I'm freaking out. Today marks 3 months since I left Minnesota and I think it might be my limit. Yesterday and today I have felt so intensely homesick! Even though I've had plenty of things to do and have been around people. I don't know how to shake it and it's driving me nuts.
The other thing that is driving me nuts is how itchy I am. I really think this is making the homesickness worse. You see, a couple of days ago I found some big red itchy bumps on my arms and I thought that was weird because I haven't seen any mosquitoes around here. Then I found a bug on my wall and I squished it and it was all bloody which means it's probably been feasting, right? So at Bobby's suggestion I looked up bedbugs online and it looked like the thing I killed! So I washed all the sheets on hot and put stuff through the dryer and even dried the pillows and the comforter (although I didn't have time to fully was them, it's heat that kills the little buggers anyway) and I washed all my clothes and I sprayed the room. I don't know because I didn't mark the bites but I think that I got more that night anyway. Last night I sprayed the room again and I sprayed bugspray on before I went to bed and once again today I can't tell if any of my spots are new ones or not but I am sick and tired of itching! I have no idea what to do with a house with bedbugs in it. I am afraid that the people who live here are going to make me deal with it/pay for it and I don't know how and I'm so stressed out. I love the house but if I were living in the hostel this would be easy. I would freak out at the managers and they would fix it or I would leave or both. I don't know what to do. I'm itchy and I'm sick of being itchy. I was supposed to recuperate from the mosquitoes and the horseflies here! Most of all I'm afraid I'll bring them with me when I leave.
All of this is exacerbated by the fact that I worked today for eleven and a half hours. I went out last night with friends (the two French girls and their Italian friend) which was lots of fun and we even came back early but I only got five hours of sleep (max) because this morning I woke up at five. I got to Valissa's house at 5:30 and we were on the boat by sunrise (a little after six). We were on the boat until 3 and at the office until 6pm. I didn't have my bike so I had to walk home, and that is when all of this really majorly hit. Oh, I also haven't eaten very much today, and I know I haven't been drinking enough water.
On the boat Valissa and I talked about my paper. She was very nice and helpful about it but it is so ridiculously stressful! Everything is way more complicated than it seems like it should be. She doesn't want me to use this for my senior thesis (which I am not as freaked about now because I'm hopefully going to use Zoo Internship Project for that) she was really concerned about how I was going to cite everything - especially my methods - and apparently everything is going to have to go through her and maybe one or two other people before I turn it in or present on it. She will ask Berenice to help me analyze the photos but she wants me to do them her way (in addition to the ones I already need to finish to help her) on my own time and she just texted right now saying she doesn't want me to use any of her previous data (which she said before I could use) so now I can't compare seasonality at all. I'm so screwed. I have like three weeks to do this.
Also, people are backing out on me for going to Uluru. Originally three people were all as stoked as I was to go see Uluru after the program and now none of them are interested and I had said that I wanted to go whether they were or not but considering how much I miss everyone right now the thought of voluntarily going through all this travel and stuff alone again does not sound worth it. I almost want to not change my flight to later at all and just come home after the program is done because I've already seen Sydney (which suddenly people are interested in). I know there's more to see and I know I will kick myself later if I don't do more here but right now I'm tired and lonely and homesick and stressed and itchy and I just want to go home and be hugged by people who love me and go to sleep in a not-bedbug-infested-bed. That is all I want.
I don't know how to deal with any of this. The German girl from the hostel invited me to go out with her and the few remaining volunteers from the dolphin centre and being with people sounds nice but I don't know if I should stay awake past, like, nine tonight, and I'm scared about getting home at night. What I want is someone to stay in and watch a movie with me, if I can't do the abovementioned going home, etc., and Berenice and Perrine might do that with me if I asked them but tonight they are in Perth.
Sorry about all this, I just had to get it all out. Everything was going so wonderfully and then it all fell apart and I'm not sure what happened. Except for bedbugs. Goddamn it.
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The unfortunate thing about bed bugs is that they live in the mattress. Try washing EVERYTHING in the house that you can get your hands on and then sleep in a different bed for a few nights. If they have a hammock that would be ideal. Chance are the house already had bugs or you brought them home with you from work some place like that. They start biting immediately so, if you didn't get them until you'd been there for a while, they could have just finally found your bed from being already in the house.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of it will work itself out. And go to Uluru. Even if you go alone, it will still be totally worth it.
You are doing spectacularly. Go back and read your last two or three entries to remind yourself.