blood, sweat, and tears...and a happy ending

You don't know how excited I was to use this title. For the first time, it can perfectly describe how my day went yesterday.

The day started off with me sleeping in, which is something that never happens during the school year. Since we're in Semana Santa, I can do that. BUT. When I woke up, I checked my Facebook messages first thing - since that's how people usually contact me here. I had a message about some housing problems back in UCSB. Long story short - I found out I didn't have a home or roommates my last year at SB. That was pretty much the worst way to wake up.

Next, Nikki and I went to the store to buy some groceries. Maru is a wonderful host mom, but lately she's been really lazy. We understand she has problems with her back and has been sick, but she's been sending us on every errand. First we helped her move her furniture around upstairs (which we didn't mind too much), but then she wanted us to find power cords from a Chinese store. We never found the store, which was annoying. Then we went to the busy market to buy our food. The only good thing about grocery shopping for her is that we can get whatever brands and whatever food we want.

Well after all that shopping, we were both pretty annoyed. Then we finally had the chance to go running in Retiro. Usually we separate and meet up at a certain time. On the Metro ride over, I thought about my housing situation more and more. The more I thought about it, the more frustrated I got that all this was happening in SB while I'm halfway across the world, where I can't control anything. So by the time we got to Retiro, I was ANGRY.

We went in opposite directions, and I RAN. I literally ran as fast as I could. I ran around 1 side of the park before I started feeling lightheaded. I stopped, and I was breathing really hard. I thought of the housing stuff and the stress of that day, which made me think of money problems and the stress of possibly finding a job in the summer or even running out of money while I'm here. I began to feel overwhelmed, and I began to cry. My nose started running at first, but when I reached up to wipe it, my hands came away with blood.

I didn't have any tissues with me or anything, only my iPod, so I sat down on the grass with one hand pinching my nostrils, and the other putting pressure on the bridge of my nose. So there I sat for 10 minutes, sweating, crying, and bleeding. I didn't know what to do, and then I saw the solution. My sock. I pulled off my sock and used it to stop the bleeding. Good news: it soaked up the blood like a sponge. Bad news: now I'm missing a sock.

I walked back to the meeting spot, and my hands were covered in blood. I looked like I had just murdered someone.

After thinking, talking, and praying a little, I knew in the back of my mind that everything would be okay. I knew that Nikki didn't have a place to live next year either, so I asked her what her plans were. In the end, guess who's going to be my roommate in SB next year? Nikki :)

I was really happy that everything worked out in the end. I'm not mad, and I'm not frustrated anymore. Well, I am a little frustrated that I have to apartment hunt and pick one that we're not even going to get to see or visit. Oh well. Also, after talking to my parents on Skype, I felt a lot better, and I'm thankful for their help and presence in all of this too.

I'm excited for what next year has in store!