#and then finish off with doing dishes bc that is like. 100% necessary and also my least favorite part

[orcelito]

Happier plant window

Hopefully a small plant knockover won't be as disastrous as a large plant knockover

[soundwavefucker69]

I know like the whole ableist, fatphobic weight loss industry has severely fucked with our perceptions of like... fitness and stuff. Like believe me, I think it's abhorrent that the idea of fitness needs to be tied with morality, and I think there is literally so much social pressure that if you're going to be fit, you have to BE FIT and spend ridiculous amounts of money a month on a gym, you can't work out on your own, and there's like a fuck ton of pressure to perform to society's concepts of proper care of your body. I think it makes it unnecessarily hard to get into fitness and caring for your body, and I 100% understand why so many people are just becoming more and more sedentary. It's fucking hard to get off work and then go work out. You're tired. You're stressed. You're exhausted. It's just one extra chore.

But like on the flipside, we're in quarantine. A fuck ton of us are working from home if we're working at all, stuck in a seated position, getting weird back pains and stiffness in the neck. Humans are like. Not fucking designed for that.

If you're not capable of it, don't work out. Like. You don't have to. There's no moral obligation to do so. It's not a symbol of character or personal strength. But please. Take a few minutes a day to stretch. Not even work out, not yoga if you're not into that thing. Just stretch out your muscles and maybe move around a bit more. Shit, even pace to get out some energy. You don't have to be flexible. You can literally just stretch to where you're comfortable. Just stretch.

I've started doing yoga again because it's fairly accessible through YouTube and all you need is a mat (seriously don't do yoga on carpet or tile or anything it fucking hurts like a mat IS necessary). But like that's just me. I'm doing it bc like. My executives dysfunction BAD, but moving around that much gets endorphins going, but obviously I can't do it for long amount of times, yoga is fucking hard, but it gets my brain going enough that when I finish I can finally tackle dishes and get things that build up in the house done bc I moved and my endorphins are flowing and I'm not fixated on normal endorphin production re: reading, watching anime, or writing.

But like. You don't have to do that. But just stretch. ESP if you're sitting all day long. Don't let these jobs ruin your back. I personally actually started the yoga bc a.) It's just really fucking hard stretching and b.) My back has been actively trying to kill me from work and I don't want it getting worse. Also I like the breathing. But like. Yeah. Just stretch.

[ghost-town-story]

... The more I sit here and am allowed to think, the more pissed off and upset I get

Rant blog status reinstated!

So firstly, I’m not happy about getting kicked off campus. But social distancing shit, whatever I guess, whatcha gonna do. 

But no. My fucking mother takes the goddamned fucking cake rn. 

We got the email about being kicked off around 4 pm eastern time, Monday. My mother. This fucking woman. Calls me and insists I pack my stuff and get off campus by Tuesday morning. Packing is normally at least a few days ordeal, especially since I hate packing and it always stresses me out a bunch. But done in little spurts, okay I guess, more doable. 

But noooo I have to get out by Tuesday. Fucking. Morning. And this woman actually has the gall, the fucking gall to halfheartedly suggest I start out Monday evening since I’ve gone nocturnal. 

I tried to tell her there’s no fucking way, but she wouldn’t fucking listen. So she hangs up, and I go down the hall bc I desperately need a hug by this point, and she’s a sweetheart but the only roommate available is a gangly skinny girl and not the type of hugs I need. (really, boyfriend would be ideal, but at the time he was in Colorado visiting his sister). And I end up breaking down on huggin friend’s couch bc I hate packing, and I don’t feel like I can pack up a year’s worth of shit in about 12 hours. 

Mom eventually calls me again, mostly just to tell me “yeah you need to pack up and get back tonight, your roommate can grab the 1-2 bins remaining.” And she refuses to listen to me saying “hey, it’s a solid 2 loads in my car, it’s not gonna be 1-2 bins”  “But it fit all in your first car!” “My first car was a fuckin beast, literally the largest car in the lot freshman year. Fred is definitely shorter, definitely less trunk space, etc.”  “Well Y can get the last few bins.” “It’s a lot of stuff!” “It won’t be that much” JUST FUCKING LISTEN YOU PIECE OF SHIT FFS

I was so stressed and crying that huggin friend stole my phone when I was texting my boyfriend, and had him call me so I could maybe stop crying. I miss my boy. Hearing him was good tho.

