Monday, March 9, 2015

8 Mar 15: Sarah comes home, toots a lot, and prepares to move to the Caribbean!

Happy Daylight Savings, everybody! I woke up this morning at a late 9:35 scolding myself for being so lazy. Then I remembered that I gave up an hour of my life for the sake of late sunsets and the instant relief of everyone's Seasonal Affective Disorder and I felt ok again. This blog post is going to be boring at first, then I'm going to ask for your Christmas cash, and then it gets good. Just bear with me.
Hot showers and indoor climate control doing me right!

I've been in America for almost 5 months now. Can you believe it? Transitioning has been an emotional carpet ride (think ups and downs, but mostly smooth, comfortable sailing.) While I don't think I'll ever fully reintegrate into American culture, I've gotten used to my life here. At first I lived with my best friend, Amber, and her gracious parents who had prepared a comfortable room for me. I got and lost a boyfriend, moved into my own apartment, worked at Williams Sonoma over Christmas, re-certified as a lifeguard, trained to be a swim lessons instructor, and enrolled in Biochemistry.

THE BEST NEWS: After all the stress and strife of applying to veterinary school from my teeny weeny village in Africa, I GOT IN!! Ross University, an American Veterinary Medical Association-Accredited school in the Caribbean, accepted me to start in September. I settled in, got comfy, and began planning for spring and summer in the US. I'd work and save up money to buy all of the many things I'd need to take with me to learn to be an animal doctor. Then I got an email from the vet school:

"Hey, Sarah. Don't you want to start school early? Start in May and we'll give you a $5000 grant! We'll even proctor your Biochemistry final!"

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! How could I turn down an offer like that? I called my advisor, moved my matriculation date to May, and then it hit me. I'd be leaving America on April 24th. That's a short 7 weeks away. OH MY GOD I'M POOR HOW AM I GOING TO PAY FOR ALL THIS STUFF? I HAVEN'T APPLIED FOR LOANS YET. I NEED VACCINE TITERS AND A POLICE CLEARANCE LETTER FOR MY VISA. I HAVE TO GET A NEW PASSPORT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.

I'm moving to St. Kitts and Nevis!!

I got a bill on Tuesday for the first two trimesters (Ross operates on 3 semesters a year.) I hope you're sitting down:
In case you can't see it, it reads Total: First Born Child.

After pooping myself a little bit, I resigned myself to a lifetime of debt and applied for student loans. Having had a week and a half off of school and my swim lessons cancelled for snow, and taking Biochemistry three days per week, I have made very little money the past few months. The list of supplies I need for vet school grows everyday as I read posts on the school's facebook group. Don't forget to bring coveralls and rubber boots to wear in the barn. Don't forget to bring an extra box of scalpel blades for the dog dissection. Make sure you bring a laptop with an extra charger. The money included in the student loans for "supplies" isn't available until a week after I arrive at school, which doesn't help at all. I wish I could be more excited that my dream is coming true but all I can think about it showing up in St. Kitts in my winter coat because I couldn't afford to buy any appropriate clothing.

So here I am again asking my friends and family for help. My animal angel friends and even people I had never met came together to raise $1500 when I was trying to send an abused village dog to America. I'm happy to report that Kali (formerly known as Sandy) lives in New England and is being spoiled rotten by an awesome couple I served with in Africa. I've made a gofundme for myself (even though asking for donations for myself makes me feel incredibly uneasy) because it is the only way I'm going to be able to continue my path, my destiny, to help animals. You can copy/paste the address below and donate $5, or share on Facebook, or send me good thoughts. I'll take any and every positive vibe!

http://www.gofundme.com/oa9yks

This beautiful dog was abused and neglected for years before I found her.
Because of your generous donations, she is now a happy,
healthy, spoiled rotten New Englander!
Now that that's out of the way, I thought I'd round off the blog with some things that I've noticed since I came home.

-Not eating wheat for the last year and a half + binging on mac n' cheese just because I can = TOOTING BEYOND BELIEF. Sometimes I surprise myself with how much I toot now. In Africa, I worried about pooping myself so I never trusted a fart. But here, with very little threat of water-borne illness, I let 'em rip. If tooting is wrong then I don't wanna be right.

-I love to be in bed on a real mattress. Eating cereal in bed. Playing candy crush in bed. Just wallowing around in the sheets. I bought 4 pillows and I perch on them all evening like a queen on her throne. I might never own a couch again because laying on a mattress is the epitome of comfort.

It's 4 pm? Time to get in the bed!

-I love my bed so much that I don't like to share it. I found out that I hate sleeping in the bed with a man. I don't know if I feel possessive over the pillows or I just want to have all the room to stretch out or I need to fart constantly and I can't because there's a man in my bed (see the first point) but I hate it. For two years, I fantasized about having a beautiful, tall lumberjack in my boudoir and now I'm like "Um. Can you sleep on the couch? Or go home?" Forever alone.

My future.

-Speaking of marrying myself, I went on about 10 dates in January/February. Epic fail after epic fail. The dating world is a cesspool of crazy, dysfunctional, weirdos. Case in point: I went on a date with a guy. We ate wings. The following weekend I went to Starbucks with a male friend. The guy I went on the ONE date with found out and showed up at my house yelling at me like this: "HOW AM I GOING TO BE YOUR BOYFRIEND FOR THE NEXT SIX MONTHS IF YOU'RE DATING OTHER PEOPLE??? YOU HAVE NO EMOTIONS! WHY WON'T YOU TRUST ME AND LET ME IN?'' I told him that I wasn't interested in being the first lady of crazytown and showed him the door. I want to take a lover who looks at me like maybe I'm magic because I'm awesome, not because he is hallucinating.

Yep. That pretty much sums it up.

-When I moved to Africa, I was fat by American standards. In Africa, I was perfect. Big tatas, big hips, big booty, most beautiful woman alive. Naturally, it shocked the hell out of me to come home and find out that I was still perfect. I don't know when "curvy" became the new ideal of beauty, but I ain't complaining! Amen and hallelujah to whomever decided that women look good with hips! I've never had so much attention from white men in my life.

Well, I think that's enough nonsense for one post. If you're still reading this after two and half years, I thank you. My blog has had 10,000 views thanks to the faithful readership of my family and friends. I'm not exactly sure what the next 4 years are going to be like but I do know that I'm doing what I am meant to do. Without the constant support of my people (you) reassuring me that I'd get into school, reading draft after draft of personal statements for applications, donating to my causes, sending me kind words and thoughts when I was stressed out about this donkey or that chicken, I wouldn't be watching my dream unfold right now. Thank you!!

Me and my best friend from Africa, Bobby.

<3
Sarah

PS- I'm cheap. This week I spent a snow day making a rug for my dorm room!
Repurposed from an old sweater, torn nightgown, and a towel!








No comments:

Post a Comment