Some of you may or may not have noticed that I have been a little MIA on my blog. Those that did would have also taken notice to the phantom blog entry that was posted.

There are a few reasons to account for my extended vacation from the blog. First like I said, I just moved into a new apartment which doesn’t have the internet so my access time has been reduced. Sure I can drag my laptop to the villa and post, but sometimes the days just fill up and I just don’t feel up to it. Remember that I work 60 hours a week ☹ Also, a lot of people have joined the crew, mainly those who were previously working in Luxor, so now the Villa is pretty jam packed full of people, and when you’re the one huddled in the corner working on your blog while everyone else is cheersing and laughing, it’s a good way to alienate yourself from a group dynamic that is already about as perplexing as it gets…at least to me.

And the last reason I have been MIA. I had noticed myself getting increasinly tired and just run down over the past week, with just some minor cold symptoms- sore throat, runny nose etc. Well finally yesterday sickness rocked me to the core and I couldn’t even make it through the work day. I was unsure I would even make the walk home from the Villa. I had the most violent headache I have ever had in my entire life. I don’t think I will ever understand how that much pain could have been concentrated in an area of the body without having received some serious physical force or impact.. I felt as though I headbutted a safe…like my skull was clamped and being stretched, and slowly cracking open. I had lost my appetite by the time we came back to the Villa for lunch. I went straight back to my apartment to try and sleep. I crashed immediately for about 2 hours. Then shit really hit the fan. My body was radiating heat, my head still throbbed, and all I wanted to do was sleep longer. But Egypt knows no such accomodations and the noise only intensified everything I was feeling…the horn honking, call to prayer, the construction, the dogs barking, someone pounding on the floor or wall right above me…any form of loud, bothersome, unbelieveably inconvenient noise and activity that could have been taking place, was…there might as well have been a fucking train in my room. But the pain I was in and with how lowsy I was feeling I still managed to keep falling asleep and waking up every couple of hours. I would get up only if I had to use the bathroom or grab more water because standing really did seem like something my body just couldn’t handle. At one point my nose started bleeding.

So yes, I slept from 1 in the afternoon straight until 5:30 the next morning. Stood up hoping hoping hoping I could go to work. You do not understand how much I do not want to be missing work. I have one more square to finish and then I get to start digging again…and I get to excavate some really neat things…staying home and missing out on all of this, is enough to make me want to cry. But that’s probably what drove me to feeling so awful yesterday….when I woke up yesterday I knew I wasn’t feeling well but I went to work anyway, and sure enough, after some hours in the field, under the sun and in the heat, I was done in probably much worse than I would have been had I just stayed inside. Though I was feeling better in the morning, I stayed in just in case. My head did not hurt nearly as much, I could still feel the remnants of where the pain was yesterday…almost like a thunderstorm in my head, lightning bringing out flashes of pain which just yesterday persisted for over 12 hours, and which felt like they were never going to fade. I slept in until 11, which is saying a lot since even on my days off I wake up naturally between 6 and 7. I probably would have even slept later, however Thursday is the cleaning day for the apartment (of course it would be…of course it would be the day that I just want to be entirely left alone). So I woke up to a knocking on my bedroom door and was told that they needed to change the sheets…Really? Not only are you about to be in here and make noise while I’m trying to sleep and restore my health, but you are actually going to make me get out of my bed? I would have argued more had I not known that I really needed my bedding changed…yesterday I had gotten into bed straight from work because that’s how sick I was and so there was sand especially down where my feet were. Also, there was blood on my pillow from my nose. I got up to hydrate while they changed my bedding….you would have thought that they would have done my bed first and let me get right back into it…but no they did mine last…I call it the efforts to make kelly have a mental breakdown logic. Perhaps Egypt really wants me out of here…Finallly I get back into bed, wanting to just fall back asleep despite the fact that I’ve pretty much been sleeping the past 23 hours…and they start vacuuming….okay..I understand, it’s your job to clean this place once a week…but really..fuck, it’s Egypt, can’t you just wait until next week to vaccum? if you skip it out of courtesy to the ill it’s not going to make a damn difference…. there is sand and dirt everywhere, please stop stop stop stop. Yeah this really did kind of push me over the edge and I threw a little baby fit and started crying. Just those, “COME ON” tears…those can’t I get a break tears….those white flag I surrender I want off the ride tears. Those, gee I feel really sorry for myself tears. They didn’t last long because I hate crying. God I hate crying. Yesterday when I went to tell my area superviser that I wasn’t going to back out because of how sick I felt, the tears just started welling up…it just makes me feel so ridiculous…but I couldn’t even talk about not being strong enough to finish my work day without it really affecting me emotionally…sure I was also upset because I did feel really sick, but I was even more upset that I had to admit how sick I was out loud, that I had to admit that I didn’t have the energy to finish something I wanted to finish so badly yesterday.

I went down to the villa for lunch...still had no appetite...still feel worse than I thought I was feeling when I decided to walk over. Everyone says I look like death. Time to go back to bed.