So yeah... I'm flying back sooner than originally planned. I'll be wheels down in DFW this Tuesday evening. Wow. 6 days.
Turns out that one of the graduate schools I'm applying to emailed me to tell me that both of my recommendation forms had to be from physical therapists I'd shadowed for at least 40 hours each. I've skipped around from clinic to clinic getting all sorts of experiences, but I've only been with one place for over 40 hours. So... I'm headed back to a clinic near Dallas to finish up with a therapist there and get the 17.5 hrs I need for her to re-write the form for me.
In order to get two full work days in before school starts and the application deadline passed for this particular school, I had to move my flights three days sooner. Which means I'm leaving in the midst of the packing-up and securing cabins in Hospitality... and since Caitlin and Sarah left last week it's just Kathy, Gabriella, and me! I feel really bad about leaving...
But I cannot wait to fly back. Ever since I finalized my class schedule, ordered textbooks, and have started receiving emails from my new boss in ResLife, I'm super excited about A&M. OK, I'm also freaked out that it's my senior year and that the GRE test is sneaking up on me!
The sail is coming. Today I packed up and secured 6 guest cabins. Took down all the pictures on the walls, packed the guest dishes under the beds and tucked them in between pillows, mattress covers, and duvets, ziptied all the cupboard door handles together, defrosted and propped open refrigerator doors.... and weighed all the items that weren't screwed to the wall... something about needing to know weight distribution for when the ship undergoes engine tests while it's in dry dock in Durban, South Africa. And you know the easiest way to weigh bulky items: the whole subtract your weight from your weight+the items.... not cool. All the stairs and walking and manual labor I've been doing hasn't kept up with all the carbs that sneak into every meal the galley makes and all the cookie dough that's a necessary part of the job. Oh well... good thing I'm a Kinesiology major!
So... I have 6 days left. This is my last Thursday on board. Tomorrow evening I'm headed back to Kpalime along with Abi for the weekend. This is gonna be a low-cost, real-Africa, kind of trip. Complete with hiking Mt. Agou (the highest point in Togo), and camping out on top. Swimming in the waterfalls, and spending as little money as possible. We leave tomorrow night after work and are going to catch a bus to Kpalime as the locals do.
Pictures to come.
Change, transitions, and growth are hard. C. S. Lewis wrote, "It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad." Fly, girl, fly! Mom
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