26 August 2008

That's Jesse and me, waiting in the San Diego airport for our flight to Washington, DC.

I kept a diary of sorts while I was recently on holiday in South Africa. I don't normally keep a diary (I did as a teenager, but not as an adult) but I know the limitations of my memory and I was certain that I would want to remember some of the events and my thoughts from the trip for longer than my memory would otherwise allow me to! I am going to try to reproduce my diary entries here... this blog entry is just an experiment because I might decide that it isn't interesting enough to share with the world. I'll put editors notes in [brackets] like that.

So, let's begin with the title page:

The Great Adventurers: Samantha & Jesse go to South Africa
26 August-20 September 2008
by Samantha O* [sorry... trying not to be found by some people]

26 August 2008 [I was trying to get into a South African frame of mind--that's why I put the day first, then the month ;-)]

Last night, I got into bed at ~11 pm, but didn't fall asleep until ~2:30 am. Too bad I had to wake up just after 4 am to get ready for our 5:30 am shuttle pickup! I thought of many things as I lay there--had I packed everything I needed? Should I add another set of "nicer" clothes and shoes? After not thinking of anything I should have packed but hadn't, except a warmer pajama top [which I got out of bed to pack, and good thing I did--I wore it every night in South Africa], my mind switched to other things. 

I thought a lot about Lindsay Templeton, the 3 1/2 year old daughter of my friends, Matt and Ginger, who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia just over a week ago. Every time I thought of how little sleep I was going to get [that's what I do when I can't sleep], I thought of something that Matt wrote [on the CaringBridge website they set up to keep family and friends updated on Lindsay's treatments]: on the nights he spends with Lindsay in her hospital room, he is peaceful but can't sleep, and on the nights he spends at the Ronald McDonald house, he is anxious but can sleep. Lindsay is undergoing aggressive chemotherapy and may be in the hospital for more than 6 months. I was very peaceful as I lay there, but my mind and body just weren't in sleep mode. 

I also thought about a book I read over the weekend, Twilight [a young adult novel about a high school girl and a vampire who fall in love], and how it's being made into a movie. I found it interesting that I got no idea from reading the book of what the female main character (and narrator) "looks" like, so I was wondering what she'd look like in the movie. I didn't think it was a particularly good book, but it did keep me interested and I've been thinking about it a lot since. 

Sleep eventually came, then I was up at 4:10 am. Since then, everything has gone well and we're currently flying to Washington Dulles airport, where we'll connect to our SAA flight to Johannesburg.