I’m packing up my stuff in the bathroom when I remember. I store my empty bins at my brother’s place (2 hrs north). I double check with him and call my mom back “I can’t leave tomorrow. It’s too much to pack, and some of my bins are at Brother’s.”  Despite all this, despite me literally breaking down and crying on the phone, she refuses to listen, to give me an extra day, to bring half my stuff up to my brother’s (and therefore eliminate most of the need to have my roommate take my stuff) and grab my extra bins. Nope, gotta get out.

I was staring at my room, halfheartedly packing and trying to figure out, and just sobbing out loud. I thought remaining roommate was gone at dinner, otherwise I would have tried to be quiet. But she had gotten back without me noticing, and when she poked her head in, I couldn’t do it anymore and just kinda. Fell to the ground crying and apologizing. She’s a such a sweetheart and I feel bad for probably worrying her (and possibly waking her up in the middle of the night with packing noises)

I texted my roommate about this. She basically said, “Wtf, what she’s asking isn’t possible.”

Same thing from my boyfriend. 

My mom kept texting me, asking how things were going, basically ignoring my subtle requests for more fucking time. At one point she said “Hang in there”. I sent a screenshot of that to my roommate and boyfriend and asked, “Is murder acceptable?” Roommate said a solid yes. Boyfriend offered to let me live with him. (cept 2 hour parking and I already got one ticket from that :P)

Mom texted around 10 pm, asking if things were fitting in the car. I wasn’t even remotely to the point of packing the car. I was basically at break number 2 of mandatory “sit down, have something to eat, and rehydrate after crying so damn much”. I think I had one bin completely done (out of what ended up being like. 6 bins? plus assorted bags n stuff) and was mostly done packing my clothes, but like. slow going. Especially when packing is stressful and you keep getting overwhelmed woot woot

I put off a fair number of things bc of panicking about time and simple emotional capability to do so. Sorting out my dishes, unlofting my bed, grabbing my band shit from the music hall across campus.

At some point in the night, I had to lay down, because my body decided “hey, you know what would be great right now? Period cramps, minus the blood.” Which, thank fuck minus the blood, but also it meant I had to spend a solid half hour/hour out of commission bc it hurt so damn much to walk around and try to pack. But I had to keep going, even though the pain came back when I stood up again.  

Mom texted me at 7 am if I’m awake. I hadn’t slept. 

We have housekeepers, and they got there around when I was finishing loading up. I stopped and chatted for a bit (nobody had told them what was going on), and nearly started crying again because it was just so damn shitty. Everything’s so damn shitty. 

So I got on the road at about 8 am, and get to driving for a bit, but about 1.5 hours in I’m doing bad. I can barely keep focused, despite drinking probably half a bottle of Mt. Dew by this point, so I pull into a rest stop and text my mom “Hey, I forgot my shampoo/conditioner/toothbrush stuff, and also I don’t think I can get home safe.”

Does my mother tell me to take a nap in that rest stop? Nope Does she tell me to find a hotel or motel there and take a nap/sleep and try again tomorrow? Nope Does she tell me I can go back to school, sleep through the day, and try again tomorrow? Ha ha fucking ha.

Nope. She calls me, and proceeds to tell me to keep driving, and that she’s going to stay on the phone with me so I don’t fall asleep. 

I yelled at her quite a few times, when she was being fucking stupid about all this shit. She had the fucking gall to be pissed that I pulled an all nighter, when that’s what was fucking necessary to meet her stupid fucking deadline. 

At one point, I made a new driving playlist so hopefully it would keep me awake better while I wasn’t on the phone (being serenaded... awake? by the lovely voice of Tilian lel (lots of DGD and his solo work on that playlist. Also ATL. Fuck yeah ATL. anywho)). And right after I made that, she ended up calling me before I was driving yet, and I rejected it bc I really wanted to finish my text to the dear bf, and then I started driving, thinking she’d call me back and chew me out for ignoring her, but surprisingly nope. So I just jam out for a bit, and eventually start yelling at myself bc of dumb writing ideas (the original story rewrite... lol) and I end up texting my roommate (while driving... shh) “Hey, feel free to call me if you want to hear me ramble on about writing” So after a short phone call from mum where she hung up to let me drive through a city, roommate calls, and I end up spending the last few hours of my drive rambling at her and mutually bitching about the shitty situation this leaves us in. 

