In America After Malawi

In America After Malawi

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I traveled for 3 days and I barely slept. We drove up from Karonga, Malawi and most of that was me just vibing to music. That was around an 5 to 8 hour drive. I think I slept like 2 hours.

We crossed the border, did visa stuff, and arrived to Mbeya, Tanzania where we stayed for a night at Ifisi hotel. The bathrooms in that hotel were ungodly.

We left tomorrow late near the evening around 7pm. By this time, it was already dark because of the amount of daylight in Africa. Arriving at a nearby airport, we boarded an airbus which I think was operated by Qatar Airways. Their airplanes looked pretty big, the ones with those 2 aisles.

This flight was about 6 hours. The one after that was rough. From Qatar to LA—a 16 hour flight. I did not sleep at all. I felt so drained. Quite interesting though for this flight was other, what seemed like university students, who had a similar excursion as our group. However, I heard that theirs only lasted for a week in Zambia or something.

Some differences were definitely had between my faculty and theirs lol.

I got to LA and then my bag tag got ripped so I had to exit out into departure entrances leaving my group behind. I quickly got back inside and regrouped. From LA to Portland, lasted just a couple of hours.

Then, after getting all our stuff, saying our goodbyes, my professor and I drove back dropping me off at my dorm first. At this point, it was the 18th of June.

I unpacked and did some housekeeping, showered, then knocked out. I woke up about an hour or so to greet my new roommate.

Then, I woke up at 3am. From now on, I decided that I would wake up at 3am. Even in Malawi, I had to wake up 6am every day. This was not that big of a change.

I tied up some loose ends, emailed, finished some work, and relaxed the whole day. I took a big break. Near the end of the day, I made a bunch of calls.

Wrapping up the day, I felt pretty content. I had a lot of stuff to do. Work, hobbies, and not worrying about being homeless. I was happy about where I was at life, but I was also sad. This morning, I ate and cooked by myself. I remembered to my Malawi group members getting picked up by family, their family visiting them over the next week, them coming home to parents and siblings, meals already prepared or will be prepared by parents. :/

I've managed to capture all the opportunities that appeared in front of me. I'm now leading the development of 4 projects, 3 of them pertain to Malawi, and the 4th one is the summer research project under faculty. I don't feel completely alone, my advisor also happens to be the one managing all these 4 projects. I do feel alone in that I'm the only one doing the development work of these projects. What did I get myself into?

I feel confident, however, that I will deliver despite the daunting amount of responsibility and roles I have to play.

I'm grateful for the trust my betters have in me. I must question, though, this trust seems a lot. If it were any other person, would they be crushed under the pressure? Am I already being crushed by the pressure? The past few days I've also been reading Sam Altman's blog. Very cool perspectives that he has especially when it come to success and enterprise.

Now, as I set for myself almost a month ago—committing to my goals. Gosh, I remember writing that entry about what I wanted to learn. Time passed quickly, or maybe slowly? I don't know.

I have prepared all the materials for learning Mandarin over my time in Malawi from books, audio, Anki flashcards, as well as potential individuals to do language exchange with.

Focus up.