17 June 2012
Hey all!
Every time I say I’ve had the best weekend ever I do something even more phenomenal the following week!
On Friday I did some CPAP testing and played around with the LabView VI to get it to do a self-timed program execution; this way the user won’t have to watch a clock for a minute while testing each CPAP machine…for my friends who are not familiar with LabView or are 2nd year Rice bioengineers—don’t worry, this type of work is fun for me!
On Saturday my friends and I went to Liwonde National Park where you can see tons of beautiful mountains, the river, and animals (more specifically elephants, hippos, impala, baboons, crocodiles, warthogs—just to name a few) in their natural habitat. I have always wanted to go camping; I never would have imagined my first camping experience would be at a national park…in Africa!!!
That evening we went on a 3 to 4 hour boat safari which was absolutely amazing; just looking at all of the beauty that God created was enough for me. The boat driver told us some really interesting facts, like: hippos don’t swim—they bounce, crocodiles don’t have tongues, and elephants don’t die of old age—they die of starvation when they lose their teeth.
We started heading back to the dock when the sun began to set, and as we rode down the river we passed at least 6 boats of Malawi men heading in the opposite direction…the boat driver explained to us those men were poachers and though it’s illegal to kill the animals at the park there is no one to enforce the law. Just as I began feeling down from thinking of the family of elephants I’d just taken pictures of being in danger, I felt insects flying into my face…into my hair…into my shirt. By this time it was pitch-black outside and I was cradling my head in my lap to avoid the nasty swarm of flies we were riding in to. One of my friends turned on a flashlight which unveiled the tiny greenish-brown bugs everywhere in the boat, on people’s clothing, in men’s leg hairs…to say I was disgusted would be an understatement. Though the evening boat safari was beautiful, I could have lived without the winged-critters.
When we got back to the camp site we made s’mores around a camp fire! This was some of my British friends first time ever having a s’more (though it’s not truly official since the crackers we used weren’t really graham crackers). The campfire died down and everyone went back to their tents to sleep; even though it was pitch black and I could hear all sorts of animal noises outside of my tent, I felt very comfortable knowing that there would be animals walking through our camping grounds…I definitely want to do this again in the future.
With love,
Bridget
Things that were new to me:
Seeing the Milky Way (not the candy bar)
Impala (not the car)
Boat safari
Camping (not in a living room with chairs and a bed sheet thrown on top)
Cooking with coal
Roasting marshmallows in a campfire…with a stick from the ground (official s’more action)
Things I wish I had:
MEAT!
A clone so I could be there for the Father’s Day feast my family is having
A tub so I can do laundry (trying to save some money!)
For my parents—I promise I’m eating:
For breakfast: Toast, jam, eggs, and oatmeal / peanut butter sandwich
For lunch: Chicken (pot) pie / peanut butter and jam sandwich (cookies and chips)
For dinner: spaghetti and marinara / vegetable stew and rice / rice and cucumber, with boiled eggs