When I get home, my dad (a doctor) is wearing a mask, apparently at my mother’s request. He also mentions that we probably shouldn’t be in the same room, according to her. I am also forced to strip everything and shower basically immediately. K, fine, I do so, Dad makes me dinner (despite Mom’s probable disapproval), and I stay awake just long enough to toss my laundry in the dryer. It was a close thing tho. I nearly fell asleep waiting for the washer to finish. And so I pass out at 8 pm central time (9 pm eastern)

Mom, during all this, has fucked off Up North to our cabin, my final destination.

Wednesday, Mom makes me leave our place in the Cities at 11 am to get up before weather gets worse and all that jazz. Once here, I’m allowed freedom for as long as it takes to help mother move shit so I can fit my car inside a garage, then I take the bare minimum inside (my electronics, stuff that would explode if frozen (like pop (and my Smirnoff Ices shh)), travel toothbrush I somehow have and hairbrush), and I’m immediately quarantined to my room and the bathroom down the hall. 

So here I fucking am. Bored as shit and pissed the hell off

I needed more time. But no fucking way Mom was going to let that happen. 

I could have gone up to my brother’s. But noooo I had to come all the fucking way home, only to be shoved in a room for two weeks.

I could have taken care of all/most of my shit by my fucking self (dishes are debatable, would need basically the whole apartment to sort those out), but nope, can’t take enough time to take a trip up to my brother’s apartment 2 hours away, no way.

Nope, instead I have to suffer a panic attack for basically 16 hours, then nearly kill myself driving, because I can’t stay one fucking day more, because I have to get my ass up here just to be basically shoved in a room and left alone for 2 goddamned weeks. Nope. Can’t fucking make sure that moving out, usually stressful on its own, is as calm as we can make it in these trying times. Nope. Gotta just fucking nearly kill the kiddo instead to comply with my stupid whims because I can’t fucking listen

I’m pissed.

Especially since I was almost 100% sure I was gonna block her everywhere and go full no contact with this bitch after college.

But now I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future! Yay! Can’t see that going badly! 

(I’ve already texted the anonymemers to call me so I don’t go crazy and actually punch her. We’ll see how that goes. The desire has been kinda strong all afternoon.)

Fuck

This

Shit

[igiti2019]

Day 5 (5/23)

