Day 13: I missed my first day of class. :(
I woke up today feeling homesick and full of mucus, so I decided not to go to class. (Usually I cuddle with my teddy bear, but he is being safely guarded in Louisville by this cute boy I know!) Of COURSE the one day I miss, there is a presentation from an indigenous woman. Anyway, I turned off the AC, opened up the windows, took some sinus meds, and slept until my roommates got back from school. My sinuses were better when I woke up, which leads me to believe the AC is the cause of our troubles. Cyndi and I are coughing a bunch. Hopefully we can clean out the vent tomorrow, since the event we were supposed to do was canceled!
I'm kind of frustrated that all the events that I want to do keep getting canceled. I'm kind of frustrated that I was full of mucus AND homesick this morning too. I'm okay (on both counts) now. Maybe I should just be excited about the whole rest of this trip so it gets canceled and I can go home sooner. :P
On a good note, we set up Yahoo! messenger to make phone calls (to land lines and mobile phones!), so I may call more people than the less than five numbers I have memorized. :)
I did go to monkey island (Gamboa Resort) today, though. My teachers and roommates talked me into it. We saw monkeys, and alligators, and birds, and almost saw an alligator eat a bird, and some ships in the canal; we also got super soaked (bwahahaha) by the crests of the water.
Since service day has been canceled for tomorrow, I'm probably not going to do anything interesting after class. :) Hopefully the student-planned weekend excursion will make up for it!
Labels: allergies, gamboa, monkeys, panama
Day 12: Down with the sickness! (Madness is the gift that has been given to me.)
I woke up at 6 AM or so today. Not because the sunrise was beautiful or anything like that. Because I couldn't freaking breathe! I thought Mary was showering, but she was beautifying herself so she let me in the bathroom so I could try to clear out my sinuses (key word there is TRY). I knew I wouldn't make it very far trying to walk to school without dying from lack of oxygen, so I convinced Laura and Cyndi to take a taxi with me. Not that I was leaving Mary out, but she'd left ages before we even got up. After I got to school, I learned the journal I spent so much time on (yeah, okay, 20 whole minutes) I didn't do right... our professors gave us the prompt at the end of class on Thursday, and apparently some people misunderstood it, or didn't realize we even had a weekend homework assignment. So, they let the people who misunderstood or were lazy be able to turn it in tomorrow.
I was sort of cleared out at the end of the school day, so I decided to walk home. I did a pretty good job walking all by myself; I did NOT die of lack of oxygen AND I beat all my roommates home! I have no idea how I pulled off that last one, I walk really slowly. Anyway, our daily activity today was touring a TV station! I thought it was freaking AWESOME (because I am such a nerd and got to see the technical side of a TV station). AND we got to see a live news broadcast. It was SO SWEET!
We got back from the TV station (where 2 students talked on their radio station, and we took pictures at every set pretending we were the hosts of the shows! heh) and decided to go to an authentic Panamanian restaurant. Our program director took us 8 blocks out of the way to get there (I definitely got my daily exercise and made up for not walking to school earlier), but it was super delicious food for a cheap price! Mary and I wanted to go to the electronics store to get headphones (headphones for me so I can listen to music without borrowing headphones from Laura, and for the room--purchased by Mary--so we can make cheap phone calls using Yahoo! messenger) and then to Payless so I could get shoes for our sweet excursion tomorrow, but everything closed at either 7:30 or 8, and we walked past at 8:15. :( But, I got some more of my daily exercise! I think we are going to take a taxi tomorrow after class, so I can have my shoes for my excursion.
SO! Guess what our excursion is for tomorrow? ... We are going to Gamboa Island, where we can FEED LITTLE MONKEYS FROM A BOAT! I wanted to go to Payless because I want to get knock-off Crocs (yea, harass me). I am not messing up my Pumas, nor am I messing up the black flat dress shoes I just got! I thought about bringing flip flops on this trip, but I just forgot to put them in the luggage when I had the opportunity (Panamanians do NOT like flip flops anyway, so it worked out for the best).
I hope the monkeys are fun. :)
I hope my cold meds clear out my sinuses, too. Thankfully, everyone keeps offering to share their allergy, cough, and cold medicine with me. :) I may take them up on their offers after my supply runs out...
Labels: allergies, panama
