Wednesday, July 3, 2013
11:54 P.M.
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| I love my mom |
Sacrifice. Do you know what that means? Well, for those who don’t know, it means Sara Robertson.
My mom flew all the way over from Seattle to Pohnpei just to see me after my two back to back seizures. I’ll be seeing her in two hours at the Pohnpei air strip, and I am super excited.
Right now, I am in a state of purgatory. In the likely event that I will be forced to go home, the trip leaders and students hosted a surprise party for me. It was absolutely fantastic… I had no idea there was a party… I thought we were learning how to graph our estuary data. Well, unless graphing estuary data involved cake, a slide show of pictures of me, and people telling embarrassing stories of me, we didn’t graph anything.
Since the cat is out of the hat, I might as well tell you the beans that were spilled. And since those who told the story didn’t hold back any details, I won’t either.
One night while I was chilling in my room blogging or working or doing something antisocial (I believe I was writing up a field report, which I later learned from the professor was the best in the class), I received a message from Madison Shipley, another girl on the group, telling me to tell other kids to stop stealing all of another, >21 year old student’s non-water beverages right now. Knowing that this was an extremely urgent message, I ran to deliver the message as fast as I could. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
I was in my white boxer-briefs (they are NOT whitey-tighties, and they are the only white underwear I have, thank you very much), and I was feeling adventurous (when am I not?). Since time was short at hand, I neglected to put on any additional clothes and began hopping over balconies to get to the balcony where the drinking of non-water beverages was occurring.
I had to hop over three occupied rooms. These were: the office of the hotel owner, the room where my professor was staying at, and another room where the graduate student co-leading the trip and another older woman who was taking the class were rooming. I had to be extremely quick. Although my professor’s room was curtained closed, the others were not. In fact, Sam, the older student, was on her computer just feet from the see-through sliding door.
So, I stealthily booked it across these rooms until I got to the porch in front of the room where the kids where playing card games and drinking. There was an immediate and drastic reaction. The guys laughed, and the girls looked like they had just drank sour milk.
They eventually let me in and I delivered my message, leaving them utterly confused. However, I think I got my point across. Afterwards, I made my mad dash across the porches back to my porch (still with the older student less than a yard from the sliding glass door). Unfortunately, I tripped on that porch, but adrenaline kicked in and I was able to get back to my room without anybody (else) noticing. Apparently, the graduate co-leader was confused by a big sound she heard that night outside her door and went to ask the trip leader what it was, but he said it was probably just some animal up in the rafters. Well, they both learned last night that it was me scrambling back to my room.
There were tons of other stories that included but were not limited to: my eating habits (I’m an “attentionitarian” ), my constant unbuttoning of my Hawaiian shirts, and my constant spaciness. My roommates made a point of explaining my annoying habit of always leaving any door open. But everything was in good spirit. I gave a couple speeches, and you can bet I’ll come back to the states an advocate for epilepsy equality and an inspiration that epilepsy doesn’t have to hold you back from having crazy awesome adventures. It sure hasn’t held me back.
My friends are out collecting coliform samples out in the Kamar Estuary right in front of our hotel, and I’m here chilling, sweating, blogging, and drinking coconut juice. It’s delicious, and I’ve been having a great time over the past couple days since the verdict was dropped. I’m still fighting, and I’ve got lots of support.
You can try to tame a dragon, but it’s still a dragon, so your attempts at taming will likely be in vain.
I’m meeting my mom at the airstrip soon, and then we’ll venture around Kolonia and get her settled in to the PCR Hotel. Peace, for now.
Charlie
