March 15

Tuesdays are so hard. I woke up early, showered and ate breakfast, then got ready for school. As I am pulling my books together, Lina screams from the kitchen and suddenly there is an uproar in the kitchen. "What is it!?" I'm shouting back at them, thinking it must be a spider or ants or something. But when I walk in, I see surrounding the garbage can a ton of maggots, writhing and wiggling!! It was disgusting. I have ZERO idea how I possibly could have traipsed through them as I fixed myself some cereal, and ate at the counter next to them, without ever looking down to see them! I was completely grossed out. Lina says that they are caused from leaving meat in the trashcan for too long. I know that I took the trash out on Saturday when I cleaned the kitchen, so it's only been a few days. With all of the heat, a couple of flies got inside, so I'm sure that caused things to happen very quickly. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), I had to catch the bus and go to classes, but I felt awful leaving them with a mess to clean up! They were supposed to head to Straddie today, so I know this delayed their departure. I was beating myself up on the bus about it and most of the day, feeling awful that I was partly responsible and they were stuck cleaning it. Lina barely even lives here anymore, so it definitely wasn't something she threw away! =(

Anyway, I left about 20 minutes early, because I needed to print out a couple things in the computer lab. We don't have a printer, so I was unable to print the worksheet homework assignment for my tutorial. I typed it in Word and was going to print it, but because of rush hour and the buses, I arrived with 5 minutes to get to class! Ridiculous. There was nothing I could do. So, I told the tutor that I don't have a printer and didn't get a chance to print it. She was of course not too worried since most people didn't even do it, so she let this assignment slide. While my group-mates signed us up for a presentation date, I rushed off to our next class to get seats. Then we sat through a boring class that was supposed to be about cultural events, but he ended up talking about multi-culturalism the whole time. I'm not quite sure how that relates to event management, but whatever. This professor never takes a break midway through, he'd rather talk straight through and then let us out a few minutes early. So, I had about 10 minutes extra to go snag a chai and pastry twist to snack on. The next class was fun and interesting as always, so I felt a bit rejuvenated.

Then off to my TSA meeting, where I reported on the feedback from our event yesterday (I knew there was something else I wanted to print! Damn!) and discussed upcoming events. The president of our org is from one of the worst hit towns in Japan and so he has been pretty worried about friends and family in these recent days after the earthquake/tsunami. He had spoken to his parents once, but lost touch with them and hadn't heard from them in a few days, so he was very worried. The school was helping him search and luckily he reported today that he had received word that they are safe. Hiro is visibly very stressed about all of it, so I'm concerned, but he said that he's going to continue his studies and involvement in TSA as long as he can stand it. He also mentioned of partnering with the Japanese Student Association and other International societies on campus to build a joint effort in a fund-raising campaign for Japan. It's a great idea and looks like it will take off. My concern is the added work from having to organize something like this. Oh well. Not much choice in the matter.

Exhausted, I headed home. I was feeling pretty run down from the day, so luckily my boyfriend was there for me and let me call him to talk. That made me feel better. Then the girls, who were coming back from Stradbroke island invited me out to dinner at our favorite greek place in the west end. I guess we were all still feeling pretty grossed out by our kitchen despite the fact that we (they) bleached the floors.. So, I had a little pre-drink that took the edge off of the day, and headed to eat some delicious feta and souvlaki! All of that was just what I needed to decompress. I wish all bad days could end with nurturing from a boyfriend, a little drink, good food and friends!