I’ve been in Uganda for a week now.

The weather’s really nice. Somewhat hot at noon, cool in mornings and evenings.

I’ve eaten the same meal for the past week, except once when we ate Indian. This meal is: Rice, Spaghetti, Matooke (plantains), Sweet Potato, Posh (some sort of flavorless root), Beans, and some sort of meat. Every single meal. Although we had samosas this morning for breakfast.There is no fiber or vegetables in this diet @___@.

We’re working at a hospital in Mbarara. This week we’re just observing and shadowing the doctors. For the next eight weeks we’ll be going around the outer districts of greater Mbarara to the villages, redoing what we learned at the hospital this week. Aka things regarding Safe Motherhood and antenatal care.

I’ve had Internet access about three times now: once on Prof. Alex’s Blackberry, once at a cafe (really slow), and now. Now we’re using a mobile internet SIM card that connects by USB to your computer. Usually it’s at 0 KB/s, but now it’s relatively okay, around 20 KB/s, so pages take less than 30 seconds to load. Unfortunately I don’t have that much Internet time, so I can’t post to my travel blog. And Jack, I’ll try to email you sometime within the next week…

The last drama I finished was probably over a year ago, and I finished it only out of addiction and not because I actually liked it. Over the course of this past school year, I’ve been trying to get people to recommend me some of their favs, but I’ve never taken to any of them. I would watch one, five, or maybe even almost finish the series, but I would inevitably lose interest and not bother with the rest.

Yesterday, I started a series called Godhand Teru, liked it, realized I didn’t really like it, and then started another drama called Tokyo Tower.

And all I can say is that Tokyo Tower is probably one of my favs so far. It takes place from the 1970s to the 1990s, and tells of the relationship between a mother and her son, especially what happens after the son grows up, leaves the rural village and travels to Tokyo in search of opportunity. The rural setting is amazing (I’m a big fan of the countryside…), the OST is pretty nice, the cast is superb. Baisho Mitsuko plays the mother, and she is just such a beast. Mokomichi Hayami plays the son (Rofl, I also liked Brother Beat, where Mokomichi was one of the three sons raised by a single mother). But no seriously, the cast in this drama could act out emotions I can’t even describe @___@

In any case, if you’re sick of your typical romantic-comedy-ditzy-lame-plot asian drama, then you should watch this. At least give the first episode a try. LINK

My tumblarity has dropped staggeringly low, and so I feel the need to post something. A lot of my posts recently have been links because most websites I normally go to are blocked.

In any case. Last weekend was fun. Friday night, high school friends from ‘08 and ‘09 (and one ‘10) got together for our very own Maytoberfest aka chinkfest. Ate at this really authentic Szechuan place in Rockville, and then went to karaoke. Saturday, my parents left for San Diego for their friends’ son’s wedding, and I picked up Bo and Danjie in the afternoon from the Rockville metro stop. We ate at this Lebanese place (in Rockville, surprise), and then drove over to Georgetown pretty late and walked around a bit. We were considering driving to Rehoboth Beach and making a bonfire and roasting marshmallows…but that would mean getting home around 5. Sunday morning, Danjie knocks on my door at 6, saying she needed to go to the hospital. It turned out she had pinkeye, so we went to a Walgreens, and then drove to Great Falls Park in Virginia in the morning.

Was pretty interesting, never knew the place existed (Bo brought it up), will definitely visit again. Bo and Danjie fell in the water, so we drove back to my house, then rode the metro into DC. Met up with Hannah and Sarah, walked around, ate again at that Szechuan place in Rockville, and went back home.

Monday, Hannah wakes up sick, got her some Ibuprofen, and I ship the three of them off to the metro station since they were leaving. Around noon, I drove to Ellicott City, met up with Rishab and David, and then went to Emily’s Memorial Day barbecue. It was pouring like no one’s business that whole afternoon. Went home pretty early, around 10 (got home at 11). Realized I was so friggin stupid and had left my phone at Rishab’s house, most likely in his backyard on the swinging chair…in the rain. Tuesday, got up, drove to work, got lost a bit, etc. It was a pretty cold day…and I was coughing. Around 2pm, drove back to Ellicott City for Hebron’s 2009 graduation at Merriweather. First picked up my phone, yeah it was dead. Using an old phone atm. Graduation was cold. Ate dinner at Hunan Manor…only guys for some reason…got home around 9pm. Somehow went to sleep. Woke up at 2am when my parents came home. Fever from 4am to 9am. Realized Bo and Danjie were coughing and fevering too….

So these past few days I’ve been fevering nonstop (except under medication…) I’ve never actually measured the temperature when the fever was in the burning stage, but I know post-burning it’s been around 39.2C. So I’ve been taking lots and lots of yummy antibiotics, antivirals, pain relievers, fever reducers, vitamin C, ganmaochongji, ginger tea, and green tea. And so after three days, my fever finally stopped today! But still coughing somewhat. Which is good…considering I’m leaving the country in four days…

Yesterday my mom was looking for a place to take me to dinner since she’ll be gone in Chicago this weekend, so we were driving around looking for Chinese food. But since I’d already eaten Chinese three times this past week…we went to the food court in this Asian grocery store called Super Q Mart. The jajangmyeon was only $3 there! I ordered galbi + bibimbap, which was uber bland.

My boss finally decided to switch to another strain of cells for our transformations yesterday, and so my cells grew! after three weeks of no success. And so in order to make up for all this lost time…I’m gonna have to work over the weeked @___@ And it seems like the work will take 10 hours or so, although more than half will be downtime.