mcollinknight

First day of Halloweek: officially a success of epicsauce. Last night Catya and I tried out our makeup and costumes, and woke up at unholy hours this morning to get it just right. I wore this dress over a red tutu and a white frilly tanktop, with white ballet tights, white ballet flats with bows, and with my hair in pigtails with white ribbon. I also did EPIC doll makeup and honestly the bus ride to school was SO MUCH FUN, I was just reading my newspaper, nothing to see here, and I would look up and people would be full-out STARING and GRINNING THEIR FACES OFF.

In Contested Places, Burdz and I sit close to the front, and today - the one day! - I put my hand up to answer the prof's question and did so while he proceeded to try to act normally but couldn't stop looking. In Political Thought, I started a tally of how many times the prof looked at me awkwardly - he started avoiding looking at me (Burdz said I was being self-involved, but I COULD TELL), and in the last five minutes I was just looking at him, head tilted, and he looked at me and I slowly tipped my head to the other side and didn't change expression and he did the most EPIC double-take of life. Muahahahaha! Arabic is such a small class that people actually asked questions, and the prof didn't notice until I answered a question and then said "What is going on here? I love your eyes!!" and Hot Boy In Front gave me like the biggest grin ever.

It was so much fun - more like a social experiment than anything (I learned that NOBODY will EVER ask you, I suppose because we're so schooled to be "oh whatever, they're doing their own thing, I won't judge"), and not only did dressing up like an awesome doll make me feel super cute the whole day, it was also so much fun to see how thrilled people get from people dressing up randomly and walking around campus. Catya and I had an epic photoshoot on the columned front of the main building (it was SO FREEZING) and EVERYONE was looking, including a little girl who like ran away when I waved at her. lol.

Tomorrow is Robin Hood and Little John for politics class, photoshoot on the front lawn with the trees, and then GROCERY SHOPPING. It's like a week of flash mobs (even though Friday is the one we've actually planned flash mobs for). I love flash mobs: just people being awesome and happy FOR NO REASON WHATSOVER OTHER THAN BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME. For those unfamiliar with the concept: Wiki tells me it is a large group of people assembling suddenly in a public place, performing an unusual action for a brief time, then dispersing. Some examples:
-designed to attract attention/publicity stunt: flash mob dance of 'Single Ladies' in London. These girls have mad skillz, yo.
-designed to make people awkward: a random one in the middle of a cafteria. Everyone is SO AWKWARD.
-designed to be cool: everyone freezes in Grand Central. (I've done this one before in Toronto, people come RIGHT UP TO YOU.)

And MY FAVOURITE (SO MANY HAPPY TEARS EVERY TIME I WATCH IT), the epic Sound of Music one in the Netherlands.

And long overdue, another KenyaTale: not a comprehensive one this time, but a straight journal entry from May 31st written on the plane from Nairobi to Amsterdam. Apologies for the purple and also the interspersed Bruce lyrics (I get maudlin on recycled airplane air :P). All the KenyaTales are here.


I finally cried. The last few days - the last lorry ride to Nairobi in particular - I had just been trying to soak in as many maize fields as possible, and wondering why my heart wasn't feeling the ache and pull my brain told it it should be. Last night at dinner, I kept catching the waiters' red tunics in the corner of my eye and thinking it was Felix. On the airplane, I looked through all of my pictures while 'Africa' played. I wrote postcard after postcard that dulled the past three weeks to simple sentences I mixed and matched.

I watched 'The Wrestler,' and thought the movie was sad, the dying scene (no pun intended) brought about the Bruce song. I sat and listened to the beautiful, proud, pathetic song and looked across the plane out the blind window, thinking of blue and green maize fields, and I cried.

I cried because I realized that with my iPod, a few more t-shirts, and a new tube of toothpaste, I could have stayed there. I could have. I would have. I felt as if I had finally discovered something better than what makes me the happiest: what I need. All I need. Good, dirty, physical work (hardening muscles under a cloudy sun with cement under your fingernails). Amazing people who make you laugh and think and be (bearded orange laugh and cheeky red swishing blankets). A place that just gives and gives and gives, its heart wide open (mountains of red soil and torn school uniforms stamping out the beat). All the small things and big that fit a rhythm you'd heard before, but not with your eyes open (jostling lorries in rivers of mud and steaming milky chai).

I heard a worn, beautiful voice tell me about one-trick ponies and leaving with less than I had before, and I thought of hte ground streaming away below the plane. I can say right now that this is my life, that this will be my life, without knowing exactly what 'this' is other than only and everything I need.

There are things waiting for me at Pearson - things I like and like having and have been overdue on having for over three weeks now. But I don't need them. I'm scared to go back and need them again, have them again, let them rule me again. I can make you smile when the blood it hits the floor. I miss Africa already. I need Africa. I want to wrestle with this for the rest of my life.