep on this wonderful 23 hour bus ride!! Luckily I had my anti-histamines which made me really tired, so I was out in a few minutes.