Great day great day great day great day

Today we woke up early for our first day of work! When I woke up I went to the kitchen to hard boil the eggs I bought at the Kimironko Market. One of them cracked and then another one broke while I was peeling it and became an eggy shelly mess, so I threw those away and put the rest in the fridge and decided I would reap the benefits of my culinary work another day. Then we walked to Java House, the cute cafe with the sun logo, and I got a medium americano to go, since we had no time for breakfast. Outside Java House we got a cab and were on our way to work! When we first arrived at work at 10 we went to the third floor where the employees work and filled into a small meeting room that was available. This was perfect because it was small enough for just us 3, it had outlets and a fan, and with the door closed we were able to talk and collaborate. A few moments after getting settled in, Laura, the head of diversity at Kepler, poked her head in to tell us that if we had any questions or wanted to interview her and get her help on anything to let her know. We love Laura. But we had work to do, so we looked at our first deliverable which was to summarize key points of a data set that included data from 3 different sites of Kepler’s college preparation program called ITEME (“small log bridge” in Kinyarwanda). So we each took one site and spent 2 hours in that room summarizing the data! Finding trends, finding differences in gender, in refugees vs. non-refugees, etc. and then comparing the data across sites. At 12, we orded food from Java House with an app called Jumia, which is just like Rwanda’s Uber Eats. We decided we needed a change of scenery, so we went down to the great hall where all of the students can hang out and work, and we claimed a long table in the corner of the room and waited for our food. My lunch was so. Damn. delicious. I got a small dish of rice, a small dish of steamed vegetables, and a small dish of fried plantains, but of course the serving sizes in Rwanda are huge despite the incredibly cheap prices, so I was only able to finish half of it. The other half I’ve boxed up and will have tomorrow, hopefully with one of my prized hard-boiled market eggs. We didn’t do much work during lunch, just talked. Then after lunch we went back upstairs to the quiet room with everyone’s desk offices as I’m calling them, and for about 1 or 2 hours all silently worked on our data, going more in depth, doing other research, etc. until we finished our independent work and needed to collaborate again so we went back to our beloved available meeting room. We worked on our work plan in there until someone came in and kicked us out because they had it reserved for a meeting, and we returned to the great hall downstairs. We finalized that on a weekly basis we’ll plan to be at the office Monday - Friday, and just be very loose about taking days off to attend conferences or work remotely, which I think is just perfect. We also set rough deadlines for each of our 3 deliverables throughout the summer, including work for the case study that we’re meant to be compiling for the class that sent us here in the first place. After we finalized those two schedules Zodi and Ananya talked about some extra curriculars that they have in common until we called a cab and went home. At home things got a little bit icky, because we were all tired after our first day at work, and some of our different preferences were coming up about wifi and electricity use, work schedules, just different differences that will inevitably arise when people live together. I got upset when Zodi gave me some trouble for being so stringent with saving electricity and wifi, so I just isolated myself for a bit and went to my room to cool off. Cried a bit, took an anxiety med, and shook it off, because an hour later we had dinner with our boss in town. We were already kind of running late because it was taking too long to find a cab so we decided to walk, but then Ananya forgot her anti-malarial pills so we had to go back to the apartment but after that we were able to get a cab and make our way to Chez Lando, a higher end restaurant attached to a hotel. Our boss was there waiting for us (she’s really chill so she wasn’t mad at all), and we all sat down and ordered food. For the first time, we experienced what we had all read about – Rwandan service taking forever! Before coming here, we’d all read that restaurant meals can take up to 2 hours just to be delivered to the table, and that’s just a normal thing in Rwanda, but we weren’t experiencing that anywhere we went, we actually noticed that waiters were extremely pleasant and very attentive to our needs. But tonight the dinner took 90 minutes (Ananya timed it) to arrive. But it was well worth the wait! Ashley (boss lady) and Zodi both got Ugali, which is kind of like the outside of mochi if you can imagine that, but as a big blog, and you pick it up with your fingers and use it to then pick up and act as the starchy background for whatever else you ordered, usually spinach, stew, or meats. I’ve wanted to try it since we got here, but unfortunately Zodi and Ashley’s dishes both had meat. But I’m happy that I saw it! It reminded me to look for it next time we go somewhere that might have it. As for me, I got two plates LOADED with vegetables that made my heart sing. I ordered a plain omelette, a vegetable shishkabob, and potato croquettes (a lot of my meals here consist of me ordering things I can eat off of the sides menu and constructing my own meal and I LOVE it), and of course I got one plate with a huge omelette and tons of fresh veggies on the side (including half an avocado oh my god), and another plate with a gigantic roasted veggie skewer, three huge potato croquettes, and for some reason also boiled peas and carrots. It