mangoes, kittens, and blogs

It's mango season! I've eaten three in the last two days and they are so good. It's wonderful when they're just a little warm from the sun and the delicious flavor sort of bursts out. Ahhhhh. My tree in my front yard is heavy with them, but apparently there are mangoes made for eating and ones that aren't so healthy and can actually make a person sick, so I'll probably be avoiding the ones in my yard. It's okay though because the marches are selling them for like 50F...or ten cents.

Zaari is settling in nicely. She's still pretty thin because tuna is really the only thing she'll eat. I mix up sardines with the tuna and I'm slowly trying to wean her off the tuna, but it's difficult. She's super picky and only eats if it's fresh out of the can and very moist. Brat! We've been cuddling and playing a lot, too, which is the highlight of my day. I have to confess I got super mad and almost went Beninese on her when she tried to pee on my chair. Instead of smacking her little head (which is what I wanted to do, grrrr) I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, told her "no" very firmly, and put her in her room and closed the door so I could calm down and give her a time out. She was meowing at a near constant rate that was driving me NUTS but I've been just ignoring her when she does that (after making sure she has water, food, and a clean litter box of course). She's slowed down a bit with it after realizing that she gets no response from me. Sometimes I have to play my music super loud to drown her out. I actually made a mix for her called Zaari's Mix that has a lot of loud hip hop and and rap on it as well as bitchy women singing about scrubs lol. She seems to like it, at least she doesn't meow constantly when it's on! Overall, we're getting alone very well. I haven't taken her to the vet yet, but sometime next week I'll do that so she can get her shots and maybe get spayed.

I've started a new blog over at WordPress about applying to medical school as well as healthcare in America and abroad. I also include a lot of stuff about FOOD because I love it and am always missing out on my favorite stuff here (can you say CHEDDAR CHEESE? Or CUPCAKES?). It's shaping up pretty nicely and I've been spending a lot of time on it, just talking about premed stuff, applying to schools, and the business of medicine in America. If you're bored and/or interested in the process for medical school, you can check it out! If I post here a little less frequently, it's partly due to my time over there. Also it would be because I am currently in the beginning of applying to medical schools which is very time consuming, marathon training (although I have yet to run more than a mile since like November) and also just because my life is indeed pretty routine now and there's not a lot to regularly update about! I'll try though for sure, so don't worry. But I doubt I'll be posting more than once a week.

Take it easy, folks, and as always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns! AND CHECK OUT MY 'DONATE!' PAGE UP ABOVE WITH INSTRUCTIONS HOW TO DONATE TO THE KATE PUZEY FUND TO SUPPORT MY MARATHON RUN AND GIRLS' EMPOWERMENT!

Thanks all and keep it real!

Elaina

Diet coke and African marathons

So I've been thinking. When I'm in Africa I would like to run another marathon. There is an annual one in Ghana: The Accra International Marathon, but it's in the end of September, so I won't be able to do it this year since theoretically, I'll still be in training and not a fully fledged independent volunteer. The good news is I can plan and train while at post and then hopefully run it the following September in 2011.

The Boston Marathon went wonderfully. I finished in 5:01:55 (official time), but my own personal time was 4:59:42 because I paused my clock to pee. Which I think is totally fair haha. It was inspiring and momentous. I definitely want to run Boston again, but I'd like to be able to train to qualify for it. Right now I'm thinking I'll run the Ghana marathon, then run one in the states to qualify for Boston, and than run Boston again. Maybe I'll do several others in the states before Boston. I think once I qualify for and run Boston again, I won't do any more marathons. My knees can only take so much and I think the oldest and grandest marathon in the world would be good book ends to my running career. Anyway,

I am going to miss diet coke. Yep, vous m'entendez. Diet coke....aka, the ambrosia of the gods. That goes on my list of fears that I have yet to put up and might just do this evening in order to procrastinate on my French essay I am supposed to be writing...
#1: The fear of missing Diet Coke so much that I pass out each day from depression.
I've decided that this anticipated strong yearning is going to be intense enough that during my service I will most likely be ranting about my diet coke deficiency and have thus given it it's very own tag.

Anyway. It's back to waiting it seems for me. It's been over a week since I sent my updated resume and romantic involvement form and I'm really just not feeling the love. There are at least 5 people around facebook, PC journals and PC connect that have been officially invited as health extension folks to Mali leaving July 1. I guess I don't really know how big that program is, but if it was where I was headed I supposed I would have figured I'd get the invite with the rest of the group, you know? So I'm still holding out for Benin since I've heard a lot less from people accepted there. Actually, besides the leave date on the wiki, I haven't heard of any Benin folks. I do know I'm not the only one waiting, but that only eases my frustration minutely. Basically I woke up this morning really ticked that I don't know where I'll be in 3 months. That just doesn't fit well with my personality. I'm the kind of girl who is pretty darn aware of where I'll be in 10 years let alone this summer. So it's irritating. But I'm also passionate about the opportunity and thankful to be given the chance to make a difference, so I wait.

Just keep waiting, just keep waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. I'm going to be such an expert at it, I should have majored in it!

Look for my upcoming fears post. I need something PC related to do!

E

Help me run the Boston Marathon!

Because I know this will get out to charitable minded people at peacecorpsjournals.com, I decided to let you all know that I am running the Boston Marathon and need donations for the charity I am running with, the Boston Children's Hospital. You can donate online and I am totally serious, even $20 is an amazing help! I have to raise $4000 and I am just about $1500 short at this point. Please consider a small (or huge!) donation to this amazing institution and to me, a fellow PC applicant and passionate volunteer! All donations are tax deductable!
Donate here at my marathon page!
https://howtohelp.childrenshospital.org/bostonmarathon/pfp/Default.asp?ID=ME0064

I have been featured for my marathon run in 3 newspaper and online news articles.

--The Wellesley news ran an article in February about me!

--The Topeka-Capitol Journal did a feature on me last month

--And now the Wellesley Public Affairs released an article about me!

I also have a companion blog to this one, elainamarathon.blogspot.com if you want to check out my training and fundraising progress!

If you're on facebook and interested, please join my facebook group supporting my run (it's my first marathon!!).

With $1500 to go, I hope people start getting motivated to help a sister out! We can do it! I'm sooo close to getting there! With my peace corps peeps, I really think I have a shot.

Thank you so much!

Elaina