Talking about MEEEE

So if you've visited this self-indulgent blog before, you see clearly...ahem CLEARLY...I have no trouble talking about myself. Blah blah blah look at me go blah blah.

Then why the heck am I have so much trouble filling out an interview sheet for my study abroad program????!! I agreed about 2 weeks ago to be a profiled alum in their next newsletter. That involved filling out an extensive survey. I heartily agreed. Surveys, I thought, I love them! OOoooh it'll be just like a meme, is what I thought, hooray! HECK NO! Nothing like a meme, nothing like a survey from myspace, no little area to say that I love knitting and cooking and my pet birds. It was stuff like "what is your most profound memory from Kenya" HEH?! How can you ask me that. I have four months of memories trapped inside this head, everything from horrific to heartbreaking to happy as hell. WTF? Just that one question totally tripped me up. Well, I thought, there is the bunny rabbit story, forever to be told and retold to anyone Jamaal chooses to grace with its telling (and I love him for it, because honestly, it does get a laugh) there's the time we did a puppet show for the hospital and I almost had a breakdown right there because it was so incredibly grim and sad and awful and it made me cry, there was the most perfect day spent on Lake Naivasha with fish eagles and beer and bacon and drunken giddiness and heart-swelling with the perfectness of it all....there was the woman who wanted to know how I would help her protect her farm and livelihood from marauding elephants...there were the hyenas at sunrise...there was teaching Salaash and Maraka and Kioko and Fred to swim...there were all those birds, 250 of them, each new and unique and wonderful...there was the python at dusk...the food poisoning and staying up late to hear the animal sounds...the gerenuk...the waterfalls...Kitengela, Elementaita, Narok, Naivasha, Nakuru, Kimana, Oloitokitok, and Karen and vodka consumed at each one of them....the Chinese restaurant in the middle of nowhere....vervet monkeys screaming in the night from the leopards....salmonella, typhoid, a near finger amputation....there was the wet season and the dry...termites coming out of the ground....peeing in Nairobi National Park while the airplanes flew overhead...THE TURACO!....and just Nairobi National Park itself, a park I love like its my child because it's gritty and harsh and raw and real and it hides nothing and you drive through and see its bones yet I love it with all my heart.

See the problem?

And that was only the beginning. The questionnaire asks for advice for prospective students, alums, people trying to break into your field, your job, how SFS influenced your life, what your goals and plans are. Schneikes! What to write? I had an easier time with my ISE 5 questionnaire, and that asked about favorite colors!

I guess I'll just have to tackle it this weekend.

Though in a way this blog post has really helped me....I'm always lurking over at blurb.com for several theoretical projects on my mind....a gift for someone, a Foster Parrots benefit book, maybe a 30th anniversary book for the p'rents and it just dawned on me: I should get all those memories out of my system and stick 'em in a book. I've got the pictures already! COOL!

Ok all that being said, it's time to train it home. Woohoo!!!