was so damn good. It all cost $4. So… yeah. I’m pretty sure my eyes were just giant stars when the waitress put it in front of me. It looked like a lot, and I thought I would be able to save some of it to add to my lunch tomorrow, but I surprised myself with how quickly I actually finished it! (Except for one of the potato croquettes I gave to Zodi and the fresh veggies that I couldn’t eat bc they’re raw and potentially have cholera bacteria on them but I did eat the avocado because it has a peel so sue me.) During the 90 minute wait and the meal afterwards, Ashley told us about her time living in India in college, her time doing the Peace Corps in Guatemala, her eventual move to Rwanda, her recent move within Rwanda, and her upcoming move to Ethiopia (uhhh… hello.. Can you say “dream life”?????????) We asked her questions about Kepler, and WE FOUND OUT THAT IT’S ACTUALLY SAFE FOR US TO GO TO KIZIBA REFUGEE CAMP. This is huge for me. We had been worried that the recent Ebola outbreak in DRC would make it unsafe to visit the Kiziba Refugee camp, one of Kepler’s campuses, but Kiziba hasn’t accepted any new refugees from DRC in years! I can’t even explain how much it means to me that I will soon be stepping foot onto what I’ve built all of my work around, all of my goals, all of my projects and classes and research. When Ashley saw my excitetment at the news, she stopped smiling for one of the only times that night, and warned me that, “It’s really… a lot. It’s extremely difficult to be there and see it, especially for you guys who have never seen something like it before. But as soon as you get there, people will be following you and touching you, and the poverty is really extreme.” But I’m so ready. I want to see, I want to experience, I want to understand, and then I want to think, and I want to help. June is Refugee Awareness Month, and June 20 is World Refugee Day, so this timing is pretty serendipitous. We need to send our passports to the government and get government clearance to go, and we always need to tell them when we plan to go so that they expect us. (It’s a 4 hour drive up a mountain, so we couldn’t just pop by anyways.) The Kiziba campus graduation is July 5th, so Ashley said that we could certainly go with Kepler for that, but I’d like to go sooner if possible, even just once. It’s $100 to get a 4-wheel drive car (which is necessary for the journey) to take us there, but that’s only $20 more than a regular car would cost. Kepler employees are there Monday - Friday, too, so we would have people who could show us around and speak English with us. At our dinner we also found out that Sylvia, who had become our new supervisor after Obed was leaving to work at a different Kepler location, was now also leaving for a new job somewhere else. So next week we’ll find out who our new supervisor is! It’s too bad, because Sylvia and Obed seem great, but we’ve also met some very cool employees at Kepler like Laura, Cristine, Teppo, Joell, they all seem great, and Ashley seemed confident that we were being placed with the right person. We were ALSO told that tomorrow the president of Southern New Hampshire University, Kepler’s biggest partner, is coming with a group of about 35 people! Ashley is coordinating the whole thing, so she said that we could go and be flies on the wall, but we can’t talk to her because she will be at maximum stress limits. It’s 8:45-12, so I’m hoping we can go at 8:45 and see as much as possible. After that, we’ll hopefully meet with Sylvia to finalize our work plan and get ideas from her about where to go for data, etc. Then it sounded like Ananya and Zodi didn’t want to do a full work day tomorrow, so I’m not sure what will happen after that. Bruno (landlord) is bringing us a rice cooker tomorrow, so I may go back to Kimironko Market and buy some more eggs (since I’ve already lost 3) and some rice by the kilo. 6 organic eggs for $1.20! Did I already tell y’all that?! Anyways after dinner Zodi and Ananya said they no longer wanted to go happy hour at the Inema Arts Center so I had to text Innocent and tell him we would be there next week. Which was very sad, and I really wish we could’ve gone, it would’ve been nice to celebrate our first day of work with 2 for 1 wine!!!! But also it was late, and we need to get up early especially if we’re going in at 8:45! So we taxied home with the SWEETEST French-speaking old man I have ever met and I love him with all my heart and I wish we could’ve gotten his number and used him as our driver every time. (Most taxi drivers give strangers their numbers so that they’ll just call them instead of calling a random cab) He would even be perfect because since he drove us to our impossible-to-find apartment, he knows where it is! If I ever get in his cab again I’ll get his number… We came inside and I took.. My first… RWANDAN SHOWER. (That’s what I’ll be calling it.) But like full on cold shower with a detached shower head I had to move around me without spraying water, squatting down to wash my hair so I wouldn’t get water everywhere, it was great. Very refreshing of course, but also I always love experiencing those little things that make a country definitely different from my country, even if it’s “less comfortable” or considered “worse”. ANY part of a new culture, good or bad, I love discovering it. Now I’m in my room writing this under my mosquito bed net, which I actually love. It’s like a fort. When I got back to my room after my shower and got changed, I threw my phone, backpack, and water bottle under the net and then climbed in. I just throw anything I need for the night in, and then get in! It’s just like a fort!! I love it. Okay that’s all I have to report on today. We used up over half our wifi that we had bought for 30 days in just 3 days, so I’ll post pictures tomorrow when I have work wifi….

Peace!